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Thanks for your comment! Yeah, I do like my orchids and do get very excited about first blooms (and most other blooms too). I am passionate about what I do - not just for the videos - keeps me going.....

I crossed this flower earlier today with a large, spotted Cattleya. I do have some other really unusual tampensis crosses and am curious to see how they look in a few years. Thanks for your comment!

You are making my head hurt. I guess that I am too simple minded and trustworthy. For me, hard work and honesty has paid off in my life so far. I think that the bots should take the money, retire, and have fun growing orchids like us. 😁

Thanks for your comment!! That flower opened today and I am just a little disappointed that it does not look more like a walkeriana. It seems to be a small flower that looks more like the bowringiana parent. I will make a video of it soon - maybe it will get nicer? I am picking up a new walkeriana this week at my local show. I lost my only walkeriana plant recently but I collected pollinia and used it successfully to make a few crosses before it went to orchid heaven. It was a nice flower - but, the plant was not very vigorous

@@plantpropagator I would love to see it. I have several walkeriana crosses and one species I think. Thank you again!

Thanks for your comment! I usually do cross the pollinia from the large to the small flower. My reasoning, which may not be valid, is that the pollen tubes from the larger flower will more easily reach the eggs of the small flower than visa versa. I have no data to support this. Genetically, the hybrids from reciprocal crosses will be very similar. Cytoplasmic genes are only inherited from the seed parent and that is the main difference. I will try crossing onto Hamlin's magic - maybe a spotted intermediate sized but wide petal cattleya? I think that there are a lot of hybrids yet to make and I do not have too many species so I still like making wide crosses. And Lily Genovese just opened today - it is exciting to get my first bloom on this plant but the flower seems to be a little boring.....

There are a great many species in the new genus _Cattleya_ , after the phylogenetics people got done with it. ChatGPT claims 114 but there are more because, well, ChatGPT misses things. Yet even if we pick 114 species in the genus then the pairwise combinations are 6441. And then we realize there are many, many more species in the _Laeliinae_ , many of which readily cross with the _Cattleya_ genus, many over 2000, which means there are millions of pairwise combinations, though many of the _Epidendrum_ may not give viable seed when crossed out.

@@TheDanEdwards Yes, but really, aclandiae and nobilior aren't, neither one of them, newbies in the genus or in the trade. I can't believe this pairing hasn't been made long before 2018! And I didn't know names would have to be registered again if one of the parents moved from one genus to another! It surprises me! I thought that you would have just the first name changed, like Sophrolaeliocattleyas turning into simply Cattleyas. So Slc Destiny becomes C. Destiny... is that right?

@@TheDanEdwards Wow - beautifully explained. I do look to see if someone has already made a cross before I make it. But, I have not yet shopped for species, specifically so that I could make a new cross. I even had colleagues who generated new genera with their crosses,, though it was unintentional.

That sounds fun and is a great idea. But, it is your idea and I will leave that to you. Thanks for watching and good luck on your channel!!

@@plantpropagator thanks and yes..will get on to that down the track. Good work in sharing your knowledge in orchids

If only 5% of them are good, I am set for life!

I have been hesitating on doing this for a while so it was time to move forward! I am glad that the tests were all negative. Thanks for your comment!

Thanks for your comment. The thing is, there are videos in between; peole that seem to know what they are doing but do not understand the science. I just looked at a channel today where this guy is making RO water for his orchids because he wants to use pure water. Then, he stores it outside in a tank and algae grows in it. So, it is not real RO water because the algae is feeding on something. And it is best to not use RO water for your orchids in the first place because the orchids benefit from some of the chemicals in regular tap water. These people do present themselves as authorities and it is hard to ignore them.....

It was so easy to do - I was thinking about having a virus testing session at one of my next members meetings. Or talking with AOS about having them sponsor a session at a meeting...

Thanks for your comment. I thought that I needed to make this video because it is so disappointing that you and I work hard to put together good videos and the false/fake videos are so prevalent and get so many views. And, people talk about AI but these orchid videos do not use AI - people manipulate the thumbnails and the creators intentionally mislead the viewers.

I feed a lot of my plants but not elephant ear. It would be helpful to give them regular water soluble fertilizer or time release to keep them growing and healthier. If you have your plants in pots, then sure, feeding is recommended. For my plants growing outside in soil, they get fed when they are close to some other plants that I am fertilizing....

Yeah - they really like getting big. You can keep (and other plants) on the smaller side by holding back their roots, like bonsai but these plants show off their stuff when allowed to get big!!

Thanks for your comment - I am glad that you liked the video. I have been meaning to make this one for a while - I just did not want to deal with virus positive plants - luckily, I was OK. Maybe others are procrastinating for the same reason?

@@plantpropagator I know the feeling of relief when a suspected plant turns out to be clean.

