Question: what do you grow? Hibrids? Species?

[Eduardo_Addad]

Hi friends,

Got a question. I´ve read much about BLC hibrids and phals, and cymbs at the Forum. Why this?
Is there a difficulty in acquiring Cattleya species?
They grow badly at cold places?

Tks
Eduardo

[RosieC]

Hi Eduardo,

Sometimes hybrids can be easier to grow because they combine the growing conditions of the parents. For example a hybrid of a cool growing orchid and an intermediate one may be able to grow in the full range from cool to intermediate.

Some species will grow well in cold places, others will only grow in warmer places. Hybrids are the same... but have a tendency to be more tolerant of a wider range.

Also many hybrids are just very very attractive and it can depend on a growers taste and what they like.

P.S. I've moved your thread into the beginner section, as the 'About this Board' section is more for queries about the forum it's self, rather than about orchids. No problem... just hope you may get more answers in a different place

[RosieC]

Of course I didn't answer the question. What I grow is a mixture of both

[CTB]

Price and availability. Species of any type are not usually found at the local box store or grocery store like hybrids are.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

In the US, it's mostly because of how the trade is run.

Cattleya, Cymbidium, Oncidium, Dendrobium and Phal species take the back seat in favor of hybrids not necessarily because of how difficult they are to grow.

Marketing is key. If you are a premier salesman, you can sell dirt to just about anyone. Hybrids get more press because they're the ones that the nurseries sell on a regular basis. Not that species orchids are uglier, or less colorful, or always have smaller flowers, or are more difficult to grow. That's what nurseries want to sell because they think they can make a huge profit off the hybrids instead of the species.

They're also playing off of people's initial ignorance to what a species orchid is and what a hybrid orchid is. One evidence for this is that many hybrids are sold without a name tag. They're just collectively and blandly known as a Phalaenopsis orchid, or a Dendrobium orchid, a Cymbidium orchid, or a Cattleya orchid. There's no cultivar name, no grex name, just a general genus name. Sometimes, they don't even come with a tag that says the general genus name at all! It can just be sold as an "orchid", or "orchid intergeneric", that's it. With this kind of marketing strategy, how's anyone going to know what they have without having to do extra research? Most people in the US are so over worked and concerned about other things, they don't even have the time to figure it out unless they really have a strong drive (I'd call it more of a fevered pitch) to want to find out on their own.

There's also the prestige of having known that a certain grower bred a certain hybrid. This can be connected to pricing as well.

With hybrids, it's like an assembly line, they can produce as much or as little of a certain line of hybrids they want and control the rarity and pricing. With species, the control is not so much in the hands of the breeders/nurseries/growers/retailers.

Nurseries can always produce a hybrid and market it as something new and shiny. Which is fine. Some hybrids are actually kind of fun to own. But this is not so much the case with species orchids.

Sometimes, it is because the hybrids are more colorful and have bigger flowers. Again, not always.

Occasionally, it is because the species are more difficult to grow. One such example is Acacallis cyanea. Not a lot of people in the US knows how to grow this species at all. So what breeders will do is breed it with an easier and more commonly grown species - Zygopetalum.

For Cattleya species, oftentimes, they're just as easy to grow as the hybrids, but people don't know about the species. Again, because of marketing strategies.

It's business. Doesn't sound very flattering does it? Not all of it is "bad" though.


The true power of choice goes to those who know. Then can an individual really choose whether they like to grow hybrids over species, or species over hybrids, or grow both hybrids and species together.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Here's a "secret" that illustrates what I'm talking about...

Diamonds. They're really not rarities.

The rarity and the pricing is being controlled by the corporate entities that own the diamond mines.

Supply and demand plays a role in this sales strategy.

We pay the price, they reap the profits. Deceptively simple but actually very complicated.

[Anisa]

I prefer species because of what KingOOG said. I dont think there is anything particularly wrong to create and grow hybrids but i admire and collect plants that are already made by nature. Occasionally I get a hybrid if that particular plant is well grown and i am fascinated by its flower.

[snappyguy]

I am very new to orchids but I grow hybrids. Four of my orchids are definitely hybrids as they came with names, and the last orchid is almost certainly a hybrid as it is one of the just add ice orchids. The "choice" to keep hybrids wasn't something I consciously did. I just picked orchids that looked healthy, were in my price range, and that I like the look of. Maybe one day I will try a species orchid. There are some that I really do like to look of, but they aren't available locally that I know of.

[Eduardo_Addad]

Ok, market issues rule over people choice.
Is this an identified situation by orchid-people?

This forum, could it be a effective solution for this?
As a so pervasive communication tool, the forum has the potential to bring together the source and the newbie. Will it do this? Will we do it?

In other terms, do you want to have these:

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

It has happened. I've seen it before.

It still is.

Not everybody will grow species orchids, just like not everybody will grow hybrids, and not everybody will own both hybrids and species.

But sites like this has raised a lot of people's awareness to species orchids, and has begun to dispel a lot of the myths flying around about them.

As long as somebody hears something they want to have verified about growing species orchids, forums like this are here to set those straight.

This is a never ending process. If there are people who are spreading the myths of growing species orchids, there has to be people who are willing to step up and tell the truth.

It starts with a few members. Eventually it'll catch.