Selecting Parent plants

[Ak_Orchid]

I'm starting to buy parent plants to re-make a few primary hybrids. I'm looking for advice in selecting parents for these crosses. (what color or shape of flowers, awards, ect.) The crosses I'm planning to re-make are Phal. Penang Girl (violacea x venosa) , Phalaenopsis Mok Choi Yew (gigantea x violacea), Phal. Princess Kaiulani (violacea x amboinesis) and Phal Chiayi Yellow Green (Coral Nosa X violacea). YES, I love violacea hybrids

I have some nice Phal violaceas from the Ooi line of breeding that I'm planning on using, however, I could use some advice on what I should be looking for in the venosa, gigantea, amboinesis, and Coral Nosa.

[kmarch]

When breeding orchids it is important to have a goal in mind or to be able to answer the question, "Why?" In your case, "Why re-create primary hybrids?" Is it to improve the quality of the hybrid using better-quality species? Is it to make these primaries available again after being off the market for some time? Is it to simply try your hand at hybridizing?

Since you're interested in getting good quality flowers for breeding it sounds like you're interested in creating quality offspring, perhaps youre interested in improving on a hybrid using better species.

If that was my goal and I was researching flower quality characteristics desirable for these Phal species, I'd look up all the awards for the last 4-5 years for the species in question. I'd look at all the characteristics you mention, flower size, form, colour, and flower count. Using that data I'd set an "acceptable range" for each perameter (i.e. 5-7cm natural spread for size, 6-8 flowers for flower count, etc., etc.). It will be harder to establish perrameters for less quantitive characteristics like form and colour in which case I'd refer to the flower quality standards of a large international orchid judging body like the AOS or RHS (read the AOS standards for Phals here), probably the AOS since it would be the body that would judge any plants you bred. The AOS publishes all awards in Awards Quarterly. There is also a new CDROM available containing all AOS awards with descriptions and pictures. Check out www.aos.org for details. I would also look at awards given to the hybrids you want to recreate to see what the expectation would be.

When buying orchids, first off, I would not buy any mericlones. You might walk into a nursery, see 30 Phal violaceas all of which have a cultivar name and carry award indications, and think, "Oooo, an awarded species will make a good stud plant." and while you'd be right that awarded plants are more desirable as stud plants, in this instance, there's about a 99.9% chance they're mericlones. It's always better to have non-cloned plants as stud plants.

Second of all, I'd either only buy a plant that was in bloom so i could actually measure and evaluate the flower(s) or I would want to see the photo and documentation if the plant was supposed to have been awarded but was not currently in bloom. I would also not buy any plant that wasn't in peak condition, absolutely the best in health.

I would also look at books, like Eric Christiensen's book on Phals, which contain info on hybridizing Phals. It makes a difference sometimes which parent is used as pollen parent versus pod parent. This can affect things like ease of blooming, size of plant, etc., etc. Pollen can be collected and stored. You may want to read up on the techniques used in doing this. This will enable you to polinate flowers that are not in bloom at the same time. this will be a very helpful "tool" as it may be years before 2 plants you want to cross are in bloom at the same time.

Once you have your stud plants and start your hybridizing program, keep meticulous records. Put tags on the plants themselves indicating the cross, the date fo polination, which is the pollen and pod parents, etc., etc.

It would also be a good idea to start looking for labs that can flask your pods for you when they ripen.

Happy Breeding!

[Ak_Orchid]

Thanks Kmarch,

I completely forgot about this thread, and missed your reply. Thanks for the detailed response. I'm mostly interested in creating superior looking, smelling, crosses of those primary hybrids. Part of it is just to try my hand at it, but I had also noticed that some of them aren't easy to find. It's a slow process, but I'm continuing to look for my "stud" plants. Like you said, finding non-cloned plants that you want to breed with is the real challenge. Thanks for all the help.