Timing for pollen collection

[greenhouseFrog]

Originally Posted by Fairorchids

With Cattleya types, the flower needs to be fully open, ideally 2-3 days. If you try to pollinate sooner, the pollen might be ready, but the stigma is not.

With Paphiopedilum hybrids, I have pollinated anywhere from 1-2 days after opening, and up to 6-7 weeks later.

Thanks Fairorchids! At this point in time, I’m just collecting pollen in anticipation of making crosses, but I’ll keep the maturity of the stigma for Cattleya-types in mind once the appropriate time comes—a healthy percentage of my modest collection are still quite young(it was the first time that that Binosa and Hamlyn’s Magic bloomed), so I don’t know if they would be able to handle a seed capsule while this young! It’d be nice if everything was as easy as the hybrid Paphs seem

---------- Post added at 11:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:34 AM ----------

Originally Posted by tmoney

can i ask which genera you want to propagate? always good to hear what others are thinking!

Well, for starters, I want to cross some Tolumnias and Oncidiums—this would be more breeding for interesting plant shapes more so than flowers Also, just for fun, I wanted to cross a Vanilla planifolia with a dilloniana—Vanilla dilloniana was a native until it became extinct in the wild in Florida and I wondered how a planifolia would influence the naked vines of dilloniana!

Aside from trying to create a weird novelty, nodosa hybrids are growing on me because they seem to do well in my environment and would probably make for better gifts than a Tolumnia/Oncidium hybrids—not too many people around me are interested in Oncidinae!

Of course, the Catasetinae, but I’m not doing any groundbreaking crosses within that alliance, just having fun.

I’m sure I’ll get more creative as time goes on, but for the time being I just want to have anything I can work with. I recently joined a local group dedicated to breeding orchids(with access to an actual plant laboratory) and I want to be prepared with my own cross instead of just replating/deflasking the plants of my peers(not that I wouldn’t enjoy that)