Weak Phrag cross?

[NYEric]

Of the 8 phrags I've lost in the past 3 years, 3 of them have been Phrag Prissy [St. Ouen x besseae]. That includes now my 2nd Peach one that I worked so hard to find! A few of the others that I lost were tiny baby plants so I can understand that; but the Prissy's I lost when they got what were apparently fungal problems and didn't have any Dragon's Blood on hand in time to treat them. Is it possible that the cross, by being 3/4 besseae, is like a weak plant? If I can find another peach one I'll send it to OL or somebody to grow; and I may get some more red ones from HP Norton but I'm really leery of this cross now. I also remember that the blooms are really short lived. I would also like to know if anyone else has had problems w/ this cross.

 

[Leo Schordje]

Before you blame the breeder, are you sure it is not your culture? oke:

Some line bred hybrids, when repeatedly back crossed into the same species, or even the same clone of a species, may exhibit a lack of vigor. More common in mamalian systems - think inbred dogs. Miltoniopsis went through a problem like this, largely cured by Komoda's genius in creating Milt Hajimi Ono.

You are dealiing with more than one breeder's version of Prissy, it may not be a genetic problem related to the clones used. It may be your culture.

 

[NYEric]

Well, I grow in hydro and I would think the besseae would like that. I've only lost 8/165 plants in 3 years so I think the culture is fairly decent. Maybe I'll try them drier, I found my Phrag Aurora [Flying Fortress x besseae] didn't like hydro and when I moved it, it recovered. PS, I would never blame a breeder of anything except not letting out enough of a cross, to me, at a good price. How else am I going to feed my addiction!

 

[Roy]

I would tend to disagree with you Leo to a certain extent on the Breeder issue. I have known so called Orchid breeders to want to get in on the money stakes by breeding particular lines of Orchids that are the flavour of the minute and use parents that are far from quality clones. Any pics of the plants are possibly substitutes for the real thing. This may not be the case for Eric but things do happen.