OZ took the best of this grex and did what they do best: bred onwards and upwards.  I once asked Terry Root if I could see ‘Mont Millais’ FCC/AOS.  He said he had sold the whole plant, and no longer had it.  I was astounded, and asked him why he had let go of such an historic plant.  His response: “Why do I need it?” (meaning he believed he’d gotten all he could from its genes which resided now in MM’s progeny).  There is some deep breeder wisdom here, for those interested in pondering…

These seedlings derive from the best of the best of the progeny from the’Rex’ x ‘Mont Millais’ group, ‘Rex’ x ‘Nan Chou’, as well as other highly select plants Terry keeps for breeding. Many people think that the ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’ plants that got the FCC’s are the best of that crop. WRONG! (and that’s a good thing for all of us).  Great breeders keep their greatest plants in reserve — submitting for judging could actually lower their value, especially if you get a bad score because of bad judges. (Ahem… I won’t enter into my usual tirade on this point.)

In any case, the very best of the roths that OZ produced have been bred, and their progeny are being released. Here’s a rundown:

NOTE: Pricing was valid when I originally put this list out on my price list.  As these seedlings have now gotten significantly bigger, and will be re-potted into larger pots soon, prices will go up.  I’m thinking it’s 50/50 that Terry will let me get some more at these lower prices, so if you’re interested, please email me ASAP.

a) Z7071 ‘Mighty’ x ‘Red Baron’
‘Mighty’ is from the ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’ cross. I believe it bloomed later than its sibs that received the Award of Quality. ‘Red Baron’ is from the ‘MM’ x ‘Nan Chou’ cross, the latter parent being a particularly dark plant in Taiwan. The owner sent pollen to Terry, who put it on ‘Rex’ and grew up the resulting seedlings. As I recall, some of the recent roth FCC’s came from this cross. In any case, ‘Mighty’ x ‘Red Baron’ is probably the “favored” cross here, although there are many dark horses, and sometimes you get surprised (which is why you should cover all your bets by buying more roths of different crosses!)

Price: $100

b) Z7110 ‘Wide Horizon’ x ‘Chester Hill/OZ’
‘Wide Horizon’ was from the ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’ cross, and its name says it all — a very wide-reaching flower.

‘Chester Hill/OZ’ has an interesting story: Terry Root obtained pollen from Carter & Holmes of ‘Chester Hill’ AM/AOS. While it’s an older cross, I believe Terry liked it because of its petal stance and color. He put this pollen on ‘Rex’ FCC/AOS, and bloomed out the progeny, one of which had particularly large flowers. This is the plant I refer to as ‘Chester Hill/OZ’. He then took this plant, and crossed it with ‘Red Baron’, which was produced from a cross of ‘Nan Chou’ x ‘Mont Millais’. ‘Nan Chou’ is among the deepest colored roths Terry has ever seen.

Price: $75

c) Z7134 ‘Chester Hill/OZ’ x ‘Colossus’
‘Colossus’ is from ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’. I think the name tells us a lot — must be pretty big. Actually, it is well-known that ‘Rex’ produces large flowers, so those genes must be shining through.

Price: $75

d) Z7135 ‘Chester Hill/OZ’ x ‘Red Baron’
(Both parents already described above) Price: $75

e) Z7136 ‘Red Baron’ x ‘Mighty’
This is the reciprocal cross of Z7110. It seems to me that if TR did the reciprocal cross, both of these parents must be superb. There are some who say that the capsule (pod) parent has an added influence on color. I suppose this is possible since the maternal parent contributes extra genes in the mitochondrial DNA found in the egg, but everything I’ve heard is anecdotal. But if this theory holds true, then these progeny will produce darker colored flowers than ‘Mighty’ x’ RB’ cross. So don’t miss out!

Price: $100

f) Z7137 ‘Red Baron’ x ‘Wide Horizon’
Both of these plants (previously described) appear to be good parents, since they’ve been used in multiple crosses.

