# Phrag. besseae 'Robert's First'



## Drorchid (Dec 13, 2007)

This is the 3rd time this besseae has bloomed. It is from our own line of besseae breeding, and is our 3rd generation. I have been selecting for large size, flat shape and dark colors. I think our besseae's tend to be darker in color than the Oz besseae's and not as round in shape (The petals tend to be longer). This one does have pretty wide petals (close to 3 cm wide). We named it "Robert's First" as this was the first besseae that I made that bloomed.

Enjoy!

















Robert


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## littlefrog (Dec 13, 2007)

Very nice color. I like it.

You want pollen from the roundest petaled besseae I've ever seen? That would be a good cross... If I haven't killed it and it blooms again this year you are welcome to it.


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## Drorchid (Dec 13, 2007)

Yes, I would love to use it and cross it with our line of besseae's

Robert


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## Gilda (Dec 13, 2007)

:drool: That is the brightest red :clap:I have seen...had to put my shades on !


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## paphioland (Dec 13, 2007)

John Chant's 'oval' is the roundest I have seen.


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## paphioland (Dec 13, 2007)

That one has nice color saturation


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## paphioland (Dec 13, 2007)

some of the OZ crosses have consistently nice color. Smokin x haven and Bleeding heart x colossal.


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## paphioland (Dec 13, 2007)

Rob are all of them that saturated in color or is that a really colored one?


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## CodPaph (Dec 13, 2007)

Very petri


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## Drorchid (Dec 13, 2007)

paphioland said:


> Rob are all of them that saturated in color or is that a really colored one?




There has been some variation in saturation of color, overall they have all been pretty dark, but this one was probably one of the better ones (And I already have my 4th generation going, with this one as a parent).

Robert


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## NYEric (Dec 13, 2007)

Heheheh, what are the parents? Yay besseae!


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## SlipperFan (Dec 13, 2007)

Wow, Robert! That is a gorgeous, intense red. Congrats!


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## Kyle (Dec 13, 2007)

littlefrog said:


> Very nice color. I like it.
> 
> You want pollen from the roundest petaled besseae I've ever seen? That would be a good cross... If I haven't killed it and it blooms again this year you are welcome to it.



Do you have a picture? 

Dr., Is that a tetraploid?

Kyle


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## Drorchid (Dec 13, 2007)

NYEric said:


> Heheheh, what are the parents? Yay besseae!



Phrag. besseae 'Inca Fire' x besseae 'Orange Circle'




Kyle said:


> Dr., Is that a tetraploid?
> 
> Kyle



No, this is a regular diploid (so far I know); both parents were diploids.

Robert


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## NYEric (Dec 13, 2007)

thanx.


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## Ron-NY (Dec 13, 2007)

quite stunning!!


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## Heather (Dec 14, 2007)

It's great, Rob. I like your breeding better than the recent OZ crosses. At first I liked them a lot but I dunno, maybe I've grown up a little? :wink:


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## NYEric (Dec 14, 2007)

The OZ plants seem to be 'gangly', the OL flowers seem to have a flatter and fuller look. Diff color (redder) in general.


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## paphioland (Dec 14, 2007)

NYEric said:


> The OZ plants seem to be 'gangly', the OL flowers seem to have a flatter and fuller look. Diff color (redder) in general.



I was at the OZ for a week not too long ago. I don't know what you mean by 'gangly'. I was amazed at the fullness, size and color. Also the characteristics of the individual crosses. Some were larger and fuller, others redder. Some had both.

Not taking anything away from the OL bessea they are also look very nice but I have never been there. This one really has awesome color and saturation.


However I wouldn' chracterize the OZ Bess as "Gangly". I also find it hard to believe there are fuller looking bessea in that magnitude anywhere. They are very full and many are 10 cm + with over 3 cm petal thickness . Some are very flat, very round and very red. You just have to look through them. Which by the way takes about 4 days to do it well. lol



















Here is one third flower over a day after it fell off.


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## paphioland (Dec 14, 2007)

NYEric said:


> Diff color (redder) in general.



I have not seen many OL Bess but this one sure is very red and saturated. It def has a different look than the OZ bess. Do you have any pics Robert of some of the best from the cross? I would like to get a better sense of your crosses to please my eye. Thanks


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## paphlady (Dec 14, 2007)

NYEric said:


> The OZ plants seem to be 'gangly', the OL flowers seem to have a flatter and fuller look. Diff color (redder) in general.



