Paphiopedilum The Last Empress (just registered!)

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spujr said:
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.
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I tend to agree with you. Why not just line breed the species? You can enhance traits like long petals, wider dorsals, or dark color, and have the added bonus of increasing vigor by selecting plants that can grow, bloom, and set seed in culture. This plant is beautifully grown and flowered, but I’ve seen quite a bit of complex multi breeding the last few years, and I’m genuinely curious what the goal is with these complex lines and repeated backcrosses?
 
NEslipper said:
I tend to agree with you. Why not just line breed the species? You can enhance traits like long petals, wider dorsals, or dark color, and have the added bonus of increasing vigor by selecting plants that can grow, bloom, and set seed in culture. This plant is beautifully grown and flowered, but I’ve seen quite a bit of complex multi breeding the last few years, and I’m genuinely curious what the goal is with these complex lines and repeated backcrosses?
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I would have thought you would get increased vigour more quickly going down this hybrid route. I would be interested to know how vigorous this plant is in relation to a straight sanderianum.
 
NEslipper said:
I tend to agree with you. Why not just line breed the species? You can enhance traits like long petals, wider dorsals, or dark color, and have the added bonus of increasing vigor by selecting plants that can grow, bloom, and set seed in culture. This plant is beautifully grown and flowered, but I’ve seen quite a bit of complex multi breeding the last few years, and I’m genuinely curious what the goal is with these complex lines and repeated backcrosses?
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Agreed! It’s hard to beat the beauty of a pure sanderianum as seen with the recents posts here,
 
emydura said:
I would have thought you would get increased vigour more quickly going down this hybrid route. I would be interested to know how vigorous this plant is in relation to a straight sanderianum.
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This plant bloomed within 2 years in captivity lol. My pure sanderianum multigrowth division from the AQ batch hasn’t bloomed in 5-7 years lol. So there’s that 😂.
 
DrLeslieEe said:
This plant bloomed within 2 years in captivity lol. My pure sanderianum multigrowth division from the AQ batch hasn’t bloomed in 5-7 years lol. So there’s that 😂.
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It all depends on how big/old the seedling is to start with. Leslie might have to be a little bit more clear about that...I guess your sanderianum was a multi-growth division when you got it(if I understand it right)... Do you have some photos to share? Is it still in your collection?
Paph. sanderianum will take ~10 years to bloom from de-flasking in general, my tiny seedling took 11 years, and my Shin-Yi Sanders did not increase the vigor(compared to my sanderianum) and took 12-13 years to bloom(although I had neglected it for some time).
 
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I received the sandie division as an old bloomed growth with a baby growth. Now it’s got 2 mature medium growths and two baby growths.

Presently it’s offsite with Andrew next to the TLE hoping it can bloom next to the great grandchild 😛.
 
I didn't read your post carefully last night...sorry I misunderstood your comment on your sanderianum. I thought you said you had bloomed your sanderianum in 5-7 year. A couple of drinks at night didn't help....
 
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spujr said:
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)
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Strangely no, it is more airy with pure rockwool
The air space between the cubes is enormous... and you must not pack/press the cubes, as well as repot with soaking wet cubes. That makes them 'harder', then you repot with that, flush, and done...

perlite will fill the spaces between the cubes, after all, so it is more compact.
 
Roth said:
Strangely no, it is more airy with pure rockwool
The air space between the cubes is enormous... and you must not pack/press the cubes, as well as repot with soaking wet cubes. That makes them 'harder', then you repot with that, flush, and done...

perlite will fill the spaces between the cubes, after all, so it is more compact.
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Thank you for sharing your experience, this is really helpful, I can already see some mistakes I made in my first attempted use.

Do you use the same size rockwool cubes for all growth stages of plants? This is a picture of the size I got and wondering if it needs to be bigger to allow more air space:
 

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spujr said:
Thank you for sharing your experience, this is really helpful, I can already see some mistakes I made in my first attempted use.

Do you use the same size rockwool cubes for all growth stages of plants? This is a picture of the size I got and wondering if it needs to be bigger to allow more air space:
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Yes, soak them in water, and repot with the soaking wet cubes. Never repot with dry/drier cubes, otherwise it is easy to break or compact them....
 

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