# line bred Phrag. Memoria Dick Clements



## Drorchid (Sep 15, 2010)

A few years ago I decided to line breed some of our Phrag. Mem. Dick Clements (I don't think anyone had tried doing that), so I sibbed two first generation Dick Clements that both looked similar to this flower:







In the next generation it is amazing what an improvement I got, the flowers almost have the same shape as a Jason Fischer, but still have the same color as a M.D. Clements. I have used one of these to remake Jason Fischer, so hopefully the shape of the Jason Fischer will improve as well!

line bred Phrag. M.D. Clements 'Superior':






Robert


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## Darin (Sep 15, 2010)

Wow Huge improvement there. Are you seeing consistent improvements in the entire 2nd generation group or just in select individual plants?


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## Drorchid (Sep 15, 2010)

Darin said:


> Wow Huge improvement there. Are you seeing consistent improvements in the entire 2nd generation group or just in select individual plants?



I unfortunately did not get too many seedlings out of this cross, but all the ones that I have seen looked pretty similar to the one shown above. But the one shown was probably the best out of the batch.

Robert


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## slippertalker (Sep 15, 2010)

This sure points out the value of sib crossing the better clones of specific grexes to create even better forms. I've been trying to sib cross my Jason Fischers to do the same thing, but so far it hasn't been successful.


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## Drorchid (Sep 15, 2010)

slippertalker said:


> This sure points out the value of sib crossing the better clones of specific grexes to create even better forms. I've been trying to sib cross my Jason Fischers to do the same thing, but so far it hasn't been successful.



I have found Jason Fischer to be a reluctant breeder, so if you use it twice (both as a pod and as a pollen parent) your chances are slim to none that you get any off-spring. I have also tried to make many sib-crosses between Jason Fischers, and only once did I get seedlings to grow, in that time I crossed a diploid Jason Fischer to a tetraploid Jason Fischer. I think if you want to line breed in that direction, you will be better of line breeding both Mem. Dick Clements and besseae, and than remaking Jason Fischer with both the line bred Dick Clements and the line bred besseae. Also try Backcrossing Jason Fischer to Mem. Dick Clements (you will get Phrag. Robert C. Silich), I have found that will take more often than crossing Jason Fischer x Jason Fischer.

Robert


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## Shiva (Sep 15, 2010)

Lovely and well done.


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## NYEric (Sep 15, 2010)

Yay besseae hybrids! I can't wait to make a trip out to OL!


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## Phrag-Plus (Sep 15, 2010)

I can understand the temptation to do some sibling, but I don’t believe it is a good way to improve crosses. I believe the better way to improve crosses is to find and use better parentage than sibling crosses. From my own work on breeding Phragmipedium, results, analyse and knowledge, I will never use a sib cross in breeding except to found clues or something to proves. 

A primary cross should give 50% of both parents, when you sib them the chance of getting 50-50 is not very good maybe 50%. As you agreed by the difference of chromosomes count the variability could be greater but I can’t evaluate this by now.
But by sibling a MDC, there is some probabilities than 25% of the seedling phenotype will go on the side of besseae and 25% on the sargentianum side.

That’s mean the first one should look more like a Phrag. Jason Fischer the second More like a Phrag. Jerry Dean Fischer. In the next generation we will have a lots of everybody will try to understand how come by breeding a MDC we are getting all those range of results. And we will see more worrying about mislabelled plants, NID or guess what it is Phragmipedium… 

It is my point of view!


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## slippertalker (Sep 15, 2010)

How would you consider the selfing of such a cross?


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## Drorchid (Sep 15, 2010)

I usually don't like to self a plant, but prefer to outcross or sib plants. In general when you self, you get inbreeding depression, and the flowers will be smaller, and the plant less vigorous than the parent.

There are a view exceptions when I will self-pollinate. If the plant already is a self pollinator (like fischeri) over time due to natural selection you have ended up with the strongest plants, so the plant is probably homozygous for all the "stronger" genes, if you self that plant you wont end up with inbreeding depression.