Price: $75

g) Z7172 ‘Dazzler’ x ‘Buff’
I saw ‘Dazzler’ in bloom last year, and it looked fantastic. Then TR told me this was a crappy blooming. Wow. If what I thought was a really great blooming didn’t hit TR’s standards, then I wonder what it’s select progeny will do! ‘Buff’ is Rex x MM, so I would expect these progeny to bloom out very robustly.

Price: $75 or $100 (sorry, will need to confirm)

h) Z7174 ‘Red Rider’ x ‘Buff’
‘Red Rider’ is from ‘Rex’ x ‘Nan Chou’ and ‘Buff’ is a ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’. This is a parallel cross to ‘Mighty’ x’ Red Baron’. If you’re looking to get some excellent 2nd generation plants, it is definitely a good idea to spread your bets — it’s well-known that the “best” parents don’t always produce the best progeny. This is true in all kinds of breeding: orchids, dogs, cats, horses, and let’s not forget humans. A few examples come to mind…

Price: $100

Some of you may not know this, but there were many, many ‘Rex’ x ‘MM’ progeny grown up from flask, and while they’ve become hard to find these days, I saw a number of them here and there the last few years. These were primarily the runty ones, slow and difficult to grow, that had finally reached maturity — years after their more vigorous sibs had already bloomed (maybe several times). I fully expect the same situation to happen with this generation of OZ roths. So if you’d like to get the strong, vigorous growers from this new crop of roths, now would be a good time…

Certainly makes you wonder how abundantly they must grow there if they can serve as pig feed.

On many occasions I’ve acquired plants or somehow ended up with plants that have a central leaf that just won’t stand at full attention.  I had one particularly large P. rothschildianum ‘Green Valley’ x ‘Fly Eagle’ with lovely thick, wide leaves.  The plant grew well, but at one point the big central leaf just flopped over.  Watering more frequently just didn’t seem to help, despite a pot full of healthy roots (1).

Having grown under lights like the pot growers, I had already experimented with every possible humidifying system you might come across:

Ultrasonic humidifiers:  These are usually cheaply built, with an ultrasonic element that breaks quickly.

Ultrasonic misters:  These are the ultrasonic piezos from the above humidifiers, and they have identical shortcomings.  You can get them in arrays or six elements that can pump put a copious amount of fine fog, but they require a lot of power, and the power supplies are very low quality.  One of them almost started an electrical fire in my home as I was testing it.

Warm steam humidifier:  these have the advantage of warming your plant area, but by the same token, they have the problem of warming your plants when you want it to be cool.  Good for use in the winter if you want to keep plants warm and provide humidity.

Gravel trays:  Heh…  I’m somewhat unconvinced that these work.  Here’s why: When molecules of water evaporate from the surface area of the gravel, they will disperse into the overwhelmingly greater volume of air that is not already humidified.  Hence, the amount of actual humidified air around your plants is quite low especially if your room is large compared to the size of your gravel tray.  How much actually reaches your plants and has an effect is questionable.  If your plants are sitting in water in a gravel tray and thriving, I wouldn’t exactly assign the success of said growth to the gravel trays, but to semihydroponic growth (and a plant that has adjusted well to it).  Nevertheless, if gravel trays work for you, keep it up.

Cooling misters:  These are the plastic tubes with fine nozzles that you get at Home Depot and hook up to a garden hose spigot.  They claim to produce a mist that can reduce the ambient temp by something like twenty degrees (which only works if you’re in the hot desert and dropping 20 degrees gets you down to a balmy 90 deg F).  The problem is that the mist produced is not as fine as you might think, and actually ends up splattering droplets all over your leaves coalesce into big drops that then run into the crown of your plants, forming a lovely cesspool for erwinia and other pathogens to grow and infect your plant.

So, what is going to get those limp leaves up?

I use, and love, The Hydrofogger (2).  This thing pumps out a super fine, atomized mist like nothing I have ever seen.  It works on a different principle than any of the above.  A centrifugal mechanism inside throws water out onto some other thingamajig that results in the finest, loveliest, most ethereal angel mist you can imagine.

