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What do boxing, figure skating, gymnastics, and orchids all have in common?

(Hint: It’s not athleticism.)

Answer: In competition, they’re all judged by people. Sometimes people with divided loyalties.

A friend of mine brought a P. spicerianum in for judging, a truly beautiful specimen.

The judges looked at it. They squinted at it. They snorted and harrumphed. Then they declared it a hybrid, not a species, and would not judge it for an award.

They gave the following reasons:

1) The width of the leaves. They’re too narrow.

I’d suggest that these judges take a refresher course in genetics. Variation happens in all natural things. Leaf width will necessarily vary as a result of genetics. Some people have long earlobes, and some short. Some have long pinkies, and some don’t. If you look at enough of anything biological, you will find outliers. The variation in biology is built-in.

Variation can also result from environment. I have had plants that I acquired with leaves that were quite wide and round, and on subsequent growths, the leaves narrowed. No change in genetics, simply a change in the type of light.

2) The way the dorsal looks. It’s the wrong shape.

3) It has green spots on the staminode, a certain sign of its contaminated hybrid lineage.

Hmm… I would’ve thought they’d give a plant the benefit of the doubt, and judge it as if it were a species plant since it’s plain that not all judges are professional taxonomists (nor does anyone expect them to be). The award could stay provisional until submission of taxonomic verification.

Or do you need to bring verification from a taxonomist prior to the judging? Seems that with some judges, that might annoy them even more.

Well, I looked into the staminodal question. And here’s proof that P. spicerianum species plants — identified and confirmed by a professional taxonomist (it’s in his book!)– can and do have green spots on their staminodal sheilds:

From Braem & Chiron, Paphiopedilum (2003), p. 169.

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I just checked the date of my last posting, and I see now that it has been two and a half months since I last posted here!  On the other hand, those of you who have been emailing me know that I’ve been quite busy getting lots of interesting plants and flasks. So I’ve definitely been thinking about and doing a lot with orchids, but all of those efforts, unfortunately, have not made it to this blog.  Very sorry to keep you from your orchid info fix!  (I know, I know — there are only so many newbie posts one can handle on the various orchid forums.)

To be fair to myself as well as to you, my faithful reader(s), I will add that I’ve got a number of half-written posts or outlines for posts coming.

Here’s a sneak peek on topics I’m working on (i.e., half-baked posts in the blog queue):

- Mysterious mycorrhizzae

- Recovering plants (Part 1 of a many-part series, since I have so much experience doing this)

- The Root Zone (no, this has nothing to do with the Orchid Zone or Terry R., although he certainly has thought deeply about this topic)

-  Apical dominance and nodal submissives

- Re-booting plants

- The importance of stress

Just to get the ball rolling, the next “real” post will follow shortly after this one…

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In a previous post (It’s tough to be a slipper orchid breeder), I enumerated many of the difficulties in breeding orchids.  After depressing myself writing that post, I’ve hit upon an obvious-in-retrospect observation that will enable the home grower to compete on a level field with the big guys.

As I said previously, quality breeding takes a long time and costs a lot in terms of stud plants and growing space.  Can’t do much about time: it works the same for everyone.  Stud plants?  Well, you might be able to get some pollen from top plants and put it on a very nice specimen of your own.  It’s not too hard to find stud plants; what is hard is finding stud plants of high-demand species or hybrids.  For example, anyone can do a top P. fowliei cross — but who cares?  Nevertheless, if you try/beg/steal, you can find some nice genetics to work with.

The growing space aspect is really where the professionals have an advantage.  In order to select the best plants of a cross, you need to grow up a large number to find really good ones.  Of course, a large crop of plants requires a lot of space.

But there is one group of orchids where you can beat the breeders: brachys (OK, parvis, too).

Brachypetalums, such as niveum, leucochilum, concolor, and bellatulum, are all small plants that produce wonderfully charming flowers.  You can easily grow a plant to blooming size in a 2-inch square pot.

