Beginning a Cym hybrid-aka: Mr Cym's secrets.

[MrCym]

11, 12 & 13.

In days gone by I did not move plants after pollination. That was because we had fairly small benches and on each bench we had plants grouped by plant size. Now, at Cal-Orchid the benches are long-runs so I don't move lager pots but we do group gallon and 5" pots holding pods. But as all the plants are out under shadecloth now, that's the only environment.

Obviously they all get the same watering, fertilizing etc. They will be cooler in Summer and Winter than if they were in a greenhouse.

I am about to initiate a color coding to help my deteriorating memory. I plan to tie a short length of colored tape, four colors in total, with a different color for each three month period in which the crossing was made. This will help me accurately determine from a distance the probable pod harvest time.

[Gary S]

Red, White , Blue and what other colour Andy? Or do you have a specific colour in mind too match the seasons.

[Hondurensis]

Bright florescent colours so they are easy to spot without digging around.

[MrCym]

No, whatever color was garish, I cannot even recall what they are. I plan to tie them on when the days get a bit longer as my time is precious at present.

[MrCym]

!4-17.

No updating because there never was any initial entry! I have given the time I normally leave the pods on. Occasionally a pod gets overlooked and we have sent them off green up to twelve months of age. Sometimes I will send an 8 month pod away and if I can confirm that it is germinating at Pakkret, I will leave any second pods on to produce dry seed which is much easier to smuggle around the world.

Pods are just individually wrapped in paper towel sections for shipment, nothing high tech!

When the pods are on their way we make time to e-mail the shipping list with notations such as + Oryzalin or if we have a large advance order for a specific cross, we will ask for extra mother flasks to be sown.

We do stay right on Kobsukh to get germination reports as we take replate orders from those reports.

Pakkret is generally a very reliable and totally honest Lab. We have had several issues with sloppy staff work but those issues have been recently resolved. But they are a large commercial Lab and not for backyard hybridizers. Clearance charges for small shipments are high so you need to be producing a significant quantity of pods to engage in offshore flasking.

[Gary S]

A supplementary question Mr Cym, based on your previous post. What is considered by the genuine hybridiser in making the call to request the lab to do Oryzalin treatment on a particular cross.

What would be the reasons why you would not treat every cross with Oryzalin?

[MrCym]

My feeling is that anyone who does not treat a diploid X diploid crossing in any genus is shortsighted. We occasionally treat a triploid crossing with Oryzalin too. You will get approximately 80% regular triploids and approximately 20% hexaploids. If you have a tetraploid with good flower spacing and a similar diploid, we will do it just for an experiment. For example, our KK2241 Neil Pagano 'NH' 4n X Cym. dayanum 'Red' is being treated with Oryzalin. As 3n or 6n they will be "hot stuff".

[Monkdvm]

Andy -

What about making sib crosses within the same hybrid? Have you ever done this, and why? I was (still am) under the impression that sib crosses can help "lock in" a particular trait, but then it seems Cym hybridizing is much less theoretical given the enormous number of hybrids already made and the database of resulting interactions.

[MrCym]

Let's firstly define that sib-crossing horticulturally means the mating of two plants of the same color form of a species or two plants from the same registered hybrid grex. We get pompous types who adhere to the narrow scientific definition that a sib-crossing is only between two plants emanating from the same pod. Usually they have never made and registered one orchid hybrid themselves!

I make sib-crossings between species fairly regularly. I cannot immediately recall ever making a sib-crossing between any hybrid grex. That's not to say I have never done it but my memory does not recall it happening. Maybe I was frightened off by all the Australian idiots that started sibbing alba Cym lines when they first hit the market in the late 1960's. The decline in vigor was truly shocking. This might have been largely due to albas having a weaker constitution than regularly colored Cyms.

[Australis]

If I may step back to the ploidy for a moment, is there much application for hexaploids? Am I correct in my understanding that they are the highest ploidy for Cyms that will actually survive (i.e. 8N dies in the flask)? I understand that 4N drastically increases the fertility and variation; what is the effect for 6N?