Six Key Elements to Master in Orchid Breeding and Selection

Promote Chinese orchid culture, spread orchid knowledge

1. Flower shape: whether it is a true flower, whether there is falseness; when we see petal flowers on the mountain (or at a roadside stall), we must carefully distinguish them. If the flower is shrunken, thin, soft, shriveled, dim and lusterless, not spread out, not upright, then it may be a flower that failed to open fully due to long drought, dry air and water loss, which we call a "false" flower quality. "False flower quality" is mostly unstable; after planting, once it fully absorbs water, the petal base will rapidly elongate, the original form will change greatly, and when it blooms again it will be even harder to reproduce its beauty. Only flowers that open under moderate dry and wet conditions can be evaluated and selected. After long rain, for the flowers that open, I think a slightly longer petal base is no big problem; as long as the form is good and the color is beautiful, after potting and maintaining slightly dry, the petal base will no longer appear long when it blooms again.

2. Bract shell: The bract shell is originally one of the important bases for evaluating flower quality. If the bract shell is a "rotten garment shell," even if a fairly good flower is seen for a time, I think it is still an accidental coincidence and absolutely hard to be stable. A good bract shell has "thick," "hard," and "long" all together. Only one that is both thick and glutinous, hard and sturdy, long and bright-colored, with vein patterns reaching the top, and from outside to inside one layer brighter and more brilliant than the next, can a good flower be stable. For a "green fitted shell," it will never return to an ordinary quality.

3. Column: If the petals show maleness, that is, the column has a white head and a deep pouch, the flower shape will inevitably be stable. The stronger the maleness, the more stable. The reverse is also true, obviously.

4. Characteristics of each part of the plant: Good-flower plants mostly have characteristics of a sudden downward turn (but having some characteristics does not necessarily mean a good flower can emerge). If a plant has no good characteristics at all yet produces a good flower, this is only a temporary stroke of luck.

1. For lotus-petal flower plants, the roots should be round and well-proportioned, the pseudobulb large and full, shaped like a "pure vase"; the leaf sheath high, thick and solid, concave inward or shaped like a "horse hoof," the midrib highly raised, the groove obvious, the veins reaching the top; the inner leaves upright, the outer leaves slanting, the marginal teeth coarse and even, the bract shell thick and long and pointed and hard, the central vein not raised, the lip hard to be round and large; the vein patterns lack color, the color hard to be bright.

2. For pouch-petal plants, the roots should be even, fine and round, the pseudobulb round and large, shaped like a "water chestnut"; the leaf sheath straight and long, concave inward, firm and upright like a needle; some outer sheaths even curl, the vein patterns reaching the top, compared with lotus petals finer and more sinking; the leaf blades concave inward, sharply contracting to a point; the leaf texture thick and glutinous, the veins reaching the top like silver lines; the groove deeply deep, the marginal teeth fine and even, the plant form rigorous, the base straight and the tip drooping like a ring shape; there are also characteristics of upright leaves hard and thick, feeling moist, glutinous, soft and fine.

3. For butterfly-petal and strange-flower plants, the fleshy roots should be much branched, the "dragon roots" luxuriant, the "ridges" frequent; the pseudobulb large and varying in shape: some "ginger"-shaped, some "block"-shaped, some growing buds between the leaves, some with buds growing on top of the pseudobulb, and some with buds growing again within buds; some with clusters of buds growing together, the leaf sheaths twisted in many ways, the sheath tips mostly with colored tops or rice-like beads. The leaf blades are in a thousand postures; observe carefully, how could strange flowers not emerge?

5. True or false flower color: When selecting color flowers collected from the mountain, one must look at both the front and back sides: if the front is brightly colored and the back is dark, this flower's color is hard to count as precious; if the flower changes color after a long time out of the mountain, one must not fall in love at first sight; pure color without mixture is true color, and only true color that is bright is precious.