Shotgun hybridizing Catasetinae

[My Green Pets]

Super cool what you are doing with these!

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by SG in CR

I agree with you that it would be great. But it's not practically feasible when sowing your seeds outdoors. At least not how I do it. I spread the seed all over my property in hopes that some will find a suitable spot to germinate and grow. If I wanted to know what the parentage of the crosses are for sure I would have to limit my self to no more than one cross per year or two for any hybrids that might be able to be confused with each other. As it stands, I'll be happy to get any decent looking hybrids that other people might be interested in getting divisions of. If I get anything spectacular and someone wants to recreate it they will have to deal with a list of possible crosses that created it. This is just for fun in the end and I don't expect to be able to register anything unless the parentage is fairly obvious (which with some of my crosses it should be).

Do you worry about the genetic material from hybrids and non-native species getting out into the wild and contaminating the local species?

[SG in CR]

Originally Posted by isurus79

Do you worry about the genetic material from hybrids and non-native species getting out into the wild and contaminating the local species?

I've thought about it. But to be honest I don't think it's going to be too much of a problem.
First off the mechanics of a successful pollination are so absurdly species specific. An orchid has to get the pollen on just the right spot of the the right kind of bee so that that same bee will deposit it in just the right spot on another orchid that is ready to receive it. If the flowers are very similar in structure and the species of bee that is attracted to it, I can imagine it happening though.
But even so, orchid germination is so finicky that I expect that hybrids will generally be even worse off as I can't imagine the complex system that achieves it will be improved by mixing with the genes of a different species. That's why practically all hybridizing is done in-vitro, to side step that process. I'm hoping that some hybrids might still be able to germinate ex-vitro. But I'm expecting it to be far more difficult to accomplish than simple species germination, which I've already achieved with lots of species.
In the end, if it were something that is a serious concern, then hybrid orchids of local genera in general would be too.

[SG in CR]

Well, the wood piles that I had sort of lost faith in for germinating Catasetinae family orchids seem like they just needed to decay a bit more. Now that the rainy season has kicked in I have a ton of new seedlings popping up in my log stacks.
For those interested I posted video on you tube.
Ex-vitro Orchid germination update, June 2022

[tmoney]

dude, i was envious before of your outdoor grows, but now seeing your seedlings progress i'm beyond jealous. great work. those log piles look like seedling heaven, and it would be so sweet to see a small mature one busting with different colored flowers!

we were hesitant with cats in the beginning, but are intrigued by them more and more as we watched our couple small ones come back to life this summer. they are such cool plants and seeing them germinate in the wild like that is pretty cool....keep it up!

that is an interesting comment about contaminating local gene pools. so continues the human dance with evolution....

[SG in CR]

Originally Posted by tmoney

it would be so sweet to see a small mature one busting with different colored flowers!

Well, I can accommodate that. Here's a couple that germinated on my logs and bloomed last year.



I'm really hoping I can manage some intergeneric crosses. Especially Galeandra with Catasetum or Mormodes. I've seen some pictures online and they are really interesting. It seems the Galeandra doesn't want to produce seed pods with pollen from other genera. But vice versa I had a Catasetum start to produce a pod. If I get a really good looking pod from that cross I might just bring it to a grower with a lab and see if they can germinate it invitro though. My guess is that it's such a distant relation that the natural germination probably won't succeed anymore.

[tmoney]

haha, awesome! what is that one that you showed with the super fuzzy white lip?

[SG in CR]

Originally Posted by tmoney

haha, awesome! what is that one that you showed with the super fuzzy white lip?

I'm not as knowledgeable on Mormodes ID as I'd like to be. They seem to be super variable with species even within the same region. But as far as I know the fuzzy-lipped ones are Mormodes skinneri.

[SG in CR]

For those interested, I just uploaded another update video and a video showing the pollination of a Cycnoches vitricosum with C. warscewiczii pollen.
https://youtu.be/6DxFya0ONdw

[SG in CR]

In the video I posted a link to in the previous post in this thread I pollinated some Cycnoches and found that both female flowers I pollinated had anther caps with healthy-looking, if somewhat smaller than normal, pollinia. Is this normal? I've seen it in Catasetum before, but it's rarity in that genus.