crossing of 1st flower

[naoki]

Do you avoid using the paphs with a single growth as a maternal parent? Or is it better to wait for the plants to have multiple growths? Fruiting would be an extra stress, and I'm sure the first time flowering plant is likely to handle it. But I don't know how much it will delay the subsequent growth.

 

[Roy]

Definitely not a good idea to use a single growth plant to hold a pod. Regardless of how well the plant seems to be growing, the strain can be too much & the plant will die. Its not in every case but from personal experience, not worth the risk.

 

[naoki]

Thanks, Roy! That's what I thought.... How many growths would be enough to hold a fruit? I guess that this is not a simple question because different species or condition of the plants would influence the risk factor. In general, how do you all decide to start breeding a particular individual? Number of growths? Number of years after the first blooming?

 

[Rick]

I just read a study on how much photosynthesis goes on in the flower stems and seed capsules of orchids.

It's a net positive meaning that seed capsules produce there own growth, and do not "strain" a plant for resources it would be putting into something else.

Even flower production provides virtually no stress to the plant, as the stem is providing most of the resources to produce the flower.

If the roots are in good shape, there should be no reason not to have the plant do fine by breeding it. I do it frequently with no problems.

However, a blooming plant is not necessarily blooming because it is in peak health. It could be blooming due to stress (bad roots, poor conditions in the potting mix, ....) and trying to reproduce in a last ditch effort to get its genes into the next generation. Without intervention, this plant will probably die regardless of whether or not you breed it. The fact that it bloomed in the first place is a symptom of a pending problem.

So I get nervous about young small plants blooming on single growths and start checking to see what is "stressing" the plant into blooming prematurely in the first place. However, plenty of paphs normally don't make new growths until after a blooming cycle, and if plant size and roots are good, the plant will support capsules and new growths just fine.

You might check out my thread on EC and pot management. I haven't been doing this long enough to get a good correlation, but I'm betting that premature blooming will correlate to high fertilizer buildup in a pot in many of these cases, where blooming or breeding "causes death".

 

[Ross]

Putting the stressing the plant issue aside, another Paph breeder I talked to doesn't use single growth plants because he claims the seed production is poor. Personally, I like to let the plant get bigger so I can more fairly assess the flower quality as first bloom plants sometimes don't show the full potential of a flower.

 

[naoki]

Thank you for sharing your experiences, Rick and Ross. It is interesting that some orchids can fully compensate by photosynthesis in capsules and stems. This resource compensation has been debated for a while, but in many plants (mostly non-orchids), fruiting is still a resource sink, and they usually don't get complete compensation. But I'm sure different plants do different things. Also, it's a good point that many plants could do suicidal flowering when they are completely stressed out. I can see that this could lead to the belief that breeding causes death.

It is generally true that plants aren't stupid, and they don't waste energy. This is a little bit dangerous, pan-adaptationist statement... But a healthy plants should be flowering when they are ready to mature fruits, as Rick said. On the other hand, a lot of orchids are artificially "selected", and "stupidity" may have selected via indirect selection. In other words, breeders have been unintentionally selecting for early flowering. So the plants which flowers early without enough supporting system could have been selected. This is the reason I wanted to ask this question about the experiences of other breeders.

If this is true, then what Ross's friend mentioned could make sense. Seeds from the first flower could have less resource allocated, so the viability/germination rate could be lower. But on the other hand, it is a little puzzling because I thought orchid seeds are so small that they basically don't have lots of resource embedded to each seed from its mom.

 

[Rick]

But on the other hand, it is a little puzzling because I thought orchid seeds are so small that they basically don't have lots of resource embedded to each seed from its mom.

This is true. This is a similar scale of resource allocation as sperm production for human males (incidental).

Orchid seed has no starch/food for the embryo attached. The biomass of seed in a capsule is a relatively small fraction of the total weight of the capsule, which is made up of photosynthetic ovary material.

Putting on a capsule of seed (for orchids) is energetically no different than growing another leaf.