When you have an exceptional plant, for instance an FCC awarded plant, even if you self it, you will end up with higher quality flowers compared to crossing it to a lesser quality flower.

If it is the only plant in existence (for instance when the yellow besseae was discovered there was only one plants, so to propagate it, it had to be selfed).

Robert


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## Phrag-Plus (Sep 15, 2010)

Drorchid said:


> I usually don't like to self a plant, but prefer to outcross or sib plants. In general when you self, you get inbreeding depression, and the flowers will be smaller, and the plant less vigorous than the parent.
> 
> There are a view exceptions when I will self-pollinate. If the plant already is a self pollinator (like fischeri) over time due to natural selection you have ended up with the strongest plants, so the plant is probably homozygous for all the "stronger" genes, if you self that plant you wont end up with inbreeding depression.
> 
> ...


Hi Robert, 
you are not talking about the same thing now! I do agree than selfing or sibling a specie is a good way and sometime the only way to get better and improve flowers. And yes with an FCC species can and should be use in propagation to improve the progeny.

But sibling or selfing a cross like MDC or (F1,F2 etc…) it’s completely an other story. And I don’t believe than selfing or sibling even an FCC cross will lead in better results and this especially with Phragmipediums… But it’s an other discussion!


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## Phrag-Plus (Sep 15, 2010)

slippertalker said:


> How would you consider the selfing of such a cross?



X Mem. Dick Clements


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## slippertalker (Sep 15, 2010)

Phrag-Plus said:


> X Mem. Dick Clements



Or any such cross......Do you consider a value in a selfing of a hybrid cross?


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## Drorchid (Sep 15, 2010)

Phrag-Plus said:


> Hi Robert,
> you are not talking about the same thing now! I do agree than selfing or sibling a specie is a good way and sometime the only way to get better and improve flowers. And yes with an FCC species can and should be use in propagation to improve the progeny.



I know it is not the same thing; I was just responding to Slippertalker (Bill). 



Phrag-Plus said:


> sibling or selfing a cross like MDC or (F1,F2 etc…) it’s completely an other story. And I don’t believe than selfing or sibling even an FCC cross will lead in better results and this especially with Phragmipediums… But it’s an other discussion!



I disagree, I just showed that by sibbing two MDC's you get an improvement over either parent. If I were to have two FCC plants of the same hybrid and I would sib them, I would also see an improvement; on average most offspring will be similar to the parents; some will be worse, but you will also be able to select some that will be even better than either parent (have larger flowers, or have different flower colors).

Robert


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## Phrag-Plus (Sep 15, 2010)

slippertalker said:


> Or any such cross......Do you consider a value in a selfing of a hybrid cross?



It always depend how we are considering what hybridization is and why we are doing it for. In my opinion, when a cross is registered, we should be able to remake it as it was registered and we should try to improving them buy using superior parents. 

By selfing or sibling them, for me it is a kind of a dead end, unpredictable and less valuable for hybridization they will lead to misidentification and misinterpretation of the parentage in the future hybrids.


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## Kevin (Sep 15, 2010)

Phrag-Plus said:


> By selfing or sibling them, ..... they will lead to misidentification and misinterpretation of the parentage in the future hybrids.



This is what I was thinking when I saw the result. If MDC started to look like that now, and you used it for breeding, you would get a lot of mistaken identity when looking at the plants.


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## Kevin (Sep 15, 2010)

Robert: could you explain in layman's terms how you can cross two flowers that are very similar (as you said in this case) and get a result that is not like either parent? I thought line-breeding is when you took two flowers for example, one with darker colour, and one with larger flowers, and got a result of a larger flower with darker colour. How do you get something completely different?


