We had a great speaker tonight....
 

Hi all you addicts. My orchid club had a wonderful speaker tonight. None other than Fred Clark of Sunset Valley Orchids in Vista California. You can see what he grows on his website. The talk was about his hybridizing of splash petal and spotted cattleyas. The amount of info was staggering. But he is such a good speaker that you really get to soak up this info easily. If you ever get to hear him speak don't miss the opportunity. If your club is looking for a great speaker, please contact him. You won't be disappointed.

When I heard Fred give his talk on breeding black Catasetinae hybrids, I wasn't really very interested. I'm just not into black orchids. But last year he gave the presentation on breeding mini-cattleyas and I enjoyed it very much. He was entertaining and I learned a lot of good information from him. It was especially interesting to see the wide variety of colors and patterns that could result from seedlings of the same cross. Fred has bred some fabulous mini-catts.

Tucker, the talk he gave last night was how he and others have bred to get the splash and spotted catts. How breeding a dominant yellow and dominant red gave you white with the color expressed on both the lip and the tips of the petals and how the genetics work. I'm not into breeding but how it works was very interesting. And how you get the spots. The pics were breathtaking. And the patience required....OMG!!!!

Cool!