If you can use one of these babies in an enclosed space like a small 15′ x 15′ greenhouse and jack it up to full capacity, you will have an area completely packed with fog.  I’ve gotten the fog so thick that I literally could not see more than a few inches in front of my face.

So how did my limp roth do?  Well, I subjected it to a few days of 90%+ relative humidity, and that limp leaf just rose and became erect as if I had fed the plant a bottle of Viagra (not that I have any personal experience or need of such pharmaceuticals).

Other plants that didn’t have limp leaf problems also seemed much happier, too.

Please keep in mind that the other part of this equation is having an enclosed space that can hold the humidity at the required level.  (So if you’re growing on a patio, you may want to try hang some plastic sheeting around your plants to keep the humidity high)  Venting the humidity from time to time, and keeping strong air movement flowing over your plants will help to prevent other opportunistic pathogens from getting a foothold.

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(1) So why doesn’t simply watering the plant more work better?  There is probably a limit to the amount of water that can be pumped through a plant’s vasculature system from the roots.  Increasing the availability of water in the air allows the molecules of water to be absorbed through the leaves and possibly reach areas not reached as efficiently by the plant’s vasculature.

(2) Call the Hydrofogger phone number at 1-866-77-HUMID, and ask to speak with Mr. Thomas.  He will take good care of you.  Full Disclosure: I was so pleased with the results, I told Mr. Thomas I’d mention Hydrofogger on this blog, and he kindly agreed to give me a commission on any sales originating from my referral.  I’d like to pass on the generosity — if you get a Hydrofogger, you can receive $25 off of your next order with us at Paphiness Orchids.

Part of the allure of slipper orchids is all the gossip, rumors, and stories swirling about.

Here’s what I heard over the slipper orchid grapevine regarding P. tigrinum albas.  (This is a third-hand account, so take it for what it’s worth.  And if you’re one of the parties involved in this affair, and I’ve made a mistake, please let me know and I’ll make any necessary corrections.)

As everyone tigrinum devotee knows, this species is a highly sought after paph, partly because of its relative rarity, and partly because of its beautiful, single flower.  Its color resembles lowii, and its spotted/stripe-like spotting patterns on the dorsal from which the species gets its name is unique among paphs.  Yet there is something about the flower, some ineffable quality that transcends the other unifloral paph species.  It is a flower that is easily more than the sum of its parts.

Obviously, an albinistic form of this species would be an extremely desirable find for that super-rarefied group of alba slipper collectors.  “Collectors” is probably the wrong word, actually.  “Fanatic” would be a more apt term.

Some years ago, a multi-growth plant was discovered in the wild in China.  This plant made its way to a “botanical center” in China.  Whether one can properly term such a facility in the hinterlands of China a bona fide research botanical center or not remains sketchy.  Given the penchant for flowery language/boasting in China, I would not be surprised if it was just some guy with a garden.  In any case, the Chinese guy who had the plant put out the word on the find, and the news made its way to a well-known European grower.  He and a friend traveled to China to see the plant in bloom.

It was the genuine article, a true alba tigrinum.

The “curator” of the botanical center demanded $5000 USD per growth, and a deal for $10,000 was consummated.  At this point, the details get even more murky.   Here’s my best conjecture: The acquired growths were then grown, and possibly further divided.  At least two growths eventually found their way to the United States, and likely the original mother plant ended up in Taiwan, where the appetite for such rarities is immense.

At a Paph Guild meeting (the slipper orchid conference held in California every year in January) in 2007 or 2008 which I attended, a vendor from Taiwan brought flasks with selfings of tigrinum alba.  They only had six plants per bottle, and the price was $800 per flask.

Now, tigrinum is not the easiest species to grow from flask.  In fact, it’s quite difficult, and as best as I can ascertain and from my own sorry experience, about 75% of seedlings from flask will never make it to maturity, dying off in the first year or two.  I passed on the alba flask, but I saw at least one guy who got one.

