Post #2041738

> However, thats not to say that much smaller vanilla plants aren’t “fully mature”. The plant doesn’t need to reach these great heights to be considered fully mature. Keep in mind that my comment wasn't written to be part of a dissertation or for a scientific journal so the terminology isn't overly pedantic or precise. The colloquial label "mature / fully mature" is a well-established concept in the trade in my part of the world, though. Even top breeders/growers will use that kind of terminology when speaking about these plants. There's a difference between blooming sized plants versus mature / fully mature plants. Blooming size is typically is used for plants (especially orchids) that are old enough and large enough that you can reasonably expect them to bloom in season. But, blooming size is not the same as mature, where these plants are reaching their full potential. Fully mature is where they are large and old enough that they're blooming reliably, but also reaching their full potential in terms of number of spikes, number of blooms per spike, and flowers are reaching their full size potential, and so on.