How/where I grow them

[rbedard]

I am located in the Santa Cruz mountains at about 700 feet elevation, about 7 miles from Monterey Bay. I have a run-down fiberglass greenhouse that used to be used to grow cacti and succulents. It's 6000 square feet, but I have about 1000 square feet enclosed with greenhouse poly where I grow the Paphs. I have about half that much space in the feral portion of the greenhouse where I grow Neof, Cymbidiums and a few other outdoor types.

When I switched to slippers, I also dropped the constant feed inorganic fertilizer model and went to organic fertilizer and a lot more plain water. I provide sub-optimal care; I have awarded and awardable plants, but because of my cultural compromises (very low carbon footprint) I am not flowering them to their potential. That's really only a problem for my ego, and I can live with that. They are still great plants.

My lowest winter nighttime temp this last winter was 34F, but the high 40's and low 50's are more typical. I have a couple trays of Mount Toro that didn't get any cold damage this last winter; but they aren't really happy. Those used to flower for me every year when I heated. No more stonei, and it's hybrids aren't all that happy. Parvis seem to do quite well. Also have a bunch of Michael Koopowitz that I haven't seen flower since I turned off the heat.

But there's always something cool in flower.

 

[cnycharles]

Hello Robert, no longer growing phals? Welcome! (I also grow much fewer phals)

 

[rbedard]

I still have few Phalaenopsis, but the warm-loving ones are being grown as house plants. Greenhouse is mostly slippers. Just bought a few Phalaenopsis stud plants and have a handful of things I couldn't live without nor kill. LOL No chattaladae, but still have some cool stuff. Am planning to clean up some spreads of really cool stuff that have been languishing for the last 5 years, and make a (very) few new crosses. But no aspirations to be a commercial nursery or a driving force of any kind. Just KISS.

 

[Paphman910]

Welcome to the forum Robert!

Loved your Phal site on the red form of Phal cornu-ceri var chattalade.

 

[Justin]

welcome!!!

 

[Daniel Herrera]

Welcome!

 

[rbedard]

Welcome to the forum Robert!

Loved your Phal site on the red form of Phal cornu-ceri var chattalade.

Thanks. Another highly visible failure of mine, LOL. Very long and mostly boring story behind all that. Very unflattering to a couple people, so the tale remains untold. Nothing surprising really, just human nature stuff.

 

[NYEric]

Photos!

 

[rbedard]

Photos!

Yes, I love to share photos. I need a good ftp app for Android in order to do so with this forum. Anyone have any suggestions? (I like to upload to my webserver and link to them there; my DSL is highly unreliable, so I am doing most of my webbing on an Android phone.)

 

[naoki]

I'm glad that you joined here, Robert! Similar to Paphman, I really enjoyed your info about P. cc chatalade (as well as your informative web site)! Is the site gone? I hope you can bring back the info again. As a related note, do you have any idea what's going on with this cross by any chance?

https://lab.troymeyers.com/flasking/item.php?kind=flask&id=TN6337
Somehow, David Grove's cross: Phalaenopsis cornu-cervi fma. chattaladae 'Orchidgrove' × sib 'Chinainthorn' made flava form, but the reciprocal cross is all like chatalade.

 

[rbedard]

naoki:

The chattaladae site is physically on the same server; unfortunately, not only did I allow the chattaladae domain to expire, but I also allowed the top level domain on that server to expire, so there is no way to get to the site via http. It's not insurmountable to fix, but it's a hassle. I will probably move it to my namesake domain under my orchid site eventually.

Regarding the flava chattaladae . . . there are two obvious (and both problematic) explanations. One is somebody somewhere along the line got the seed mixed up. I don't think that is very probable given that David Grove had a specific interest in chattaladae, not cornu-cervi, and the folks at Troy Meyers deal with a lot of seed without mixing it up. I have personally handled dozens of species from that lab and have never received the wrong plants.

That leaves what may be the most troubling explanation. Christensen was in favor of a broad concept for cornu-cervi: it's a variable species with a pretty wide range. 'Pravit Chattalada' flowers with white regions on the inside halves of the lateral sepals; not always solid red. 'Anduril' one of the two plants I acquired from Grove, often flowered with the tips of the tepal yellow; again not solid red. 'Memoria Keith Shaffer' was the darker flower, but it too would occasionally show yellow tips. Other times, all 3 cvs would have solid red flowers. In my opinion, heat wss a factor.

I am not a taxonomist. I am a horticulturist and breeder and that makes me inherently a "splitter". I like having terms for special forms. I liked seeing chattaladae published as a form. Color forms can be very surprising when you start to shuffle their genetics. LOL

So, is solid red cornu-cervi really solid red? Well, sometimes. Most of the time. But if the pigment system is unstable, you have to wonder how well that characteristic is going to hold up when you start shuffling the genes.

I really wish I knew more about the flava chattaladae, but I don't. This is really the first I have heard about it. But I have definitely noticed they are not always solid red and still might fit into Christensen's broad concept of cornu-cervi.

/end off topic diatribe

 

[naoki]

Thank you very much for your deep insight, Robert! I got one seedling of the cross from Troy, but it is somewhat a slow grower. If it is not contamination as you mentioned, it indicates non-nuclear (e.g. chloroplast) inheritance is involved in this particular example of flava.

I hope that you'll bring the content back to your domain!

 

[rbedard]

Hesitant to go into too much detail on off-topic stuff, but since red in Phalaenopsis is basically the right balance of yellow and violet pigments, maybe the one parent is simply "breaking" the anthocyanin pigment system, leaving yellow flowered progeny?