Thanks for your comment - yow - that is an excellent question. I do not know for sure. There are a few possibilities: 1) My virus test kit is for the two most common viruses. There could be others affecting the plant. But, I did not see other aspects of virus infection in this plant. 2) In this plant, the genes for purple pigment formation may lie in an area of the chromosome where it is turned off, but inconsistently. This is unusual but it happens. This is called gene silencing and is common in plants but may be unusual in flower development. 3) The same gene is interrupted via a transposon or jumping gene - again, unusual in orchids but it happens - discovered in corn by a scientist who was awarded a Nobel for her discovery... 4) Not sure about the layering of cells that give rise to flowers but this may have resulted from a chimera, or a mixture of cells that did not sort out correctly when the flower was forming. Does this help?

​@@plantpropagatortransposons, Barbara McClintock, if that is the case, it would be very interesting. And now you are free to cross it and explore the mutation, imagine this plant crossed to one of yours peloric cattleyas, what would come as a result 🙃 Thanks a lot for the video and I hope you use the plant in a cross, maybe a self if you are still concerned it carries some other virus

@@PL_Brazil She is one of 3 Nobel Laureates that I have met and was very nice. I do not think that I will use this flower in any of my crosses - I have the pollinia stored but the flower was just weird and I am not sure that I want to deal with that. I have plenty of other crosses to make.....

Thanks for subbing and for your comment. I tried to make folks aware of the fake orchid video thumbnails that lure people into videos but I probably did not have much of an impact - I agree that there is a lot out there. Should I make a video describing more of what you mentioned? And call it "Magical Orchid Resurrection?" or "There is no such thing as dead for orchids?" You are good with words - can you come up with a title? Maybe, I can show a dead orchid, or banana peels, or coffee grounds, or dead bugs or anything and spray it with water (music playing - harp and violins) and have an orchid appear!

@@plantpropagator I would stick with title "Never throw your orchids away!" - as maguc potion sellers usually title their ads

Thanks for your comment. Yeah - I was happy that they were all negative. I am very aware of virus spreading and I try to be careful but I have heard horror stories about people's collections being just decimated due to virus spread. I have been putting these tests off for a while but I am so glad that I finally did this.

Thanks for your comment. And YEAH, I KNOW!!

I am glad that I made this video but I know that the fakes will continue. The thumbnails that are shown really do pull people in but they are clearly fake, along with most of the information in the videos themselves. Thanks for your comment - glad that you enjoyed it. I hope that you know that members can use additional orchid emojis - the more members that I get, the more emojis that I can add for members to use....

Thanks for your comment. I had not thought about this before but yes, they can think that they saw something incredible in a video that made orchid grow and bloom like magic. I guess that I should not take their hope away for magical things....

As long as they are entertained......

Thanks for your comment. It angers me too but there are apparently lots of people who do watch those videos. I do not know if they believe what they are seeing or just like to watch for fun and then laugh about it because it is so false. It may be like the reality shows that are also not reality.

I have also been to orchid meetings where the presenter, who grows and is selling orchids is presenting false information. That drives me crazy. They are so confident and have been presenting this same false information for years. They also claim to be scientists which makes me even more upset. I have seen bad scientists too. You do what you can to provide real science but social media allows a lot of bad information to be presented as fact.....

@@plantpropagator completely agree. But that in turn makes it so hard to figure out what is thus true or not. Even the experts have no clue. How is anyone meant to figure it out, like who to listen to.

@@tomfurmby88 In the scientific community, we do have the review process, which works most of the time. RUclips did start a service where, certain contributors could comment on a video and those comments would be shown to viewers during the video. I do not think that this worked very well. It is difficult to monitor - you just have to try to figure out who can be trusted.....

Thanks for your comment - I guess that I hit a sore spot with you (and a few others). I will just keep on providing valid information, even if my views are not over a million.....

When I was the editor-in-chief of my journal and still teaching at the University, I was one of the first to employ plagiarism detection software and that worked well at the time. You are right, with AI and deep fakes, the game has changed a lot. I am glad that I got out before things go so much more complicated!!

@@plantpropagator I work with FX art for film, video and photography, and it is my area of expertise do do the best fake possible, in the studio. So I know that it has long been possible to do much better than most of the A.I. stuff that is around. But, as you work toward perfection making the fake more believable, it gets exponentially more expensive and out of the reach of the garden variety of internet heckler. Now, as AI improves, it shifts this paradigm flooding the web with these fakes and the common people are usually not equipped with the right amount of information to tell things apart! It amazes me the capacity we humans have for self sabotage!

@@Naturamorpho I am very old school - I did dodging and burning in a darkroom before Photoshop was even invented. Even in the old days, I had colleagues who would come to me to get the best images from their negatives and complain that I made things look better than they actually were. Now, what I used to do is nothing...... I can still sometimes spot what is fake but it takes some time.

