# Phrag. Mem. Dick Clements sib cross



## Drorchid (Dec 9, 2008)

I decided to sib two of our Phrag. Mem. Dick Clements. The offspring turned out to have much better shaped flowers with wider petals; it almost looks like a Jason Fischer:







One of the parents (the other parent looked very similar):






Robert


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## nikv (Dec 9, 2008)

Very nice, Robert! :clap:


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## NYEric (Dec 9, 2008)

Yay besseae hybrids!


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## SlipperFan (Dec 9, 2008)

That's interesting. Why, if both parents look so similar, does their offspring have wider segments?


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## smartie2000 (Dec 9, 2008)

Nice improvement on the petal shape, very interesting!


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## Yoyo_Jo (Dec 9, 2008)

I like the chubbier offspring. :clap:


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## John M (Dec 9, 2008)

Well, that cross was a good decision. Nice improvement!


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## P-chan (Dec 10, 2008)

Awesome bloom! I can see the difference and it's good! Beautiful! :clap:


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## SlipperKing (Dec 10, 2008)

another nice one!


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## Hien (Dec 10, 2008)

It seems that this particular flower doubles the dose of besseae


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## NYEric (Dec 10, 2008)

Certainly looks like a ploidy change.


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## Drorchid (Dec 10, 2008)

No, it has nothing to do with Ploidy change. The F1 cross (First generation cross), is straight besseae x sargentianum, so your offspring will look intermediate between the two parents. Usually all the offspring in the F1 generation look pretty similar and you do not have too much variation from plant to plant. If you sib 2 plants from a F1 generation you get segregation of genes and some plants will look more like Phrag besseae while others will look more like sargentianum, in this case this plant probably got more besseae genes, so that is why it almost looks like a Phrag. Jason Ficher. This shows that sometimes other than remaking a primary cross with better parents, you can get better offspring by just line breeding (keep sibbing the best plants together to create the next generation). 

Robert


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## slippertalker (Dec 10, 2008)

Another way to get even more expression is to self the F1 plant. Some will be poor, other average but a few will be quite exceptional. The diversity will be much larger than an F2 cross such as this but the overall quality will not be nearly as good. I would call an F1 selfing a breeders cross and an F2 sibling cross more of a commercial cross.


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## Phrag-Plus (Dec 12, 2008)

slippertalker said:


> Another way to get even more expression is to self the F1 plant. Some will be poor, other average but a few will be quite exceptional. The diversity will be much larger than an F2 cross such as this but the overall quality will not be nearly as good. I would call an F1 selfing a breeders cross and an F2 sibling cross more of a commercial cross.



I’m agreeing with you, two worlds apart...


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## NYEric (Dec 12, 2008)

I wasn't saying it was a ploidy change; rather that it looks like the results of one.


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## tim (Dec 12, 2008)

*f2*

Robert,

As a person who's job it is to breed plants, I'd be interested to hear your perspective on making a sib cross of complex paphs. It appears to me that some of the finest populations of complexes were a result of sibbing F1s - Paph. Valerie Tonkin and Paph. Magic Mood (both AQ winners) come to mind. However, most paph breeders I talk to say that due to generation time sibbing is a dead end from a sales perspective because everyone who wanted one of that grex got one the first time around, and won't want another one seven years later. I think that you've illustrated the benefits of sibbing primaries with your posts, and lots of people will always want more primaries; what about more complex crosses?

Thanks for your thoughts,

Tim


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## toddybear (Dec 12, 2008)

Fantastic!


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## slippertalker (Dec 12, 2008)

Tim, I'm not sure how Robert would answer this question but the fact that he did a sib cross on Phrag Mem. Dick Clements with excellent results probably gives you the answer. There have been several sib crosses of complex paphs and often they are better than the parents. Good examples are Paph Hellas and Paph Winston Churchill. In my opinion this should be attempted much more often for quality progeny.


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## NYEric (Dec 12, 2008)

Personally, it's good to make the sib crosses for quality line breeding but I'm more concernedabout getting various hybrids. With phrags I find there are interesting crosses that were made once and then disappear!


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## Drorchid (Dec 12, 2008)

tim said:


> Robert,
> 
> As a person who's job it is to breed plants, I'd be interested to hear your perspective on making a sib cross of complex paphs. It appears to me that some of the finest populations of complexes were a result of sibbing F1s - Paph. Valerie Tonkin and Paph. Magic Mood (both AQ winners) come to mind. However, most paph breeders I talk to say that due to generation time sibbing is a dead end from a sales perspective because everyone who wanted one of that grex got one the first time around, and won't want another one seven years later. I think that you've illustrated the benefits of sibbing primaries with your posts, and lots of people will always want more primaries; what about more complex crosses?
> 
> ...



Yes, I agree with slippertalker. That is one reason I made this sib cross, because I already knew I would get some better plants. And Yes it should also be done with complex Paph's. A good example of getting better plants out of sib crosses is Paph. Macabre. I believe Terry Root has made 3 generations by sibbing the best of each generation (also known as Line Breeding). Each generation they have gotten better.