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## Phrag-Plus (Sep 15, 2010)

Drorchid said:


> I disagree, I just showed that by sibbing two MDC's you get an improvement over either parent. If I were to have two FCC plants of the same hybrid and I would sib them, I would also see an improvement; on average most offspring will be similar to the parents; some will be worse, but you will also be able to select some that will be even better than either parent (have larger flowers, or have different flower colors).
> 
> Robert



For me, by sibling two MDC’s you show me than the result is going to be something between a Jason Fischer and a Jerry Dean Fischer. And I do agree to that!
But what is going to be the improvement in hybridization?
Why not simply use a FCC MDC with a better or an FCC besseae or sargentianum?

By crossing them back with besseae, sorry I will not call it a Jason Fischer anymore… It’s going to be something between a Scarlet O'Hara and MDC…


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## Drorchid (Sep 15, 2010)

Kevin said:


> Robert: could you explain in layman's terms how you can cross two flowers that are very similar (as you said in this case) and get a result that is not like either parent? I thought line-breeding is when you took two flowers for example, one with darker colour, and one with larger flowers, and got a result of a larger flower with darker colour. How do you get something completely different?



Lets assume we are working with diploid (2N) parents. When you create an F1 Hybrid between two species (in this case Memoria Dick Clements is a hybrid between Phrag. besseae and Phrag. sargentianum) you get 50% of the genes from one species and 50 % from the other species. In general most of these F1 plants will look very similar to one another. Even if you recreate the same primary cross using other parents they will still resemble each other. Now what I did was crossing two of these F1 plants together. What you get is segregation of genes and recombination, so instead of a 50/50 split of genes from both species, you can get a whole array of segregation; one plant can be 40/60 while another 55/45 etc. In the case of Mem. Dick Clements, some plants will resemble the sargentianum plant while others will resemble the besseae plant. In the picture I showed of Mem. Dick Clements 'Superior' there are probably more besseae genes that accumulated for flower shape resulting in wider and rounder petals.

Line breeding is just a breeding method that you can either do within a species or within a hybrid grex (this is often done in Phalaenopsis breeding). In this case I could be breeding for flowers that are larger and have rounder petals, but still have the branching charcteristic of sargentianum. from my F2 population I would select the 2 parents that fit these goals the best, and cross them together to create my F3 population, Again within the F3 population I would select for plants that have larger and rounder petals and branch a lot. Again I would cross the 2 best plants to create my F4 population. After each population I would see more plants that have larger and rounder flowers with high flower count per branch. As in each generation I am crossing a Mem. Dick Clements with a Mem. Dick Clements they still would be called Phrag. Mem. Dick Clements.

Robert


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## NYEric (Sep 15, 2010)

Or besseae or sargentianum! :evil:


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## Drorchid (Sep 15, 2010)

Phrag-Plus said:


> For me, by sibling two MDC’s you show me than the result is going to be something between a Jason Fischer and a Jerry Dean Fischer. And I do agree to that!
> But what is going to be the improvement in hybridization?
> Why not simply use a FCC MDC with a better or an FCC besseae or sargentianum?



I agree that would be a good way as well to improve a MDC. The reason I did not do that because I did not have a FCC sargentianum (otherwise I would have) and #2 I have a background in breeding, so just wanted to try out this technique to see if the flowers would improve, and they did! Line Breeding is a technique a lot of breeders, including animal breeders use to improve their lines.



Phrag-Plus said:


> By crossing them back with besseae, sorry I will not call it a Jason Fischer anymore… It’s going to be something between a Scarlet O'Hara and MDC…



Even though it may look like something between a Scarlet O'Hara and a MDC, When I cross a 3rd generation line bred Memoria Dick Clements with a besseae it will still be called a Phrag. Jason Fischer! If we would start calling it something else the rules of naming hybrids would get too complicated. When we originally made Scarlet O'Hara we crossed a 4N besseae with a 2N Jason Fischer, it looked very different from when we crossed a 2N besseae to a 4N Jason Fischer, but they were all 3N Scarlet O'Hara's, just because Jason Fischer x besseae = Scarlet O'Hara.