I am sorry but I do not ay experience generating polyploids, although I am asked this a lot. The challenge is not the application of the chromosome doubling agent (which you need to be careful with since these compounds are mutagens) but the testing of the results to determine if a diploid or tetraploid has been made. Another question is the ploidy of this petunia. I contacted the people who made this petunia to ask what petunia cultivar they started with and they never answered. The petunia cultivar 'Mitchell' is a white petunia that is used a lot in plant transformation work and I assume that is what they used. Mitchell is diploid. But, they never responded so I do not know what they used to generate the Firefly petunia.

Thanks for your comment and I am glad that you are getting ideas from my video! If something works really well, let me know!

Thanks - always hoping for more......

After I made my video, I ignored my plants and should have repotted and propagated them. I did use them for 2 different presentations that I gave to orchid groups which was really nice and well received. But, I am sorry to say that my plants are no longer with me either. They struggled in the Florida heat and I did not care for them like I should have. You and I both got to see something pretty special!!

Thanks for your comment - sure, there will be variation among the seedlings. I am always HOPING for the best possible outcomes. I am an optimist but setting myself up for many disappointments with my seedlings.... Many of the seedlings of that cross are big so it should not be long until the next flower on the next plant.

I am happy to share my colleague's orchids. I think that he enjoyed watching me make a video of his collection too!

You are right - you can try other approaches that do not work as well as flasking. For most people, you might be able to get low germination if you sprinkle the seed onto a tree or piece of wood (or in a pot with bark) in an area that you think might be conducive for orchid seedling germination and growth. If you are lucky and have mycorrhizae around, you may get a few seeds to form seedlings.

I use Classic grade Orchiata for my seedlings and am not worried about the pots getting too wet since they are so small. When the plants get a little bigger, I move them to new pots and potting mix, that is a lot more airy. A lot of people are concerns with overwatering of seedlings but I keep my newly deflasked seedlings pretty moist - to the point of being wet. When they are bigger, that changes.

Thanks for your comment and for watching. There will be more on this in a member's video that I will release tomorrow.

I am still relatively new at this, in orchid years. I have only had a couple of my Catts bloom - most of my work and nice results have been more recent. I had a first bloom on one of my Catts after 2.5 years after deflasking. I think that this will be reduced further over time. I do have my eye on a few really vigorous and large seedlings from newer crosses!

Some people like to use community pots but I do not. I prefer to disturb the roots once when the plants are deflasked and not twice, during the time that the plants in a community pot will need to be separated. That second disturbance is usually really rough since the roots can really be intertwined. In addition, if some of the plants in a community pot are more sensitive to a pathogen, those susceptible plants are right on top of or closely intermingles with the other plants, making them more likely to be infected. For me, there are no benefits to a community pot, other than to save time and media with the first deflasking. Sorry - I know that your friend will not be happy to hear this. But, I know some growers who mostly use this approach....

I do not know where you can find one. This one was gifted to me. As a member, please feel free to contact me via e-mail.

I will reach out to Roy to ask. I believe that a triploid will not be able to produce any progeny. You might get an occasional functional pollen or egg but most would not be functional. If Roy responds, I will let you know - thanks for your comment!

Thanks for your comment - yeah - I often feel that I leave things out. I get done and think to myself about what I forgot to say. I have a list but still miss some points. I have been a plant scientist for 40 years and am learning how different orchids are from the other plants that I have worked with.....

Thanks for that information - if it is a triploid, I will try to self the first flower and see if I get anything. If not, it is likely a triploid and I will just let it grow - no crossing it. I do have one plant that I am pretty sure is a triploid and the flowers are really waxy, fragrant and long lived. It is from Fred Clarke and he suggested that I self the plant and see if I got anything - I have tried twice and got nothing. I am not going to try a third time. For this aclandiae, I found another vendor selling this same cross and there is no information on it. The 'Midnight Beauty' is not an AOS awarded plants so I have no idea where this is from. But, thanks for the note - I will keep that in mind when this plant flowers.

Thanks for your comment - I found Fred's video and will watch it tonight - I may have seen it earlier but I will watch it again to make sure that I did not miss anything. I assume that is the one on spots and flares? This is my first aclandiae so we will see how it grows for me. This one seems to want to roam a little, maybe like a lot of Cattleya species.

The plant with the tag blowing in the wind is C. Big Dipper - the tag is from a cross that I made onto it. There is a similar looking orchid next to it that is C. STK Jewel. It is one of the first flowers on that plant and the flowers are very fragrant.

It turns out that there are a LOT of folks who like species and primary hybrids - I do have a few but I try to stay away from crowded/trendy/popular areas because I do not want to do what everyone else is doing. I think that I can generate some really exciting hybrids by making wide crosses and will continue to do that. I also like being surprised by new flowers and hybrids that have not been made before. I want to make big spotted flowers but am also into flaring and new color combinations. And fragrance is super important to me. Maybe I will be able to focus like you in a few years after I play around!!