Now, assume that 2% of a species cross will produce a plant clearly superior to its parents, and the rest will equal their parents or look like dogs.  Well, if you bloom out 100 plants, you can expect two superior plants on average.

It is not that difficult for the home grower to grow up 100 brachy seedlings.  Let’s do the math…

Area required for 100 plants

Assume:

4 sq. inches per pot.

100 plants

So: 4 x 100 = 400 sq. inches = 2.8 sq. ft.

That’s about the same area as four 8.5″ x 11″ pieces of paper, easily within the range of a growing shelf in a modest grow area.

So, if you grew up and bloomed 200 or even 300 plants bred from top parents, you’d very likely find some absolutely stellar specimens.

You can easily do this by obtaining flasks of high-quality plants.

So, to address each point on my previous list:

1) Start with parents of excellent potential, preferably from several different crosses

CHECK.  Getting flasks of plants bred from high-quality parents is quite straightforward if you know where to look (e.g., right here).

2) Grow the plants big enough to carry a seed capsule.

CHECK.  The grower of the flask has already done that!

3) When the plants flower, do the crosses (and enough crosses to cover a 50% non-fertilization rate).

CHECK.  The grower of the flask has already done that!

4) Hope that your plants carry seed capsules to maturity.

CHECK. The flask you have is already proof that this step was successful.

5) Hope for germination.

CHECK. Same as above.

6) Make flasks from germinated plants.

Uh, CHECK again! Same as above.

7) Grow and flower at least 100 from each cross.

OK, this is where your growing efforts come in!  You’ve been able to bypass steps one through six, and now, you can compete on a fairly even footing with professional breeders.

Well, you might ask, “Why couldn’t the breeders just bloom out more?”  The answer is they could, and small-time breeders would get crushed.

But the reality is that the pros won’t do that.  They need to devote time and effort to growing other stuff to sell, and are not likely to put all their eggs in one basket because of changing fashions and fads in the flower market.  So the very scale and market requirements of the professional nurseries enables amateurs the opportunity to produce some really nice stuff!

If you’re interested in taking the plunge, check out these fantastic leucochilum flasks.  These crosses are sure to produce many new winners!

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We’re all passionate about orchids.  If you’re reading this, you really, really like orchids.  Some people like them so much, though, that they will steal them when they can.

No, I’m not talking about stealing from the jungle.

I’m talking about people who actually will steal orchids outright.  Here are a couple of stories:

One grower I know had to step out for a few minutes while with a customer in the greenhouse.  When the grower came back, what did he see, but the customer with toothpick in hand swiping pollen from a prized plant!  The customer/thief was sent packing quite quickly.

Another story from a very reliable source: an orchid judge/official was left alone in a greenhouse full of expensive stud plants.  The judge decided to help himself/herself to a division of an excellent specimen.  And by division, I don’t mean something already potted up.  This person was caught pulling the stud plant out of pot, and trying to break off a piece of it!  Somehow, the “Oh,-I-forgot-that-I’m-not-supposed-to-do-that” excuse that works so well with tax deadbeat politicians doesn’t work so well in the real world or orchids.  Well, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised, since orchid judging is so political.

I once visited the greenhouse of a commercial grower, and we got to talking about kovachii.  In my orchid envy, I asked if he/she had any.

The owner answered, tersely, “Yes.”

“Oh, I’d love to see them.  Can you show them to me?” I asked, politely.

“No.”

I was puzzled.  Growers are usually excited to show off the new stuff.  “Why not?” I asked.  “Are they illegally obtained?”

“No, they are all legal.  But I can’t show them to you because of what happened previously when I did show them to someone.  As the customer was leaving, I had to ask him to please remove and return the kovachii plants that were sticking out of his pocket.  So I’m not showing the kovachii’s to anyone anymore.”

Me: “Wow.  OK.  I understand.”

If you know of any egregious stories of orchid theft, please forward them and I’ll post them.

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You hear about nitrogen in fertilizer a lot.  While everyone knows that plants (and pretty much all living things) need nitrogen, most people don’t really know what plants do with it.