Robert


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## Kevin (Sep 16, 2010)

Drorchid said:


> Lets assume we are working with diploid (2N) parents. When you create an F1 Hybrid between two species (in this case Memoria Dick Clements is a hybrid between Phrag. besseae and Phrag. sargentianum) you get 50% of the genes from one species and 50 % from the other species. In general most of these F1 plants will look very similar to one another. Even if you recreate the same primary cross using other parents they will still resemble each other. Now what I did was crossing two of these F1 plants together. What you get is segregation of genes and recombination, so instead of a 50/50 split of genes from both species, you can get a whole array of segregation; one plant can be 40/60 while another 55/45 etc. In the case of Mem. Dick Clements, some plants will resemble the sargentianum plant while others will resemble the besseae plant. In the picture I showed of Mem. Dick Clements 'Superior' there are probably more besseae genes that accumulated for flower shape resulting in wider and rounder petals.
> 
> Line breeding is just a breeding method that you can either do within a species or within a hybrid grex (this is often done in Phalaenopsis breeding). In this case I could be breeding for flowers that are larger and have rounder petals, but still have the branching charcteristic of sargentianum. from my F2 population I would select the 2 parents that fit these goals the best, and cross them together to create my F3 population, Again within the F3 population I would select for plants that have larger and rounder petals and branch a lot. Again I would cross the 2 best plants to create my F4 population. After each population I would see more plants that have larger and rounder flowers with high flower count per branch. As in each generation I am crossing a Mem. Dick Clements with a Mem. Dick Clements they still would be called Phrag. Mem. Dick Clements.
> 
> Robert



Yeah, I do get the basics, but I would have thought that you would have started with two plants that had different flowers to get a different result. In the F2 and F3, you would, as you stated, choose the flowers that had the best characteristics that you are looking for in breeding. In the initial cross, is it just luck that you would get a flower with any certain trait? For example, you said that you only got a few of these seedlings to flower, and they were mostly the same. Shouldn't at least a few of them been different - more towards the sargentianum? If you make this same cross again, using the same parents, could you get mostly plants favouring the sargentianum that time?

Also, just curious - do you have any idea how many Phrag or even Paph hybrids have been line-bred? Is it common? I thought most breeders just re-make the cross, like J.P. is saying.


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## Phrag-Plus (Sep 16, 2010)

Kevin said:


> Also, just curious - do you have any idea how many Phrag or even Paph hybrids have been line-bred? Is it common? I thought most breeders just re-make the cross, like J.P. is saying.



As I know, Phragmipedium line breeding was use almost only with species, to my knowledge, only few with primary hybrid. I don’t think many breeders use this method with Phragmipedium crosses. 

Line breeding was use a lot with Paphiopedilum the result is the complex (bulldog).


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## Phrag-Plus (Sep 16, 2010)

Drorchid said:


> I agree that would be a good way as well to improve a MDC. The reason I did not do that because I did not have a FCC sargentianum (otherwise I would have) and #2 I have a background in breeding, so just wanted to try out this technique to see if the flowers would improve, and they did! Line Breeding is a technique a lot of breeders, including animal breeders use to improve their lines.Robert



I can understand the reason and the temptation of doing line breeding, but I’m still convicted than it’s a non suitable avenue in Phragmipediums breeding. But I do agree it is always a question of point of view and conviction.



Drorchid said:


> When I cross a 3rd generation line bred Memoria Dick Clements with a besseae it will still be called a Phrag. Jason Fischer! If we would start calling it something else the rules of naming hybrids would get too complicated.
> Robert



For me a sib cross from a registered hybrid will never get the same rank of the true standard cross. For me a standard is a standard and should stay a standard. And unfortunately they will keep the same name. In the future registration will stay not complicated but identification and recognition of a cross is going to be very difficult.