First generation Macabre:






Examples of 3rd generation Macabre:











Another example comes to mind is Paph. Skip Bartlett. Hadley Cash selfed Skip Bartlett 'White Pepper' and got a seedling that was much better than the original. See:

http://www.marriottorchids.com/03-16-03images/SkipBartlett WhtPepp and Marriott.jpg

SO, If it was up to me, yes I would do sib crosses, even though the results take 5 years, I think it is worth the wait. 

Robert


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## Kevin (Dec 12, 2008)

Drorchid said:


> SO, If it was up to me, yes I would do sib crosses,
> Robert



Isn't it up to you? You often say in your posts that 'I decided to make this cross...', or something along those lines. There's probably more to it than that, as I know you don't own the company, but just for clarification.


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## Drorchid (Dec 12, 2008)

Kevin said:


> Isn't it up to you? You often say in your posts that 'I decided to make this cross...', or something along those lines. There's probably more to it than that, as I know you don't own the company, but just for clarification.



Yes, it is up to me, as I am the breeder here at Orchids Limited...but you are right, Jerry does own the place, so he does give me suggestions once in a while of a cross to make, but sometimes I am already thinking ahead of him as I sometimes have already made it...and I meant the "if it is up to me" more on general terms...

Robert


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## John M (Dec 12, 2008)

This thread has been very interesting and informative. Thanks Robert!


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## tim (Dec 12, 2008)

*complexes though*

Robert & Slippertalker - 

You both make good points, but you refer to primary or near primary plants that lots of people will want regardless. Even a bad Macabre is "sellable", as is a Mem. Dick Clements...a bad Winston Churchill is not.

WC and Hellas are not especially strong examples of the benefits of f2 - the sibbings of WC for example have yielded very very low percentages of award quality offspring, and none of the f2s have been used in breeding (or at least very little compared to the f1s Indomitable and Redoubtable)...all the line bred WCs I've seen are not as good as either parent on a good blooming. I'd have to imagine this is because the number of plants is pretty low because not too many people were interested in them. Skip Bartlett is the same story - I wonder how many of Hadley's f2s are out there in the world right now...(are you even sure that Skip Bartlett 'Marriott Quintessence' is an f2 and not a remake?)

Hellas is a little different - I have never had a seed pod take on 'La Buena Tierra Sunset', which is an f2. Certainly we've seen that Hellas 'Sunset' is a very good breeder and quite useful, but that's an f3. That means it took someone upwards of 15 years and countless bad Hellas clones to get one good one? Is that worth it from a breeder's perspective? A nursery owner's perspective? 

Terry was precisely the nursery owner I was referring to in the previous psot with whom I've had this discussion. I think it's tremendously worthwhile to sib complexes, but when I asked him his opinion, he was most decidedly against it, because of the reasons I mentioned in my previous post. For example, Robert, are you going to sib your two great clones of Paph Totally Awesome (made and registered by Orchids Limited)? My guess is no, and I'm anxious to find out why. I think this might be an incredibly interesting avenue for someone with the space and resources to grow some of them out...and besides it's always interesting to hear an expert's perspective... 

Thanks!!
-Tim


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## slippertalker (Dec 12, 2008)

You make an interesting point regarding Hellas and WC. There are improvements with F2 and F3 sibling crosses but it is quite well documented that the original plants are the best for hybridizing even with poorer form. With all complex crosses including sibling crosses there are a large percentage of mediocre (or worse) flowers. Typically a large number of plants need to be bloomed to select the few very nice ones. There are exceptions to this rule but it seems to be the norm. Some crosses have nothing but poor flowers.


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## Drorchid (Dec 12, 2008)

tim said:


> For example, Robert, are you going to sib your two great clones of Paph Totally Awesome (made and registered by Orchids Limited)? My guess is no, and I'm anxious to find out why. I think this might be an incredibly interesting avenue for someone with the space and resources to grow some of them out...and besides it's always interesting to hear an expert's perspective...
> 
> Thanks!!
> -Tim



Yes, You make some good points, but I see no problem in sibbing two complex Paph's. And yes I probably would sib the 2 Totally Awesome plants. I think one reason that you don't always get good results when you sib 2 complex plants is just the nature of complex hybridizing. Even when you make a regular complex cross (between 2 different grexes), you only get a few that will be high quality and of those even fewer will turn out to be good breeders, and that is why it is hard to beet plants like Paph. Hellas 'Westonbirt' and Paph. Winston Churchill 'Indomitable'. Besides being excellent breeders they are also excellent just by them selves. They have been selected "over time" as proven winners, so even if you sib WC 'Indomitable' with 'Redoutable' the chance of getting something that is just as good as either parent is slim, but I would still do it, the chance of getting something good with two excellent parents is still higher than crossing two not so good parents together.

And to answer your question regarding Skip Bartlett, Yes I am pretty sure that was from a selfing of 'White Pepper' and not a remake of Skip Bartlett (I asked Hadley that myself). So that shows that you can get something better than the original parent (although I do not know how well of a breeder it is).

Robert


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