Hybrid Possible?
 

Hi Everyone:waving
Hoping that some of the experts on the board can help me out here. I currently have a Prosthechea Elfin in bloom, and a Cattleya intermedia var coerulea which is due to open any day now. I was thinking about whether I might be able to cross the two? Would it work? I see some other Catt x Prosthechea crosses listed on the RHS site, but am unsure if this one would work. Can anybody advise? I have heard some info about the pollinia count in some Catt's but I am a newbie to this so any info provided would be greatly appreciated!!

Possible, yes. Predictable, no. You're just going to have to give it a try and hope for the best. ;)

Pollinia arrangement doesn't matter too much for our purposes. Chromosome count is more relevant, but I can't speak with great confidence on that subject. Just know that many modern breeding lines may have irregular numbers of chromosomes, and this can lead to sterility in it's offspring or even an inability to breed itself. You just never know for sure. If both are in the same alliance, it is possible for a cross to take. Give it a shot.

Thanks for the help Royal!

Some people told me that rose with different chromosome count can not be cross. But in the market there are cross btw different chromosomes count. Just try to see how is turn out.

I've been told that many Prosthechea are reluctant breeders, which may explain why there are so few hybrids registered with this genus. The two are related and those hybrids made of which I've seen flowers have been fabulous, so it's possible. Try it!

I happen to have two capsules of a cross between Prosthechea cochleata alba and Encyclia tampensis alba growing right now, m'self. I hope they're fertile.

Thanks for the reply calonyction! Guess all I can do is give it a shot! If anything comes of it, I will post an update here.

Ok, so two weeks since I have attempted the pollination and I have a small update. I tried the cross both ways, using the C intermedia pollen on the Prosthechea and vice versa. The seed pod failed on the C intermedia, but it looks like the Prosthechea is actually making a pod. Has swollen quite a bit in the last two weeks. Never thought the cross would work this way, figured the larger flower (intermedia) would have a better chance at producing a seed pod when pollinated by the smaller as I had read something along these lines before but she seems to be progressing. I will keep updating this thread as the weeks go by!

You might want to leave the anther caps on the flowers you pollinate. It could help.

Will do, thanks for the tip Ted!!

Sometimes when flower size is very different the pollen tubes from the smaller flower simply can't grow long enough to get where they need to be in the larger flower.

If you get viable seeds I don't think the chromosome count will matter. Even if the progeny have an uneven chromosome count they will grow, bloom and can be propagated by mericloning. If you want to create a fertile tetraploid/amphidiploid from a plant with uneven chromosome count you can treat a meristematic cell with colchicine to induce chromosome doubling. The tetraploid/amphidiploid should be fertile.

good luck:)

bingo

One more question for everyone. Just wondering if anyone knows the seed pod ripening time for Prothechea cochleata, or Anacheilium cocleata as it is now called? Would the pollen parents seed ripening time come into play? Or just the seed parent? The reason I ask is, the pod has been developing for about a month, and looked really good, yesterday though, it had turned yellow, not opened, just turned colour. Not sure if she is drying up or if she is just ripe now. I did not think it would ripen so fast, but this is the first cross I have tried outside of phals. If my camera was working I would post some pics, but I broke it by accident last week. When I hold the pod up to the light, I can see what appears to be a slightly orange colouring in the center of the pod, could those be the seeds?

Hey Nick,

It sounds like the capsule is aborting for some reason. The seed could be viable depending on how long they hung in there. It's kind of like bud blast, but it may not be your culture. Sometimes pods fail to set any seed, sometimes the seed is not viable, and sometimes the pods just yellow and drop. I had one drop early on me this month. Two flowers, same cross, same day in April. One is still nice and fat and green, the other was small and yellowed and just split dropped off. Who knows?

What I do know is that the pollen parent can/does influence the growth of the pod - even in morphology. I've put Encyclia pollen and Cattleya pollen on the same Cattleya flowers. The Cat x Cat pod looked fat and grooved, like a Cattleya pod. The Cat x Enc pod looked more strait and bumpy, like an Encyclia pod.

Thanks Royal for the info! The pod is 3 sided, with deep grooves, but never having seen a pod from either a Catt or a Prosthechea I am not too sure who it is taking after. Is there any way to know if the pod is good? Or do I take my chances and send it to the lab?

If I had to take a guess, I'd say it's a dud. One month is a really short time for most orchid seed pods.

My observations about seed pods are purely anecdotal. It's just that I wondered the same thing about the influence of the pollen donor so I've been observing how they develop. Only slight differences, but I do see them.

Thanks again Royal, much appreciated!