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## Drorchid (Sep 16, 2010)

Kevin said:


> Yeah, I do get the basics, but I would have thought that you would have started with two plants that had different flowers to get a different result. In the F2 and F3, you would, as you stated, choose the flowers that had the best characteristics that you are looking for in breeding. In the initial cross, is it just luck that you would get a flower with any certain trait? For example, you said that you only got a few of these seedlings to flower, and they were mostly the same. Shouldn't at least a few of them been different - more towards the sargentianum? If you make this same cross again, using the same parents, could you get mostly plants favouring the sargentianum that time?
> 
> Also, just curious - do you have any idea how many Phrag or even Paph hybrids have been line-bred? Is it common? I thought most breeders just re-make the cross, like J.P. is saying.



It is true that initially you start out with two different flowers. In this case it was a Phrag. besseae crossed to a Phrag. sargentianum. In the resulting F1 population (Mem. DIck Clements), the variation between plants is pretty low, and that is why I crossed two of them to get my F2 population. You are right that some of them should have been different, but I think my sample was too small (The initial number of seedlings was small and I think we sold a bunch before I got to see them all bloom).

With Phrag breeding thus far I know it is only done with species, we do it ourselves with our besseae breeding, and I know Terry Root does a lot of line breeding, especially when he bred his besseae's. Frank Smith does a lot of line breeding too, but he does it in mainly with his Paph's (with his leuchochilums he has done more than 8 generations).

Robert


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## Leo Schordje (Sep 16, 2010)

Robert, I am going to repeat what you have said, with a slightly different emphasis. Maybe that will help. 

One's goals determine what crosses you make. If you want a large crop of seedlings that all have very uniform flowers, you make a hybrid, or with a species, an outcross, using unrelated plants. This is the logical cross if you need money for the near future mortgage payment. These plants will sell well. 

If you are breeding for creating a plant with specific traits, for use in your future breeding program, then line breeding (including x self) becomes a good choice. Especially when the plant you are selfing, or the siblings of the same grex that you cross have the best expression of the traits you are after. You have to work with what you have available. This type of cross does not sell as well, and you need to raise a large batch to flowering to select out the best of the bunch. This is a cross that only breeders that are not too worried about making the next mortgage payment can afford to make. 

Line breeding including selfing and sibbing, will pay off several generations down the road. Line breeding was key in creating the big full form with wide dorsal & sepals unifoliate Cattleya. Line breeding also is responsible for modern waterfall Miltoniopsis. Other groups that depended on repeated selfings and line breeding in general include Cymbidium, complex Paphs, and Phalaenopsis. In Phals line breeding is how they stabilized colors, white, pink, yellow, red, 'Hilo Lip', stripes and harlequins. All were improved by line breeding. It is a very important tool in the breeder's bag of tricks. To not use line breeding would be to limit the potential for future improvement. 

Phrag breeding has finally matured enough that it has largely exhausted the primary hybrids. 3rd and 4th generation hybrids are what sell now. Remaking a diploid Eric Young for a commercial firm would simply add to the compost pile. The old primaries don't sell. So now is the time when the tool of line breeding should come into play. You will see many commercial breeders begin line breeding programs if they haven't already started. Robert is one of the very few breeders to share his strategy, most are doing line breeding more quietly. The improvements will be seen in the future, and I for one am looking forward to seeing them.


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## Drorchid (Sep 16, 2010)

Leo Schordje said:


> Robert, I am going to repeat what you have said, with a slightly different emphasis. Maybe that will help.
> 
> One's goals determine what crosses you make. If you want a large crop of seedlings that all have very uniform flowers, you make a hybrid, or with a species, an outcross, using unrelated plants. This is the logical cross if you need money for the near future mortgage payment. These plants will sell well.
> 
> ...



:clap::clap: well said!

Robert


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## slippertalker (Sep 16, 2010)

Sib crossing of Saint Ouen and Hanne Popow type flowers has been done by Terry Root to create versions of this cross in multiple colors ranging from white to yellow to orange to red. He took pale forms sibbed them and came up with a few that were pure white. It seems that this idea has some merit.
Likewise, taking the largest or the best shaped flowers will usually contribute towards an improvement.