I don’t know what became of those seedlings, but I suppose in a situation like this, knowing the odds are stacked against you, the bet is that one plant will survive and be worth much more than the cost of the original flask (and the worry lines on your face as you try to grow the plants up).  Not a bad bet, actually, especially if you end up with a vigorous grower that you can divide in a few years, and command top dollar from other collectors.

I guess that’s why growing orchids is so addictive: it’s like gambling.

And in gambling, many “systems” abound.  It’s the same with orchids.

So how do you figure out what works for you and what doesn’t?  Answer: experiment.

While most of us know what an experiment is, not all of us know how to do a proper one that enables you to draw a strong conclusion.

Many well-meaning growers will rave about how switching to a new media/fertilizer/light source/etc  revived a long-dormant plant, resulting in a blooming that caused AOS judges to swoon and give the plant an FCC.  We’ve all heard (or told) stories just like this.

But the question is: how do you know this didn’t just happen by chance?  The world is a very complicated thing, especially when it comes to biology.  Weird, unexpected stuff happens all the time in experiments.  And experiments performed on one single plant can always be attacked on the grounds that the observed result was due to chance, or some other unexplained phenomenon.  The revival of the long-dormant plant could absolutely have been due to whatever change you subjected the plant to, but how do you prove causality?

That’s when you need a well-designed experiment.  A well-designed experiment helps you to conclude that the results obtained were not due to chance.

Here are key steps to doing a solid experiment.

0) You need a control group and an experimental group.  The control group is the one that is treated normally.  No new media or fertilizer or anything.  The experimental group is the one that gets the change in conditions that you’re trying to assess.

1) You need a “useful” number of plants to compare.  A result from testing one plant is not enough from which to draw a strong conclusion.  Ideally, you’d want something like 15 - 30 plants in each group (which is what professional plant researchers try to do).  Of course, we don’t all have the space or resources to do an experiment on that many plants.  For the typical grower, I suggest around six plants in each group.  That means six plants in your control, and six plants in your experimetal group. (I know, I know…this requirement is NOT easy for most home growers.)

2) The plants should be preferably from the same cross.  For example, if you’re testing a new media for growing rothschildianums, ideally you should use siblings from just one cross, such as ‘Rex’ x ‘Mont Millais’.  But if you don’t have six from one cross, at least try to get six similarly-sized roths.

3) Focus on only one variable at a time.  This is a hard one, and requires some self-discipline!  If you’re testing a new fertilizer, don’t change the media as well.  Vary only one variable in the experiment.  Otherwise, your results will always be haunted by the specter of uncertainty of whether that one variable really caused, by itself, the result you observed.

4) Measure, measure, measure (and compare your control group to your experimental group).  How many new root tips?  How many new leaves grew?  How much did leaves elongate?  How much did the plants weigh?  Measuring is objective, and banishes, or at least pushes back, subjectivity from the analysis.  Yes, I know this is a pain, but the more of this stuff you do, the stronger and less assailable your conclusions.

Anyone who has read about orchids on the internet knows that advice and opinions abound.  Doing proper, well-controlled experiments lets you cut through the crap and determine for you and your growing conditions what is likely to work best.

Slipper orchids grow slowly, but OZ is of such a scale that things are always changing.  New crops coming into bloom, forgotten stuff re-discovered, new standards being set — very, very exciting.  There are many other professional growers who have esoteric stuff, or have large facilities, but what strikes me about OZ is how high the standards are in three areas: 1) quality of plant growth; 2) the best genetics; and 3) outstanding growing facilities.

It is well known that pot plants (i.e., lower quality, non-select plants) have been bought in bloom at OZ and brought to judging shortly afterwards and received awards!  I’m not sure whether that underscores the quality of OZ plants, or the lack of quality in judging, especially when clearly superior specimens are brought in along with the pot plants for judging.

In any case, it is always a pleasure to find the latest stuff at OZ, and I’m pleased to make OZ plants available to Paphiness customers.  If you’d like to receive the OZ Report, simply send an email to orchids@paphinessorchids.com with “subscribe OZ Report” in the subject line.

(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.

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…

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!

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.