Sophronitis cernua 'Kasei' (火星)

[alecStewart1]

Originally Posted by isurus79

Cool! What part of Texas are you in?

I live up North. We get fun weather up here. It's going to be down to 30 degrees Fahrenheit one night, and then on Thanksgiving it's going to be a nice 80 degrees Fahrenheit during the day.

[alecStewart1]

Okay, apologies, I've been meaning to upload these for a minute.

Super cute flowers. They seem a bit more overlapped in the petals than other S. cernua I've seen, but I'm no expert here.

Thought I'd try selfing it, so I got a tiny brush and got deep in the open flowers to see if I could make anything happen. With my luck probably nothing will happen, or the seeds produced will be duds, but might has well try.

[Blueszz]

Originally Posted by alecStewart1

Thought I'd try selfing it, so I got a tiny brush and got deep in the open flowers to see if I could make anything happen. With my luck probably nothing will happen, or the seeds produced will be duds, but might has well try.

If you want optimal growth, I wouldn't pollinate as developing a seed pod and seeds, takes a lot of energy from the plant. Energy that it also can use to for new growths. At least, that is what I was thought when I was a decade younger.

[alecStewart1]

Originally Posted by Blueszz

If you want optimal growth, I wouldn't pollinate as developing a seed pod and seeds, takes a lot of energy from the plant. Energy that it also can use to for new growths. At least, that is what I was thought when I was a decade younger.

Well there's a good chance that I was unsuccessful with my efforts so there's that.

---------- Post added at 06:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:30 PM ----------

Originally Posted by isurus79

Yes, if I understand the question correctly, it’s mostly about line breeding! However, increasing ploidy helps, as with your plant. Also, some species naturally have awards quality flowers growing in the wild. For example Cattleya lueddemanniana are known for trust and I personally saw several Cattleya nobilior var. amaliae that were award worthy when I was in Brazil recently. So starting a breeding line with top quality wild plants can help too.

Makes sense. Thanks for the answer!

[alecStewart1]

Well, I'm not 100% sure, but it seems like my attempting at selfing this little guy might've been successful.

If so, well, not sure where I go from here.