Also I forgot to mention, the curvature and angle of the dorsal is very unique in sandies. See the difference between the two?
Paphiopedilum The Last Empress (just registered!)
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Tom-DE
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I didn't pay that much attention to that...maybe the dorsal of the hybrid is a little bit more upright
Sorry my mistake. On second check through awards, the average of petal lengths of SY Sanders was 50 cm. So yours was right on the award level of petal length.
Petal lenght on the hybrids is related as well to pot size and the root system heavily. Some nurseries to extend the petal lenght of sands and the hybrids put them in a saucer of water when the spikes appear. A more elegant approach is to kind of overpot them in much bigger pot, minimum 21cm diameter for a normal plant, and root them in that. Rockwool does wonder too.
If the plant roots dry for a couple hours from the time the spikes emerge, you loose a couple cm or more each time of petal lenght.
If the plant roots dry for a couple hours from the time the spikes emerge, you loose a couple cm or more each time of petal lenght.
Good to know and thanks for the tip.
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Does this also work on other species? Like to make the petal span of a roth wider, let it sit in water at the time of spike?
To some extent it does. It makes complex paphs have rounder flowers too... If the plant cannot suck up water when the flower bud, that expands fast, forms and develops, it can change the size, and the roundness/flatness of the flowers to some extent.
Tom-DE
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Do you start that when it is in spike or when the flower buds are about to open? We are talking about weeks vs a week or days...I just wonder if it might hurt the plant letting it sit in extra water for weeks.
I do not do it myself, that's why I use rockwool, and before I was keeping the potting mix always wet. As well I am not always interested in making artificial stuff, because the customers are supposed to bloom the plants more or less like I do, after all...
But otherwise it has to start when it is in spike indeed... until the flowers are opened. Weeks for sure. There are many tricks in fact used, even the Cattleya torture tools on Complex Paphiopedilum, on top of keeping the potting mix ultrawet.
At a point, many Taiwanese got awards/larger flowers because they were growing their plants in tightly packed sphagnum moss, that was kept wet to extra wet from the spike coming until the blooming. More recently, they did switch to stone/bark based mixes however....
On a Phalaenopsis, tightly packed sphagnum moss kept moist to wet makes flowers about 20% bigger than if a bark based mix dries out... There are more flowers per spike too. Paphiopedilum are no exception.
Actually, I have a few Maudiae types from Paph Paradise, like Petula's Paradise now established as clumps in rockwool that are on doing their third flower on a spike, in succession. All related to the rockwool and water availability.
Roth, are you using Rockwool alone?
Tony, that's the backside of the coin and lots of hobbyists won't see a differnce to a pure sandie.
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Yes pure 1cm cubes rockwool. Mixing them changes the capillarity, and it is not constant in a large greenhouse, so pure 1cm cubes is the most constant from pot to pot.
They are already widely around as of now... If you bloom 20-30 from a 'seedling batch', you can spot that they are all hybrids. Otherwise, carefully selecting individuals in bloom, like Vietnamense, and there is no way to know... except if you self it and grow the progeny, and even so, generation after generation it will be more and more difficult.
There is another nearly extinct variety which is hennissianum var. album. Most of the ones sold are Maudiae hybrids, and that's easy to figure out. The original hennissianum album, like fowlei album, give colored flowers when crossed with albinos Maudiae. They were slow growing, and very hard to keep alive back then. Any of the 'easier' growing hennissianum album gives albino progeny when crossed with albino Maudiae, simply because they are crosses of albino Maudiae...
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Interesting. I recently just tried a perlite-rockwool mix on my roths given the success some here have had, but I'm very concerned about the plants having enough oxygen in the root zone. I can't imagine just pure rockwool, I'm guessing the pots must be very porous and you have a lot of airflow in the greenhouse.
(Sorry Leslie for taking your thread on a tangent topic)
Tom-DE
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I would not worry about highjack that much...I think Leslie has thick skin on him.
In my opinion, the success(feasible or not) of this method has a lot to do with the growing conditions. The environment of a huge greenhouse is very different from an indoor growing setup or a small "greenhouse" with minimum equipment, I am talking about all the factors here...like growing medium(organic/inorganic), rh, air movement, temperatures all of that. I don't let my plants(especially Paphs) dry out completely normally and I do keep the flowering plants moist/with a little bit more water, but sitting in water for weeks may not be wise for my current growing condition.
In my opinion, the success(feasible or not) of this method has a lot to do with the growing conditions. The environment of a huge greenhouse is very different from an indoor growing setup or a small "greenhouse" with minimum equipment, I am talking about all the factors here...like growing medium(organic/inorganic), rh, air movement, temperatures all of that. I don't let my plants(especially Paphs) dry out completely normally and I do keep the flowering plants moist/with a little bit more water, but sitting in water for weeks may not be wise for my current growing condition.
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Dr. Ee is a champ!
Sorry for the further hijack; what in the world are Cattleya torture tools?
Sorry for the further hijack; what in the world are Cattleya torture tools?
I do have thick skin lol. I’m diplomatically trained in international schools in my youth lol.
A good discussion where we exchange ideas and learnings are fantastic!
Is there anyway to get this cross in seedlings or NBS? I absolutely love it, not perfect but I really don't care.
Congrats and very nice clone! The flower looks basically like a pure sand (haven't seen the stripe on the pouch before but wonder if it would be consistent across other plants in this gex). The non-wavy leaves show the phil influence.
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I think the flower/plant is very nice, and special kudos for maintaining the honesty of the pedigree when it would be really easy to pass it off as another sanderianum.
That said, I feel like background doesn't really add to the breeding. I'm not a judge and this is just my opinion, but IF someone was trying to be sneaky and pass it off as a pure species, it would not win any rewards. There is probably a level of hybrid vigor/ease of growth not captured in a photo here that could translate to larger flowers, but that is about it. Again, just my opinion.
Now something like a sanderianum x anitum BC2 I could see adding better quality than what you would find in either parents.
That said, I feel like background doesn't really add to the breeding. I'm not a judge and this is just my opinion, but IF someone was trying to be sneaky and pass it off as a pure species, it would not win any rewards. There is probably a level of hybrid vigor/ease of growth not captured in a photo here that could translate to larger flowers, but that is about it. Again, just my opinion.
Now something like a sanderianum x anitum BC2 I could see adding better quality than what you would find in either parents.
