sooo...if I were to buy a roth...

Here's the thing,
I only have room for one of these and I just want to see these impossibly large 30+ cm flowers for myself. I don't really care about form or potential awardability all that much ( I'm mostly after cultural awards). With that in mind, (and I know it's the luck of the draw...) what are some suggested crosses that you guys think are most likely to get gigantic flowers?

Anything with awarded parents, especially recent awards, are pretty safe bets. Check out some of Orchid Inn's crosses, can't go wrong there. Otherwise I'd say you get lucky once in a blue moon on eBay. Parkside should also have some older BS plants, last time I checked. Then again, Orchid Zone has some pretty desirable crosses at good prices, big BS and NBS plants.

All the modern breeding roths should have the potential to get big flowers. Avoid older crosses like Charles E x Borneo (which was nevertheless a beautiful cross ) and also stay away from the Green Valley x Dou Fang cross that is everywhere (just poor quality flowers).

It is a numbers game in terms of which plants will have the biggest flowers, so get at least a few NBS or BS plants. If you don't have room you can sell off ones you don't like after they bloom out.

It will be a few years until you see a spike, and first flowerings will likely have 25cm NS flowers. It may then take another 5-6 more years for the plant to get really mature and clump to put out flowers to its full potential.

Does your area have an Orchid Society? You will occasionally see roths displayed at orchid shows and some greenhouse growers can get huge flowers on them.

Orchid Zone has been selling their BS and NBS plants on ebay. Orchid Inn has great breeding in seedling size.

This question has a really easy answer for me, orchid zone crosses with Rex x mm in the backround. Or a TON cross with tarantula in it not crossed back to mm. Don't get any line breeding that goes back to mm again (since you are mainly concerned with size), you don't have to worry about this with oz breeding. KS breeding with crystelle or Samantha which is really just oz breeding.

Tarantula ns39, d=7.5

Yes, a newer cross, which supposedly are easier to bloom.
What about something really close, like Gary Romagna (roth x st. swithin (rothx phillip))? These would be much easier to bloom (and maybe cheaper).

I got myself one of these: http://www.carterandholmes.com/Merc..._Code=8942/25&Category_Code=1240-Ladyslippers It was cheap and thus a good subject for experimentation. If you haven't grown these types of Paphs then I would suggest starting cheap (and maybe with several plants). If you have success, then trade up for a more expensive cross.

Thanks for all your help everyone! This gives me a pretty good idea of what to go for.

paphioland said:

Tarantula ns39, d=7.5

Click to expand...

*raises eyebrow* that's a heck of a flower! As I have said many a time before in my life, I think I'd need to see that next to a ruler .
Do you know if the growers were doing anything special to get it that big? Or is it simply a case of a mature plant...

That is debatable. I think a well grown Roth on a single growth and a start can get close to maximum potential, with five flowers but it needs to have very good culture. Most of us don't have that. So multiple growths help. But 4-5 flowers 30 ns? You can get that with a single growth. Cutting spikes, heavy nitrogen and warm preventing blooming for a season, heavy watering, these things all make very small differences if your culture is good. If your culture is poor they can make significant differences. If you need multiple growths to get an impressive flower on a known great Roth the culture is not ideal.

Hrmm, interesting. I can't really say if my culture is great or not, too soon to tell. I do know that my st swithin put out 7 new roots and added almost 3" to its newest leaf in one month, so I guess I'm doing sort of okay...

All good advice.

I would certainly endorse: "Avoid older crosses like Charles E x Borneo (which was nevertheless a beautiful cross ) and also stay away from the Green Valley x Dou Fang cross that is everywhere (just poor quality flowers)."

Charles E X Borneo was a real advance years ago, but some people are still hawking these as cutting edge on EBAY or elsewhere. I don't know what Dou Fang means, in Chinese, but insert joke here ____.

Paphiolands comments on modern breeding lines are correct. [we appreciate the kind words from everyone, and we endorse TON breeding for sure!]

FYI, if you want a flowered plant for a good price, we have been selling some large past bloomed plants or plants in flower for a very good price on EBAY. We put them up as they come along, so keep watching. Some of these flowers are large and would have been awardable 10-15 years ago. And in fact still could be at a lenient judging center. Our goal is to only keep the best ones in order to advance the lines. For good ones, see our FB page.

On unbloomed plants we are only selling seedlings that have a few years to go. We don't sell blooming sized: we figure that we grew them for 10-12 years, we might as well see them flower. And we can sell top ones for top $.