 

[Rick]

The preference to produce clumps of growths is also highly variable from species to species (even different populations of the same species). We see lots of in situ pics depicting colonies of isolated single growths of adult plants.

The barbata (as a group) seem to get the most comments "I never have more than 1 flowering growth at a time". So in these cases you may never get the chance to have a multigrowth plant to breed.

Ultimately it just depends on your purpose for breeding.

 

[naoki]

That's true, the number of growths may not be a good representation of their maturity for some species. Are these species in more ephemeral habitats? I'm wondering if they are more r-selected (instead of K-selected). Basically, r-selected species are usually "weed" like strategy. They hit newly opened habitats (e.g. due to disturbance) and reproduce there quickly before they get competed out by more robust species. Or from a different perspective, they put more effort to current reproduction over survival and future reproduction.

The purpose of breeding for me is mostly to observe all sides of orchid biolog y. Unlike most people here, I'm not interested in artificial selection so much. I would rather breed the ones which shows more natural forms than what AOS considers "beautiful". Homogeneous artificial selection (e.g. big flowers) will dramatically reduce the effective population sizes.

 

[Rick]

That's true, the number of growths may not be a good representation of their maturity for some species. Are these species in more ephemeral habitats? I'm wondering if they are more r-selected (instead of K-selected). Basically, r-selected species are usually "weed" like strategy. They hit newly opened habitats (e.g. due to disturbance) and reproduce there quickly before they get competed out by more robust species. Or from a different perspective, they put more effort to current reproduction over survival and future reproduction.

The purpose of breeding for me is mostly to observe all sides of orchid biolog y. Unlike most people here, I'm not interested in artificial selection so much. I would rather breed the ones which shows more natural forms than what AOS considers "beautiful". Homogeneous artificial selection (e.g. big flowers) will dramatically reduce the effective population sizes.

Nutrients are in short supply and under fierce competition in the rainforest. Plus whether on the side of a cliff, tree, or in constantly degrading/recycling leaf litter, orchids (including paphs) are in sparse and dynamic conditions. The nature of the seed, reliance on mychorizal association, deceptive pollination (rather than sugar reward for pollination), supports the position that orchids are masters of living on the fringe, and living on minimal resources.

My main goal in breeding is a combination of conservation and knowledge acquisition. But I don't mind having nice award quality flowers, and since I'm not planning on repatriating orchids in the wild, the more I produce (and distribute) of desirable flowers, I figure, the less need to come out of the wild. Have you checked out the Meyers Conservancy? I only breed species and Troy Meyers does my flasking. Until you start doing your own flasking, this is a good way to start learning more about the orchid life cycle, and doing your own breeding.

 

[naoki]

My main goal in breeding is a combination of conservation and knowledge acquisition. But I don't mind having nice award quality flowers, and since I'm not planning on repatriating orchids in the wild, the more I produce (and distribute) of desirable flowers, I figure, the less need to come out of the wild. Have you checked out the Meyers Conservancy? I only breed species and Troy Meyers does my flasking. Until you start doing your own flasking, this is a good way to start learning more about the orchid life cycle, and doing your own breeding.

Both you are I have a similar goal (I guess that's because both of us are biologists). That is a good point which I haven't thought of: I guess general public (even most species enthusiasts) would prefers award quality flowers. But for some species, I can't stop thinking why these "deformed"/dysfunctional flowers should be awarded (well, I know that big, flat, round things seem to appeal to many people). For example, disproportionately large dorsals (e.g. selected P. charlesoworthii) doesn't look so natural to me. Or dorsal sepals which are probably meant to prevent accumulation of water in the lip don't work any more. Maybe I'm the only weird one.

Yes, I've been in Meyer's Flask reserve list. I managed to get only 1 flask previously. I do like his philosophy and contribution. It is a great way to distribute plants and keep unpopular species in cultivation. I'm just starting to "think" about reproductive part of orchid biology, so the real thing probably won't happen for a while. But it's likely that I'll send seeds to him. I do need to experience flasking by myself at least a couple times, though.