# Paph. delenatii x delenatii var vinicolor



## Drorchid (Mar 18, 2010)

Well, the first of our Paph. delenatii x delenatii var vinicolor seedlings have flowered. When I initially made the cross, I was hoping for a flower that would be either just as dark as a vinicolor (hoping the "vinicolor" trait would be dominant), or at least have flowers that would be intermediate between the two (and based on experience in breeding this is what I was asuming they would be).

Alas, after I made the cross, Sanderianum posted that he had tried making the same cross and they all turned out regular colored:



Sanderianum said:


> By the way, delenatii x delenatii dunkel gives standard delenatii, there is not a hint of purple in the leaves, and the flowers are those of a normal delenatii. Maybe the "dunkel" is carried out by the mitochondrial DNA, therefore it would be fine to use dunkel as the pot parent.



Indeed, all the seedlings did not show any hint of purple in the leaves (var vinicolor has darker than normal foliage with a dark almost black edge). The foliage of my seedlings did however seem a little darker compared to the regular delenatii's.

When the first seedling opened, I thought that Sanderianum was right, and indeed the flower was exactly the same color as a regular delenatii, but then a few more seedlings opened up. When the flower was first opening on one of those seedlings, the pouch was looking way darker than normal, so I was getting all excited. When it finally opened, it was not as dark as I was hoping, but it definitely was darker than the "normal" delenatii, showing that some of the "vinicolor" genes did get passed on.

This shows that the genes are not entirely (and maybe not at all) regulated by mitochondrial DNA. If this would be the case "all" seedlings would be normal colored. Some of the other seedlings that opened up were more or less intermediate between the darkest seedling and the regular colored seedlings, so I am guessing it is more of a quantatative trait regulated by multiple genes, but the exact mechanism is still unknown. It would be interesting to see if there is a different outcome if you use the vinicolor as the pod parent versus the pollen parent.

OK here are some pictures:

Picture of delenatii var vinicolor:






The other parent: delenatii 'My Time':





Picture of a dark colored seedling of delenatii 'My Time' x delenatii var vinicolor:










comparison of a regular colored delenatii with the ('My Time' x vinicolor)










If anyone wants to give their thoughts of what is going on with the genetics here that would be appreciated.

Robert


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## nikv (Mar 18, 2010)

Lovely. Have you back-crossed any of these progeny onto the dunkel variety? That would seem like the thing to do next.


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## Drorchid (Mar 18, 2010)

nikv said:


> Lovely. Have you back-crossed any of these progeny onto the dunkel variety? That would seem like the thing to do next.



Not yet, but yes that will be the next step...

Robert


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## valenzino (Mar 18, 2010)

I think too difficult to say,(also cause no signs of"vini" on leaves),can be also a trait of 'My Time' that have a darker delenati as anchestor....also same from the vini without a "vini" dominant..
To say needs a lot of material.....
how much plants you will be able to flower of this cross?

Nice flower!!

I will be also interested in see a oh chi minh with delenati vini to better understand.....


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## Mrs. Paph (Mar 19, 2010)

It being a quantitative trait is the first thing that comes to my mind, the second....is it possible that maybe it's 'complex' quantitative in that it combines both nuclear and mitochondrial?? As in maybe the nuclear is quantitative in it's own right, thus some darkening showed up in your seedlings, but that maybe the maternally inherited chloroplast genes might be needed as well for the full darkening affect, along with the darker leaves? Have you tried the reciprocal? Oh, and nice blooms!  I need another delenatii  TX and a bad HVAC did mine in!


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## Leo Schordje (Mar 20, 2010)

Question to which I do not know the answer; it is often stated that ALL the mitochondrial DNA comes from the 'female' or seed parent, I believe this comes from studies done with corn. I do know in order for the pollen tubes to grow there are some mitochondria in the pollen cells. Has this ever been verified in any plant beyond corn? Is there the possibility of some, perhaps limited contibution of mitochondria from the pollen parent? Just a question, I don't know the answer. Sometimes extrapolating from one agricultural crop to other horticultural crops risks missing what is really happening. But I don't know what research has been done. 
I would not be surprised if it does turn out the delenatii dunkle trait is inherited through normal Mendalian gene mechanism. I don't know if calling it 'vinicolor' is the correct term as is does not seem to behave the way the classic vinicolor trait observed in Paph callosum behaves. It may very well be a gene functioning at a different loci than that involved in the callosum type vinicolor, and would then need a different name. 

