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Originally Posted by Orchidflowerchild  I agree. Judging criteria are influenced by the breeding trends of a region, and should be pretty much independent from country to country. Even within regions of a given country, breeding trends and what is exhibited regularly can be widely different. |
I would be of the opinion that this is more true between different systems (like AOC vs AOS) and less true within a single system (like AOS). It also depends a lot on what is meant by "influence."
When I was a student judge in the AOS system our judging center saw zillions of Pleurothallid Alliance plants because one of the biggest growers of Pleuros in the country lived only about an hour away and was also a judge in our center. So we were certainly well trained in judging Pleuros and we had amassed quite a bit of experience judging them. This was in Michigan where we didn't see many Vandas, some but not many. Yet we were still expected to be able to judge Vandas just as well as someone in Florida. We studied them and they were included in our reviews of recent awards so we certainly had knowledge of them, but admitedly not nearly as much experience.
Because this learning expectation is placed on all judges in the AOS regardless of their location, because even certified AOS judges must participate in ongoing continuing education activities, and because research and benchmarking are a large part of the process of judging, it was really quite remarkable how consistent judges scores are from center to center. For example Phal scores for comparable plants in Maine and California are remarkably similar/consistent.