Phrag. Mem. Dick Clements sib cross

[Drorchid]

I decided to sib two of our Phrag. Mem. Dick Clements. The offspring turned out to have much better shaped flowers with wider petals; it almost looks like a Jason Fischer:

One of the parents (the other parent looked very similar):

Robert

 

[nikv]

Very nice, Robert! :clap:

 

[NYEric]

Yay besseae hybrids!

 

[SlipperFan]

That's interesting. Why, if both parents look so similar, does their offspring have wider segments?

 

[smartie2000]

Nice improvement on the petal shape, very interesting!

 

[Yoyo_Jo]

I like the chubbier offspring. :clap:

 

[John M]

Well, that cross was a good decision. Nice improvement!

 

[P-chan]

Awesome bloom! I can see the difference and it's good! Beautiful! :clap:

 

[SlipperKing]

another nice one!

 

[Hien]

It seems that this particular flower doubles the dose of besseae

 

[NYEric]

Certainly looks like a ploidy change.

 

[Drorchid]

No, it has nothing to do with Ploidy change. The F1 cross (First generation cross), is straight besseae x sargentianum, so your offspring will look intermediate between the two parents. Usually all the offspring in the F1 generation look pretty similar and you do not have too much variation from plant to plant. If you sib 2 plants from a F1 generation you get segregation of genes and some plants will look more like Phrag besseae while others will look more like sargentianum, in this case this plant probably got more besseae genes, so that is why it almost looks like a Phrag. Jason Ficher. This shows that sometimes other than remaking a primary cross with better parents, you can get better offspring by just line breeding (keep sibbing the best plants together to create the next generation).

Robert

 

[slippertalker]

Another way to get even more expression is to self the F1 plant. Some will be poor, other average but a few will be quite exceptional. The diversity will be much larger than an F2 cross such as this but the overall quality will not be nearly as good. I would call an F1 selfing a breeders cross and an F2 sibling cross more of a commercial cross.

 

[Phrag-Plus]

Another way to get even more expression is to self the F1 plant. Some will be poor, other average but a few will be quite exceptional. The diversity will be much larger than an F2 cross such as this but the overall quality will not be nearly as good. I would call an F1 selfing a breeders cross and an F2 sibling cross more of a commercial cross.

I’m agreeing with you, two worlds apart...

 

[NYEric]

I wasn't saying it was a ploidy change; rather that it looks like the results of one.

 

[tim]

f2

Robert,

As a person who's job it is to breed plants, I'd be interested to hear your perspective on making a sib cross of complex paphs. It appears to me that some of the finest populations of complexes were a result of sibbing F1s - Paph. Valerie Tonkin and Paph. Magic Mood (both AQ winners) come to mind. However, most paph breeders I talk to say that due to generation time sibbing is a dead end from a sales perspective because everyone who wanted one of that grex got one the first time around, and won't want another one seven years later. I think that you've illustrated the benefits of sibbing primaries with your posts, and lots of people will always want more primaries; what about more complex crosses?

Thanks for your thoughts,

Tim

 

[toddybear]

Fantastic!

 

[slippertalker]

Tim, I'm not sure how Robert would answer this question but the fact that he did a sib cross on Phrag Mem. Dick Clements with excellent results probably gives you the answer. There have been several sib crosses of complex paphs and often they are better than the parents. Good examples are Paph Hellas and Paph Winston Churchill. In my opinion this should be attempted much more often for quality progeny.

 

[NYEric]

Personally, it's good to make the sib crosses for quality line breeding but I'm more concernedabout getting various hybrids. With phrags I find there are interesting crosses that were made once and then disappear!

 

[Drorchid]

Robert,

As a person who's job it is to breed plants, I'd be interested to hear your perspective on making a sib cross of complex paphs. It appears to me that some of the finest populations of complexes were a result of sibbing F1s - Paph. Valerie Tonkin and Paph. Magic Mood (both AQ winners) come to mind. However, most paph breeders I talk to say that due to generation time sibbing is a dead end from a sales perspective because everyone who wanted one of that grex got one the first time around, and won't want another one seven years later. I think that you've illustrated the benefits of sibbing primaries with your posts, and lots of people will always want more primaries; what about more complex crosses?

Thanks for your thoughts,

Tim

Yes, I agree with slippertalker. That is one reason I made this sib cross, because I already knew I would get some better plants. And Yes it should also be done with complex Paph's. A good example of getting better plants out of sib crosses is Paph. Macabre. I believe Terry Root has made 3 generations by sibbing the best of each generation (also known as Line Breeding). Each generation they have gotten better.

First generation Macabre:

Examples of 3rd generation Macabre:

Another example comes to mind is Paph. Skip Bartlett. Hadley Cash selfed Skip Bartlett 'White Pepper' and got a seedling that was much better than the original. See:

http://www.marriottorchids.com/03-16-03images/SkipBartlett WhtPepp and Marriott.jpg

SO, If it was up to me, yes I would do sib crosses, even though the results take 5 years, I think it is worth the wait.

Robert