The next two important crosses that need to be made are the selfing of the F1 hybrids and the back cross to a 'Dunkle' type. Those 2 populations may give the clue as to whether you are looking at a 1 or 2 loci, or even a multiple loci (3 or more) Mendalian trait or something extra nuclear in its inheritance. The multi loci Mendalian trait will look blended out over a range rather than segregating out into discrete groups of expression. The 1 or 2 loci traits will give you the classic 1:2:1 segregation in the F2 generation, and (I forget at this hour) for the 2 loci segregation pattern for the F2.

Another important cross to make is to see what Magic Lantern and Fumi's Delight look like made with 'Dunkle' delenatii, this may give a clue to whether it is more like a vinicolor trait in terms of turning on pigment production. The ability of delenatii to supress yellow and green, in favor of a dominant white background color may be masking what it is doing to anthocyanin expression. The color suppression traits of delenatii and its dominant effect on the background color really make it hard to decypher what 'Dunkle' really is. 

I am glad you are doing this work, you know genetics better than most and may be able to see the pattern that actually arises, rather than just guessing.
Thanks Robert for starting this experiment, hope you are able to carry it through.


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## etex (Mar 20, 2010)

Gorgeous blooms! I love the delenatii, and crosses, and mine seem happy in Texas! Beautiful blooms and great foliage-what more could you ask for!
Very informative thread on breeding!!


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## KyushuCalanthe (Mar 20, 2010)

Interesting result, but I'd miss the highly colored leaves.


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## Roth (Mar 21, 2010)

Ho Chi Minh, and Magic Lantern have been made with the Delenatii Dunkel. So far they bloomed absolutely like normal delenatii hybrids. I think Robert delenatii is dark, but it can be within the range of variation of the normal species. So far when I selfed the F1 of delenatii x Dunkel, I did not get a single Dunkel plant. I have yet to see Dunkel x delenatii...

Anyway, if it is recessive or mitochondrial I do not think it will have a great future in breeding. Plus most of the Dunkel have an horrible dorsal, that they pass to their progeny


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## SlipperFan (Mar 21, 2010)

Well, there is something here I don't understand. I thought the purpose of crossing two plants was to come up with something improved or different from either parent. I don't see how crossing a regular (pale) delenatii with the vinicolor form is an improvement over either, or that it's so different from the parents. Maybe if this is an exercise in genetics??? This probably shows my ignorance -- I come from an artist background, not scientist.


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## Roth (Mar 21, 2010)

SlipperFan said:


> Well, there is something here I don't understand. I thought the purpose of crossing two plants was to come up with something improved or different from either parent. I don't see how crossing a regular (pale) delenatii with the vinicolor form is an improvement over either, or that it's so different from the parents. Maybe if this is an exercise in genetics??? This probably shows my ignorance -- I come from an artist background, not scientist.



It's to improve the shape and size, as well as the growth speed of the delenatii vinicolor... 

They did that with callosum Jac and Sparkling Burgundy couple decades ago, and quite a few albinos.


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## Drorchid (Mar 22, 2010)

SlipperFan said:


> Well, there is something here I don't understand. I thought the purpose of crossing two plants was to come up with something improved or different from either parent. I don't see how crossing a regular (pale) delenatii with the vinicolor form is an improvement over either, or that it's so different from the parents. Maybe if this is an exercise in genetics??? This probably shows my ignorance -- I come from an artist background, not scientist.



Like Sanderianum said...

When you make a cross like this you want to combine good characteristics of both (and get rid of the bad characteristics of both).

Regular Paph. delenatii The Good: has been line bred for many generations, so the flowers are larger and flat with good dorsals. Plants are vigorous and good growers. The Bad: light colors

Paph. delenatii var vinicolor: The Good: very dark colors. The Bad: small flowers (compared to select regular delenatii's), bad dorsal sepals (recurved) and weak growers.

So by making the cross, I was hoping to get plants that have inherited the dark colors of var. vinicolor, and the vigour, size and shape of the flowers of the regular delentii.

By the way Mrs. Paph and Leo make some good points regarding the genetics. It is true that not all mitochondrial DNA gets inherited through the maternal line, but usually they consider inheritance through the pollen tubes to be very minimal, and I don't know if they have ever done studies with orchids to see how much mitochondrial (or chloroplastic) DNA gets inherited through the pollen, and like Mrs. Paph says it could very well be an interaction of genes between mitochondrial DNA and regular DNA; only time will tell...

Robert


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## tomkalina (Mar 22, 2010)

Hi nikv,

I agree with you re back-crossing the (delenatii v vini back to a 1/2 vini clone with good shape) being the way to go. We've done this using one of Dennis D'alessandro's (regular x vini) delenatii's with good shape, and our delenatii vini `Plum Foxy'. Several of the seedlings in flask already exhibit very dark leaf undersides, so we are hopefull in getting some large, well shaped vini's out of the sib cross. Three flasks will be available at the MOS Palm Sunday show this weekend. Anyone interested can PM me for the particulars. 