In primary type paphs, Maudiae has been made many times as a sib cross especially with the vinicolor version to create much larger vinicolored flowers. Similar efforts have been done with things like Paph Macabre to produce even better versions. Sib crossings have also been made with selected versions of complex paphs of things like Paph Hellas, Winston Churchill, and Lippewunder to make flowers that can be superior to the original cross.


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## KyushuCalanthe (Sep 16, 2010)

Drorchid said:


> hopefully the shape of the Jason Fischer will improve as well!



Unfortunately, as people age they invariably lose quality of their shape....:rollhappy:



> line bred Phrag. M.D. Clements 'Superior':



Indeed, superior in every way!


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## JeanLux (Sep 17, 2010)

KyushuCalanthe said:


> Unfortunately, as people age they invariably lose quality of their shape....:rollhappy:
> 
> *Indeed, superior in every way*!



Very interesting discussion, thanks!!!! As to this result I completely agree with Tom!!!! Jean


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## Phrag-Plus (Sep 17, 2010)

Leo Schordje said:


> Robert, I am going to repeat what you have said, with a slightly different emphasis. Maybe that will help.
> 
> One's goals determine what crosses you make. If you want a large crop of seedlings that all have very uniform flowers, you make a hybrid, or with a species, an outcross, using unrelated plants. This is the logical cross if you need money for the near future mortgage payment. These plants will sell well.
> 
> ...



I’m agreeing with you than line breeding was and still an important and very effective methods to improve hybridization in species, families of orchids, daylilies, roses etc…. 
I’m still believe it is an effective method when the flowers share similarities in forms, structures, chromosomes count etc… 

As you said, It could be a mercantile way to do some breeding but I’m still uncomfortable to see MDC ‘Superior’ when it is a X MDC.


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## Ernie (Sep 17, 2010)

Phrag-Plus said:


> but I’m still uncomfortable to see MDC ‘Superior’ when it is a X MDC.



IMO it's the seller's/hybridizer's responsibility to announce this on the plant's name tag as (MDC X sib) or (MDC 'X' X MDC 'Y') etc. And good luck having the hybrid registration rules changed!


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## Drorchid (Sep 17, 2010)

Ernie said:


> IMO it's the seller's/hybridizer's responsibility to announce this on the plant's name tag as (MDC X sib) or (MDC 'X' X MDC 'Y') etc. And good luck having the hybrid registration rules changed!



Question for you as a Judge, when you enter a plant like this, one of things you have to enter are the parents of the plant shown. In this case are you saying you should enter it as MDC 'X' X MDC 'Y'? I always was under the impression that you had to enter the parent species (or hybrid/s) of the "grex" cross, so as Phrag. Mem. Dick Clements is considered besseae x sargentianum, that is what you enter for the parent species. Don't get me wrong, I would think it would be better to enter MDC 'X' X MDC 'Y', so the judges know it is a sib cross instead of an F1 hybrid, and can judge accordingly.

Robert


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## Phrag-Plus (Sep 17, 2010)

Ernie said:


> IMO it's the seller's/hybridizer's responsibility to announce this on the plant's name tag as (MDC X sib) or (MDC 'X' X MDC 'Y') etc. And good luck having the hybrid registration rules changed!



Completely agreeing with you! 
MDC x sib will be correct for me... Or MDC x sib 'superior' . 

This may be seems a kind of touchy for certain persons, maybe less for others but we should keep a minimum of rigor for the next generation of breeders an hybridization.


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## slippertalker (Sep 17, 2010)

MDC will usually be shown as the original grex, not the reverse cross or a sibling cross. That seems to be a fault of the judging system, but it is true of the hybrid registration system also. If I was on a team that judged such a plant, I would note in the description that it was from a sibling cross.

There are historical problems also with RHS registrations especially when "special" forms of species are used in hybridization. They are not noted even though it is obvious that different forms create different progeny. It is too late to go back......


