For the Judges

[jay]

Forgive me if this has been explained a million times already.

After the name of the parents, there is often abbreviations for awards that the plants have recieved. Now that I am starting to look at species and specific hybrids instead of whatever it would be really helpful to see what each of the abbreviations mean.

The first set I believe is the award / followed by what/who awarded it.

one example I have seen is FCC = First Class Certificate. Is this correct? And if so what does that mean? Is there a Second class cert.? Is the best one that has been awarded best of show?

Hope someone can shed some light on this. I am sure here that there are actually several than can.


Thanks

Jay

[fred]

just a few of the common awards that you will see on an orchid tag

FCC does stand for First Class Certificate = 85 points
AM--Award of Merit = 80 points
HCC--Highly Commended Certificate = 75 points
ACC--Award of Cultural Commendation = 75 points
AOS= American Orchid Society

give Vivienne,s thread a read and you will understand how an orchid is awarded
http://www.orchidgeeks.com/forum/gen...s+Blessings%27

I am sure kevin can go into more depth about this

[jay]

Thanks for the info. That was a really cool post to read too. I hope that one day I can be so lucky to pick an award winner.

Also, what is the highest award that can be given to an orchid.


Jay

[fred]

I am not sure what the highest award is I think kevin could answer that better then I can.
But I think it may be FCC/HCC or FCC/AM

[kmarch]

Jay,

Awards are given by a number of orchid organizations world-wide and the awards and what they represent differ from organization to organization. Fred gave you some of the awards for the Australian system of judging which is different than the American system.

One thing that is the same from system to system is the order of the abbreviations. The full award abbreviation consists of 2 parts, first the award, then the agency that granted the award. If you see: HCC/AOS, the HCC is the award and the AOS is the agency (in this case the American Orchid Society) that granted the award.

Commonly seen award agencies include:
AOS - American Orchid Society
RHS - Royal Horticultural Society (UK)
AOC - Australian Orchid Council
TPS - Taiwan Paphiopedilum Society
JOC - Japan Orchid Council

Since you are located in the US I'll give the AOS award abbreviations first.

American Orchid Society Awards
There are 4 categories of awards in the AOS system: flower quality awards, cultural awards, botanical recognition awards, and awards for breeding.

Flower Quality Awards (AOS) – award given to a flower for quality
HCC – Highly Commended Certificate – judge’s score from 75-79
AM – Award of Merit – judge’s score from 80-89 points
FCC – First Class Certificate - judge’s score of 90-100 points.

Cultural Awards – awards given to a grower for well-grown, well-flowered plants
CCM – Certificate of Cultural Merit - judge’s score of 80-89 points
CCE – Certificate of Cultural Excellence - judge’s score of 90-100 points

Botanical Awards – given to a plant for botanical or horticultural merit
CBR – Certificate of Botanical Recognition
CHM – Certificate of Horticultural Merit

Awards for Breeding
AD – Award of Distinction – given in recognition of worthy new directions in breeding
AQ – Award of Quality – given in recognition of significant improvement of a line of breeding

Finally there is the JC – Judges Commendation – given for a noteworthy characteristic or aspect of historical or other importance.

I’ll give the AOC awards in the next post.

[jay]

Thank you so much for this info.

I am getting more and more interested in getting more info on my orchids when I am buying them. I wish I new more about the Noids that I have.

Thanks again

Jay

[kmarch]

Australian Orchid Council Awards

Flower Quality Awards – awards given to a flower for quality
HCC – Highly Commended Certificate – judge’s score from 75-79
AM – Award of Merit – judge’s score from 80-85 points
FCC – First Class Certificate - judge’s score of 85-100 points.

Cultural Awards – awards given to a grower for well-grown, well-flowered plants
ACC – Award of Cultural Commendation – judge’s score of 75 or more points

Botanical Awards – given to a plant for botanical or horticultural merit
CBM – Certificateof Botanical Merit

Other Awards
AD – Award of Distinction – for an orchid that possesses some distinctive, outstanding characteristic not covered by one of the above awards
ASR – Award of Special Recognition – for significant breeding achievement.

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by jay

Thanks for the info. That was a really cool post to read too. I hope that one day I can be so lucky to pick an award winner.
Also, what is the highest award that can be given to an orchid.
Jay

The highest award that can be given to an orchid is a First Class Certificate (flower quality score of 90-100 in the AOS system; 85-100 in the AOC system).

The single highest award, that I know of, given to an orchid for flower quality, was an FCC of 98 points given by the AOS to a Phrag Jason Fischer in 2006.

[Tobi]

Kevin,
How does one determine how many points are given for an award?

[kmarch]

In the US (the AOS system), judges use a score sheet that is broken down into 3 categories: flower form, flower colour, and other characteristics. A certain number of points alotted for each category with the total for all categoreis being 100 points. Each category is also broken down into sub-ccategories. Judges score the different aspects of a flower and total their scores. The scores of the individual judges must all be within a 6-point range from highest to lowest score. If that is the case, then the scores are averaged and the result is the awarded score. If the scores result in greater than a 6-point range, the judges are asked to re-evaluate their scores. If a re-scoring results in a range greater than 6 points, the plant is then given to a different team to judge.

In the AOC system (Australia) there are no score sheets. Each judge evaluates and scores the orchid and submits the score to the chair by anonymous ballot. The scores of all judges present are averaged and the average is the awarded score.

[Tobi]

Kevin,
Thanks so much for the explanation.