May I ask this *general *statement is made based on seeing how many in bloom? The actual flowers or from pics?


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## Heather (Dec 14, 2007)

Frankly, having had this cross from OL, and quite a few of the OZ ones of the latest generation, I think the OZ ones tend to be TOO round. They're almost reminiscent of complex Paphs, to me. A couple were really weird looking because of their overly rounded-ness. I also did not find them to be red, in general, much more orange than the OL crosses I had. 

I have photos but it would take a huge amount of time to find them right now, my default photo software is outa whack on my computer. 

However, I've not spent a week there poking through them all, I grew most of mine out from the in bud state, or from seedlings. If you search under my name for besseae, you'll find most of the photos that I posted of them.


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## Drorchid (Dec 15, 2007)

We also got a bunch of the OZ besseae's (probably over 100), so I was able to compare them to our own besseae's side by side. Yes, in general I have to agree with Heather. I think our own besseae's tend to be darker in color (more saturated) than the OZ besseae's. The OZ besseae's tend to be more orange red in color, and some of them acutally turned out more of a peach color.

The reason that ours are more dark in color is because I always tend to select parents that have the darkest colors, while Terry proabably was selecting his parents based more on shape (more rounded petals) and size, rather than color per se. Like I stated his besseae's do all have more that 'rounded look' to them, which is a personal preferance if you like that or not, ours tend to have more "pointed" petals. We did select some of Terry's besseae's that were outstanding in size and shape, so we bred them with our line of besseae's to hopefully get more larger besseae's that have the same saturation in color as our own. 

I don't think the OZ plants looked more gangly than ours, that may be a matter of culture rather than genetics.

Robert


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## paphioland (Dec 15, 2007)

Drorchid said:


> We also got a bunch of the OZ besseae's (probably over 100), so I was able to compare them to our own besseae's side by side. Yes, in general I have to agree with Heather. I think our own besseae's tend to be darker in color (more saturated) than the OZ besseae's. The OZ besseae's tend to be more orange red in color, and some of them acutally turned out more of a peach color.
> 
> The reason that ours are more dark in color is because I always tend to select parents that have the darkest colors, while Terry proabably was selecting his parents based more on shape (more rounded petals) and size, rather than color per se. Like I stated his besseae's do all have more that 'rounded look' to them, which is a personal preferance if you like that or not, ours tend to have more "pointed" petals. We did select some of Terry's besseae's that were outstanding in size and shape, so we bred them with our line of besseae's to hopefully get more larger besseae's that have the same saturation in color as our own.
> 
> ...



Thanks Robert for the inside info. Good luck with your crosses. Please keep the pics coming if you get a chance. Do you know which OZ cross you got. Sounds like at least some smokin x haven if some turned out peach. I like the bleeding heart x colossal.


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## paphioland (Dec 15, 2007)

Drorchid said:


> We also got a bunch of the OZ besseae's (probably over 100), so I was able to compare them to our own besseae's side by side. Yes, in general I have to agree with Heather. I think our own besseae's tend to be darker in color (more saturated) than the OZ besseae's. The OZ besseae's tend to be more orange red in color, and some of them acutally turned out more of a peach color.
> 
> The reason that ours are more dark in color is because I always tend to select parents that have the darkest colors, while Terry proabably was selecting his parents based more on shape (more rounded petals) and size, rather than color per se. Like I stated his besseae's do all have more that 'rounded look' to them, which is a personal preferance if you like that or not, ours tend to have more "pointed" petals. We did select some of Terry's besseae's that were outstanding in size and shape, so we bred them with our line of besseae's to hopefully get more larger besseae's that have the same saturation in color as our own.
> 
> ...


Also as you get really large bess they tend to lose color most of the time. It is hard to get the really red huge 2n bess. Will take some more breeding to get it consistently.


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## Jason Fischer (Dec 17, 2007)

Terry sent us a bunch of random OZ sib crosses on a couple different occasions. From what I've seen, the OZ besseae have a much, much higher percentage of blooming fat and round petals, but are overall very orange in color. 'Smokin' x 'Haven' has produced the most red of the cross from what I have seen, but still not anywhere near what our own breeding has turned over for reds. What I find interesting is the classical 'Ozone' x 'Eat My Dust' generation of OZ besseae were quite dark red. I often wonder what parentage ended up creating the orange besseae that we see today. I guess I'll have to ask Terry next time I talk to him.