Nitrogen is an element.  An element is a chemical substance that cannot be broken down any further without losing its essential nature.  You can break up a nitrogen atom into electrons, protons, and neutrons, but then it is no longer nitrogen.

Each element can be likened to a unique Lego piece.  Just as Legos can be joined in infinite combinations of shapes and colors, elements can be joined in an infinite number of chemical compounds.

In living things, nitrogen is one of the most common elements.  It is found in DNA, RNA, and amino acids, all of which are needed for life.  So when your plant is growing, it must mean your plant’s cells are dividing.  If your plant’s cells are dividing, then that means:

1) they’re making proteins which means they were making amino acids for the proteins

2) they were making RNA in order to make the proteins, AND…

3) cells are making more DNA to run the show

Some plants (but not orchids) have the ability to “fix” nitrogen from air (FYI: air is 78% nitrogen).  “Fix” is just a fancy term for putting nitrogen atoms into compounds that are readily usable by living things.  Plants can take nitrogen in the form of nitrate (NO3-), as well as ammonium (NH4+).

So if your orchids can’t get enough nitrogen, then they won’t be able to make amino acids for proteins, nor RNA, nor DNA.  And they’ll stop growing.  Nitrogen, like the better-known element carbon, is an essential building block of life.  Make sure your plants get it!

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Breeding slippers seems easy.  After all, if an insect can do it, certainly you ought to be able to, right?

Of course, a breeder is going to select parents with desirable traits to pass on to progeny, in the elusive quest to produce a “superior” plant.  The process for getting these superior plants is pretty straightforward, no mysteries here.  In fact, you can choose from two different alternatives: A) Make or B) Buy.  Most people make life simple, and choose “B”.

Some people, usually egotistical and misguided, select “A” (like me).  They think they can do the job better than a bug.  Well, here’s what you have to go through:

How to Make an Orchid with Prize-Winning Potential

1) Start with a bunch of parents with excellent potential, preferably ones that could win prizes (if you’re into garnering prizes) and do a number of crosses.  Keep in mind that just because you have two parents is absolutely NO GUARANTEE that you will get a successful seed capsule from crossing them.  So, you’ll need a few different parents.  Six potential parents is a good number.  Let’s assume you already have those plants today.  [Total time elapsed: 0 years]

2) Grow these plants so that they’re strong and can handle carrying a seed capsule or two.  (This process could take a few years right here.)  We’ll generously assume this only takes one year. [Time required: 1 year]

3) When they’ve flowered, do your crosses, but remember that even top breeders only expect 50% of crosses to produce a seed capsule.

4) Once it looks like some of your plants have mated successfully, you can begin the next step: hope.  You can start hoping that your plants will pollinate successfully and carry their seed capsules to maturity.  Expect about 50% of your seed capsules to abort.  [Time required: 0.5 years (probably longer, though)]

5) Of the seed capsules that DO make it, you can germinate onto agar either yourself or through a flasking service.  Then you can start hoping again, since not all your seed capsules will germinate (i.e., result in actual plants).  Expect again that 50% of your seed capsules result in little or no germination.  [Time required: 0.5 years]

6) Hopefully, you’ll get some germination and can then make some flasks with baby plants! [Time required: 1 year]

7) To see some really good flowers, grow and flower at least 100 from each cross.  Be sure you have enough greenhouse space (and money to keep it running).  You can expect ~2 - 3% to have flowers that are better than the parents.  And remember that some of your crop will flower the year after the first bunch blooms.  [Time required: 3 years (that’s an average, depends on species)]

So your total time elapsed if you were to choose the “Make” option is 6 years, on average.  You could drop step 2 and save a year, but you might run the risk of losing some good stud plants.

The above analysis, of course, doesn’t count the costs of actually doing all that work, and it is not insignificant.  I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out their own costs for greenhouse space, supplies, flasking, time, and effort which will vary depending on locale.  If you live in Thailand (or parts of Hawaii) bordering the jungle, you probably only need to spend money on flasking, as the jungle will handle everything else for you quite nicely.  If you live in Michigan, your costs will be higher.