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## Shiva (Sep 17, 2010)

slippertalker said:


> MDC will usually be shown as the original grex, not the reverse cross or a sibling cross. That seems to be a fault of the judging system, but it is true of the hybrid registration system also. If I was on a team that judged such a plant, I would note in the description that it was from a sibling cross.
> 
> There are historical problems also with RHS registrations especially when "special" forms of species are used in hybridization. They are not noted even though it is obvious that different forms create different progeny. It is too late to go back......



Now why is it too late to go back? Maybe it's too late for older hybrids but why shouldn't we change the rules of nomination now that we know better? The whole orchid nomenclature field has been in flux for years. The astronomer Copernic put the Sun at the center of the Solar System two thousand years after the Greeks claimed the Earth was at the center. There were many who didn't want to move on but they had to anyway. :viking:


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## Drorchid (Sep 17, 2010)

slippertalker said:


> MDC will usually be shown as the original grex, not the reverse cross or a sibling cross. That seems to be a fault of the judging system, but it is true of the hybrid registration system also. If I was on a team that judged such a plant, I would note in the description that it was from a sibling cross.
> 
> There are historical problems also with RHS registrations especially when "special" forms of species are used in hybridization. They are not noted even though it is obvious that different forms create different progeny. It is too late to go back......



Actually when you have a special "form" of a species, ore even of a hybrid (say a 4N plant, or a different colored form like the new coerulea violaceae's) and you recreate an old hybrid the RHS will give it a "sub grex" below the regular grex. For instance when Rob from Saphire Orchids crossed Phal. equestris var cyanochilus X Phal. violacea coerulea the RHS considiered it to be different enough from the regular Equaleceae to give it the new sub grex: Sapphire's Indigo Equalacea, so plants from this cross are known as Phal. Equalecea subgrex Sapphire's Indigo Equalacea.

Robert


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## Drorchid (Sep 17, 2010)

Shiva said:


> Now why is it too late to go back? Maybe it's too late for older hybrids but why shouldn't we change the rules of nomination now that we know better? The whole orchid nomenclature field has been in flux for years. The astronomer Copernic put the Sun at the center of the Solar System two thousand years after the Greeks claimed the Earth was at the center. There were many who didn't want to move on but they had to anyway. :viking:



I agree :clap: :clap: , but like mentioned above the RHS has made changes for new crosses.

Robert


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## slippertalker (Sep 17, 2010)

Drorchid said:


> I agree :clap: :clap: , but like mentioned above the RHS has made changes for new crosses.
> 
> Robert



While perhaps clarity is created on one hand, naming different versions of the same cross with different grex names will also cause confusion down the road as taxonomy changes. It is sort of a catch-22, and there is no way to change the past. It is an imperfect system with no simple way of fixing changes as they happen, but it is the best (and only) system we have.

I have more problems with name changes that are based on taxonomy that is unsettled and not given a bit of time to gain a bit more solidity.


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## Ernie (Sep 17, 2010)

Drorchid said:


> Question for you as a Judge, when you enter a plant like this, one of things you have to enter are the parents of the plant shown. In this case are you saying you should enter it as MDC 'X' X MDC 'Y'? I always was under the impression that you had to enter the parent species (or hybrid/s) of the "grex" cross, so as Phrag. Mem. Dick Clements is considered besseae x sargentianum, that is what you enter for the parent species. Don't get me wrong, I would think it would be better to enter MDC 'X' X MDC 'Y', so the judges know it is a sib cross instead of an F1 hybrid, and can judge accordingly.
> 
> Robert



Yes, the entry sheet provides space for the parents. I'd put MDC 'X' and MDC 'Y' instead of bess x sarg. Neither is technically wrong, but if you do bess x sarg, the chances of the judges saying "this isn't a MDC" and sending it away is higher. 

A reminder for judges- check the tag in the pot versus the entry form.


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