Our breeding has been going for the darkest reds, and seems to have proven itself true. Of course, right now with the nights nice and chilly, we are seeing the best colors out of all the phrags as compared to ones that flowered in the summer. We only have about 1/1000th of the growing space dedicated to phrag besseae compared to what the Orchid Zone has. If we had the same amount of growing space perhaps we could have achieved a similar sized besseae with dark red! 'Robert's First' is one of the best I've seen from our crosses yet.

I've made some sibs between our dark reds and OZ round petaled flowers, so it will be interesting to see if we can pick up the best of both worlds in the next gen. I did a re-make of Mem. Dick Clements with 'Robert's First' which is now up for sale on our site:

http://www.orchidweb.com/detail.aspx?ID=310 (there's my sales pitch)

I hope that this generation of Dick Clements can go on to re-make some amazingly dark hybrids (I really re-made this cross just so I could re-make Jason Fischer).

Terry did put besseae back on the map, and it will be fun to see the continued line breeding in the years to come.


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## Sangii (Dec 17, 2007)

Heather said:


> FI think the OZ ones tend to be TOO round. They're almost reminiscent of complex Paphs, to me. A couple were really weird looking because of their overly rounded-ness.



I guess it's a matter of taste and I did not have a chance to see the plants in person but based on the pics I have seen posted here and there I agree 100% with you Heather. They are too round for my taste and when I look at them I have the feeling that the flower overall shape is unbalanced due to being too round


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## tan (Dec 17, 2007)

my type of shape and color...
_great plant _!!!


http://www.myspace.com/tanscamelliagarden


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## NYEric (Dec 17, 2007)

http://www.slippertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2919&highlight=rob's+choice
I don't know if this copied the shortcut but here's Orchid limited breeding.
I don't think Orchid Zone breeding is too round but I think OL species and hybrids are thicker and definately have a darker color. And yes paphlady, I've seen pictures of hundreds of OZ besseae and they're consistenly lighter.


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## paphlady (Dec 18, 2007)

I am a very curious person. When people make general statements, I like to find out how they arrive at such a conclusion; hence, my previous questions. Note, I never said anything about who's crosses are redder, better, rounder, etc. I find it very interesting that people tend to make "general" statements and/or jump to conclusions based on a small number of representations. Not just for orchids, but in many other aspects of people's lives.


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## NYEric (Dec 19, 2007)

No problem; I hope your curiosity has been appeased.


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## Mrs. Paph (Dec 19, 2007)

I like them all, not having had a chance to have a bess. of my own yet, but I kinda had to giggle a little when one of the round OZ blooms conjured up an image of Mickey Mouse ears.... If I had my choice, I wouldn't choose really, I'd want the slightly less round petaled ones, but in a series of color shades from flavum to Rob's dark red all lined up in a row and blooming at the same time!! As if I need anything else to add to my wish list, but that would be nice


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## NYEric (Dec 19, 2007)

You and me too sister.


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## Heather (Dec 19, 2007)

I grew a bunch of the new crosses out (several each of various crosses) and found them all to be quite variable. Though there were a couple whose shape I really liked, the majority of them were just not proportionate enough for my taste. Also, by now, via the internet, we've seen thousands of these bloom out multiple times. I found the colors to be just as variable, and the peach ones to not change color from year to year. 

I think you can make generalized comments based on one's experience. Just realize they're subjective not objective.


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## slippertalker (Dec 19, 2007)

I have seen and grown many different plants of besseae and while I like the rich red flowers more than the orange-red flowers, they are both very nice. In my opinion the full shaped rounder flowers are superior from a judging perspective and will produce better form on their progeny. 

This selective breeding of Phrag besseae is typical of many orchid species, and hybridizers almost always cross the best flowers (if available) to create richer colors, fuller form and vigor. After a few more generations, they will appear quite a bit different than the original collected plants. This is happening with many of the CITES I plants with selected breeding, and many of the plants that OL and OZ produce are prime examples. Despite claims to the contrary, these are the plants that most of us drool over!


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## NYEric (Dec 19, 2007)

Phrag besseae, who could care less?!


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## tan (Dec 20, 2007)

spare me a seedling ????
love the color.....


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