(In case you missed it, there’s already a built-in problem with the “Make” option in Step 1: Where do you get the stud plants in the first place?  Isn’t that just the same as the “Buy” option?)

Slipper orchid breeding is a long, hard slog.  But a very satisfying one!

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In this heretofore long-winded explanation of what happens when a plant “rests” for a season, we’ve reviewed some basic molecular biology.  Hopefully concepts like cells, molecules, DNA, and enzymes are more clear now.  If not, here’s a one sentence refresher:

Cells are biological units containing many kinds of molecules, DNA being a specific kind that tells the cell how to make enzymes, the molecules that do the work of a cell.

One thing that cells (and hence the organism they are a part of) do is adjust to changing conditions.  And in nature, nothing is more constant than the changing of seasons.   When winter approaches, certain enzymes of the cell monitor the shortening of days and the drop in temperature marking the approach of cooler weather.

Your typical enzyme molecule works with others of its same kind in a sort of gang on an assembly line, getting handed some tweaked molecule from the enzyme upstream,  which they then tweak themselves, and then passing it to the next guy down the line.  Sometimes, believe it or not, the enzymes tweak themselves and pass themselves down the assembly line!

Here’s a classic clip from I Love Lucy that I hope will illustrate the assembly line-like nature of biological processes:

Of course, if you’ve read my previous post, you’ll know that the assembly line analogy falls apart at some point, too, since what you really have are swarms/clouds of a specific enzyme type overlapping in 3-dimensional space other clouds of enzymes or reactants, all carrying on their highly specific work by randomly bumping into each other.  Yes, biology is very, very complex.  (And that’s why there’s still no cure for cancer despite the billions and billions of dollars spent on research.)

Anyways, back to the weather: how do enzymes “know” that seasons are changing?  After all, they don’t actually think, do they?  No, enzymes don’t think.  But they do react — and by react, I mean they are involved in chemical reactions.  And when, say, the temperature-monitoring enzymes experience a change in temperature, they fail to react in the way they usually do.  This makes all the difference in the world.

You can think of the cell as a vast array of different assembly lines/swarms manufacturing and reacting and moving all manner of molecules.  The temperature induced change in reaction rate gets transmitted down the line in what is like a giant Rube Goldberg contraption of mind-boggling complexity, until it reaches some central switch enzyme that controls the change-of-seasons genetic program.  In other words, the information about changing seasons is conveyed to this central switch enzyme, which then turns on all the enzymes that are needed for colder (or warmer) weather or when it’s time to put up a flower.  Just as a football team changes from offense to defense to special teams, so a plant has enzymes for spring, and enzymes for winter (or their relative equivalents in tropical slipper orchid country).

So back to the original question: what happens when you let your plants rest?

My answer is that the plant changes a genetic program.  It’s not because you might otherwise grow them to death.  Plants are designed to grow: that’s what they do.  But part of their growth cycle requires a switch to a different seasonal genetic program, which entails production of a bunch of different enzymes.  And the plant likely needs those enzymes to get made and do their thing for long-term health.

It’s kind of like those claims that your plants (or you) need trace elements such as selenium or molybdenum for health.  Some species of orchids need the change in seasons to cause the change in genetic program to cause the production of certain enzymes to do specific things so they’ll grow well and put up a flower for you.

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Most people have a good idea of what a cell is.  If you need more background, you can look here.

Here’s my working definition: A cell is a self-contained unit filled with everything it needs to make a copy of itself and do a specific job (assuming it’s part of another organism).  Inside the cell are armies of what I’ll call “molecular machines” that perform various chemical reactions.

Biology is a bit like quantum mechanics, in a way.  In quantum mechanics, if you keep peering deep enough, you’ll find that your “real world” intuition falls apart.  Stuff gets weird and counter-intuitive, and all kinds of oddly named particles get involved.