Thanks, Tom


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## SlipperFan (Mar 22, 2010)

Thanks Sanderianum and Robert. Now I understand. It's just that, when I looked at the photos, I didn't see any improvement over the parents.


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## Roth (Mar 23, 2010)

Drorchid said:


> Like Sanderianum said...
> 
> Regular Paph. delenatii The Good: has been line bred for many generations, so the flowers are larger and flat with good dorsals. Plants are vigorous and good growers. The Bad: light colors
> 
> Robert



To be honest, the delenatii line bred were ugly and not that good growers. 

They went to the dust bin in the middle of the 90's pretty much everywhere, and were replaced by plants bred from selected jungle ones :evil:


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## Paul (Mar 23, 2010)

+ I don't feel delenatii vinicolor are poor growers in my experience... grows as fast as regular ones, but much more sensitive to rot (very well drained potting media)
but a little pouch compared with a good delenatii, and quite ugly dorsal


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## Drorchid (Mar 23, 2010)

Sanderianum said:


> To be honest, the delenatii line bred were ugly and not that good growers.
> 
> They went to the dust bin in the middle of the 90's pretty much everywhere, and were replaced by plants bred from selected jungle ones :evil:



I was talking about the one we have been line breeding for about 3 to 4 generations (and they probably do have a lot of "new" blood in them). These have all had large flowers and are good growers (better than the vinicolor types).


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## Roth (Mar 23, 2010)

Paul said:


> + I don't feel delenatii vinicolor are poor growers in my experience... grows as fast as regular ones, but much more sensitive to rot (very well drained potting media)
> but a little pouch compared with a good delenatii, and quite ugly dorsal



It depends on the parent plant. Apparently delenatii vinicolor is a colony of some dozen to hundreds plants, we do not know the exact number, but I know of at least 20 different ones myself, plus all the ones sold by one single seller in Dalat. The first seedlings were from the first plant sold and are not vigorous at all, very hard to grow. A year after, my plant did seedlings, and I distributed flasks, and at the same time, a third plant produced flasks. Those are faster growers. There is even a delenatii vinicolor with all purple leaves, just a little bit of tesselation at the base of the leaves. 



Drorchid said:


> I was talking about the one we have been line breeding for about 3 to 4 generations (and they probably do have a lot of "new" blood in them). These have all had large flowers and are good growers (better than the vinicolor types).



Definitely yes... The original from the French delenatii were really very poor, and when looking at the earlier pictures and paintings of the ancester, it was not that bad of a plant. Only successive selfings gave worse and worse seedlings. The original plant was not alive anymore, unlike the legend says, and the La Tuilerie was already a xth generation from the original plant.

Actually, the rumor wants that a few delenatii arrived in the early 80's in Germany, and were used in the EU and US breeding programs, which would explain the increased vigor. Vietnam being a communist countries, it had very close ties to Czech republic and East Germany, so it is not completely impossible by far. What is sure is that a lot of Germans went to the area where delenatii grows in the 80's to make a dam.

I noticed that the 'original' delenatii from Germany were better growers than the French ones, so everything is possible. 


There has been once an occurence of a delenatii album in the French progeny, in France, and another one at Ratcliffe Orchids of a semialbum. Both did not survive.


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## Drorchid (Mar 24, 2010)

Sanderianum said:


> Definitely yes... The original from the French delenatii were really very poor, and when looking at the earlier pictures and paintings of the ancester, it was not that bad of a plant. Only successive selfings gave worse and worse seedlings. The original plant was not alive anymore, unlike the legend says, and the La Tuilerie was already a xth generation from the original plant.
> 
> Actually, the rumor wants that a few delenatii arrived in the early 80's in Germany, and were used in the EU and US breeding programs, which would explain the increased vigor. Vietnam being a communist countries, it had very close ties to Czech republic and East Germany, so it is not completely impossible by far. What is sure is that a lot of Germans went to the area where delenatii grows in the 80's to make a dam.
> 
> ...



Interesting background information! Thanks!

Robert


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## valenzino (Mar 24, 2010)

I still have one of the original P.delenatii from france.I had it by another italian collector when I was 10 so 23 years ago,and was already in his collection for many years.Is a very slow growing and small plant.It flower once every 3 years and is growing with the others that flowers regularly every year.
I tried to cross it with another "new" delenati unsuccesfully.


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