Nobby's Amy Cross

[orchidsarefun]

I use a 1g sprayer with a nozzle - this one
Amazon.com : Chapin 20000 1-Gallon Lawn and Garden Sprayer : Patio, Lawn & Garden

( but didn't pay that much. Geez the price almost doubled )
Its good for pesticide and fungicide too. All-purpose

I water mainly in the mornings - with tap water heated by an aquarium heater in a 2g watering can. With tightly packed sphag a little water goes a long way. I try and not get water in the crowns but I do occasionally with no worries. All my seedlings are under lights and leaves are dry by the time the lights turn off in the evenings. I don't have a fan running and have never had an issue with older phals. Temps get to a high of about 80f in the day and low of about 70f overnight in the racks. My heating indoors is set to 70f.
Fungus runs riot if you use too cold water, leave it on the plants overnight and temps are too cold.


NB - I may have to run a ceiling fan later in Winter, not sure yet. I haven't for months and the seedlings are doing well. In fact the fan may have worsened the leaf drop condition I had early in the year, don't know...

[lotis146]

You make it sound far less painful than one might think caring for all these Orchids might be!

I have to go back and agree with Matt that I too hope people pay attention to what you said about the moss. The orchids I got from Hausermann's were packed fairly tight in moss and honestly that saved them when I - unintentionally - didn't water them for over a month. Quite a few suffered from the adjustment to less tightly packed moss. While I use a variety of media I am far from against moss, it certainly has its time and place. I know what you mean as well OrchidsAreFun about a little water going a long ways, problem is I just have to remember that.

It is interesting indeed how different some of your seedlings are; their leaf colors are intriguing, I too will be anxious to see how their flowers differ.

Keep up the good growing! For the nerds in all of us, you're doing a good job subliminally encouraging orchid breeding. Lol...

[orchidsarefun]

I've watched them repotting at Hausermann's and...sort of....learned the trick to doing it with sphag. You have to use long-fibred sphag and wrap the roots tightly, then literally stuff into a pot, using a corkscrew motion if necessary. After that gradually pack a lot more sphag in tightly. I am not an expert and still squeamish about snapping roots, but I have a lot of phals to practice on ! Out of all the phal crosses I have now - its 5, this is the most interesting because of the differences in the seedlings. The others are predictably following the parents, apart from my equestris cross that has a couple of non-equestris looking seedlings.
I now have 2 plants stands that are pushed together. Surprisingly the work has become less tedious with the more seedlings I get, with the sprayer being a great help.

[No-Pro-mwa]

Thanks makes sense. I thought you had said you had a fan going but it was a long thread so I'm sure I forgot by the time I finished.

[orchidsarefun]

mom met some of her babies for a group photo..........and there wasn't a dry eye in the house....that's her in the back, in the middle.



stiff/firm leaves, good leaf growth and plenty of roots........what more could I want ? aahhhhh.....yes, blooms please !

[lotis146]

Wow, they look as big as mom, maybe bigger! Hope you get some spikes VERY SOON! Great growing. I can see how things might get easier when you've got a system in place even if you've got A TON of plants to care for. Interested to see how you make it all works as they get bigger and you have dozens of adult plants instead of seedlings! Oh but the joy of dozens of spikes...wonderful...

Thanks for the update. I see there's still some lovely little spots on some of the leaves.

[camille1585]

I only just came across this thread, and it's one of the rare long threads that I read from first to last post. It's really interesting to follow your seedlings progress, and learn a few interesting things (like the tight sphag). I'm amazed by how quickly they grew!
I love all the variation there is! Hopefully Freckles will have blooms as beautiful as the foliage.

Reading this thread has inspired me to do some crosses of my own. Perfect time of year for it, I have many Phals in spike/bloom at the moment. I'm thinking of using my Phal Wiganiae (schilleriana x stuartiana) as a parent, since I love the mottled leaves. Added bonus, I have the facilities at work (autoclave, laminar flow cabinet...) to do my own flasking and replating.

When all your plants do bloom, I bet it going to be tough to decide which to keep and which to give away! And I'm curious to see how much variation there is going to be in the blooms. Do you have photos of the 2 parents to share?

[orchidsarefun]

The one parent is in the previous photo. Interesting that the new leaf is broader than the old ones - a direct result of putting the plant under lights I think. I no longer have the other parent. I had a bad infestation of mites a couple of years ago and lost a couple of phals - hence the reason I now spray all my plants on a regular basis with a rotation insecticide/pesticide.
yep - I do want to see if there is any bloom variation - there certainly is leaf/leaf colour variation which is not that evident in my other crosses. Freckles is a really nice colour "grey/silver" and a predominantly pink or even yellow would compliment. I haven't seen that degree of spotting on any other phal - in internet photos or at nurseries.
As for doing your own crosses - I keep saying that everyone should have a go, its so easy ! And you don't have to germinate the seeds yourself - but if you have the facilities you are so much better off too. I think a cross for foliage as well as blooms is a great idea. The parents of 'freckles' have absolutely no distinctive foliage - with seedlings its in the genes where ( as I have proved ) you might just get anything !

[camille1585]

Seeing how much variation there is in the plants, there will likely be quite a lot in the flowers too. Crossing 2 complex(?) hybrids is a genetic lottery.

For myself I'm thinking of crossing Phal Wiganiae (mottled foliage, speckled blooms and high flower count) with Phal I-Hsin Salmon 'Copper Star' (gorgeous color, nice form, scented and also high flower count). It could make some very nice offspring (though I'm not sure of the ploidy of the second one)

I was thinking of Phal pallens x equestris too, though it's an existant cross. The hybrid is very beautiful.

[orchidsarefun]

Creating "artisinal" style orchids is fun.
I think your proposed wiganiae cross is very interesting and you should go for it ( with a reverse cross too ). There may be ploidy issues - and pollination failure - if a 4N Kuntrarti was used to create the Salmon hybrid, similarly with Schilleriana as some of those cultivars are 4N too. You need to research the cultivar if you can. However, that said - that must definitely not stop you from trying the cross.
I did a mock-up of this cross in OrchidWiz. It would have 10 species in its background, with each contributing an interesting %. You would definitely get different foliage as schilleriana ( 25% ) and stuartiana ( 25% ) have mottled foliage and predominate genetically. I use phals.net extensively to try and see what could result....
As a comparison my cross also has 10 species in its genetic background, but only a tiny percentage of species with mottled foliage. Yet I got 3 or 4 'freckles' type plants.
I think a link between leaf colour/shape/size/mottling and bloom colour/shape/size is not definitively proved as yet though someone somewhere - especially at a large seed breeder - should know by now.