In biology, an analogous strange situation holds.  A useful word to keep in mind here is “swarm”.  Each bee in a swarm chasing you is the same as every other bee and they have one unifying goal — driving their stingers into your flesh.  A cell is full of multitudes of different swarms, each composed of identical molecules(*).  Every molecule in a collective swarm seeks to do its specific job (usually some specific chemical reaction).  The way things get done in this dance of swarms is by, believe it or not, bumper car-like collision.  Yep, what we observe as the exquisite and astonishing organization of living things derives from intersecting swarms of molecules colliding and reacting with other swarms(**) of molecules.  Absolutely amazing.

So what is an enzyme?  I’ll probably cover this in more detail on some other slow news day, but for now, suffice to say that enzymes are biological molecules — molecular machines –  designed to do a specific job.  Slap a methyl group on here, chop a hydroxy group off there, string some nucleotides, shred RNA, make ATP; all of these and myriad others performed by specific enzymes at specific times and places.

Enzymes pretty much do the work of the cell.  They are the worker bees, the factory workers on the floor, the office drones in the giant bureaucracy.  And the work of the cell is chemistry: chemical bonds synthesized and broken, on and on, propelled forward by the light of the sun.

So how does the cell “know” how to make enzymes?  Ahh, that’s the secret.  Well, it’s no secret, really, just that most folks get confused and intimidated by all the scientific terminology.  Here it is:

The DNA is the blueprint/the software/the plans for making enzymes.

That’s pretty much DNA’s main job, acting as the cell’s how-to manual for making the molecular workers that do the jobs inside a cell.  In orchids (and all plants), there are enzymes that make pigments, enzymes that fix DNA, enzymes that make cellulose, enzymes that destroy other enzymes, and enzymes that monitor the passing of the seasons.

And that brings us back to my original subject: what happens when you let a plant “rest”.  That’s the subject for my next post…

(*) OK, so what’s a molecule?  I think of a molecule as a grouping of atoms that has unique characteristics.

(**) The swarm analogy breaks down when you notice that enzyme molecules, unlike bees, don’t have brains.  They simply collide with other molecules.

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If you’ve been growing orchids for awhile, you’ve probably heard that some plants need to rest from growing during the winter (or other season).

I’ve always found this to be puzzling advice. Plants, like all biological life(*), are made up of cells. Think of a cell as an autonomous factory capable of taking care of nearly all of its own needs. As long as the raw materials are present, and it is not irreparably damaged, and it is getting the green light from whatever other cell might be bossing it around(**), it can continue to grow, repair itself, and pretty much do whatever it was designed to do.

One thing that most cells like to do is replicate themselves. You’ve probably heard of cell division (a.k.a. mitosis). Cell division is how living things grow. You start with one cell, which divides into two, then into four, and so on, and so on, and so on. Of course, at some point, some cells stop dividing according to the organism’s genetic program.

But why should a plant need a seasonal “rest”? What is it resting from?

Take us humans, on the one hand… We get up, eat, drink, sleep, reproduce (or try to). Our cells churn away making energy for all of those important activities we engage in day to day. They also divide so that we grow and repair ourselves. But our bodies do wear out, and in our cells, after each cell replication, a small chunk of DNA gets lopped off the end; past a certain point, the cell just dies. It’s the cell’s way of marking time. Hopefully we get to reproduce before that genetic clock shuts us down.

On the other hand, an orchid plant’s job is pretty much to grow, and look attractive (whether to bug pollinators or society judges, both justifiably regarded as pests in certain circles). If the plant has light, water, carbon, nutrients, etc., it ought to be able to simply keep growing, pretty much forever.

So why do orchid plants need a rest? Why is it that many growers claim that you need to keep your plants from growing themselves to death?

Well, this post looks like it’s going to be much longer than I thought, since we’ll need to talk about cells and enzymes first…  And that will be the subject of my next post.

(*) I’m not entering the debate on whether viruses, either biological or digital, are “alive”. That idea has been argued to death elsewhere (no pun intended).

(**) Yes, even cells have bosses ordering them around. Sometimes many different bosses.

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