Detailed Explanation of Key Points in Colored Clivia Breeding Technology
Even distribution of color stripes: alternating white and green, with a certain proportion.
Good contrast of color stripes: distinct green and white, bright and captivating, exquisite and translucent, with a sense of three-dimensionality, transparency and freshness.
Good stability of color stripes: for striped clivia, the more evenly the color stripes are distributed on each leaf and the closer each leaf is to the ideal, the better.
The colors of colored clivia roughly fall into five types: bordered stripes, mandarin duck stripes, colored stripes and golden-thread stripes, with strains such as Chinese orchid colored clivia, Japanese colored clivia, Henglan colored clivia and Quelan colored clivia. When breeding, the color requirements and variety characteristics must be considered, and parents must be selected carefully. Some breeding experience of predecessors is summarized below.
Selection of Parents
From the emergence of colored clivia in the 1980s to now, the hybridization seedling emergence rate is 15%-20%. Only by selecting plants with fairly evenly distributed colored stripes as the female parent can the seedling emergence rate possibly reach 70%. Therefore, when selecting parents, the traits of the male and female parents must be comprehensively considered to achieve trait complementarity, so that excellent orchid seedlings can be obtained.
Selection of the Female Parent
According to the experience of predecessors, when selecting the female parent, first choose a thread-stripe clivia with very transparent thread stripes, where the front and back thread stripes can shine through, and require even distribution of color stripes and high color purity; the greater the contrast between porcelain white and dark green, the better. Next, consider other traits, such as leaf length, width, length-to-width ratio, leaf veins, head shape, rosette shape, brightness, thickness and stiffness. Under the condition of ensuring the seedling emergence rate of the offspring and a relatively high proportion of colored clivia in the offspring, the more other aspects conform to the standards of clivia, the better.
Selection of the Male Parent
When selecting the male parent, first choose a relatively transparent thread-stripe clivia. Next, consider addressing the defects in the female parent's traits, so as to compensate for, improve and enhance the female parent's traits. In production practice, it will be found that some male parents are of very good quality, but the offspring obtained when pollinated onto different female parent clivias are different. Therefore, the selection of excellent male parents requires long-term practice, records, observation and summarization before it can be determined.
Hybridization Technology
Clivia does not set fruit through self-pollination and requires artificial pollination. After selecting the male and female parents well, only by carrying out correct pollination operation techniques can a large number of fruits be obtained.
Make good preparations before pollination
Before pollination, prepare the necessary pollination tools: toothpicks, brushes, glass dishes, tweezers, labels, pencils or ballpoint pens, etc. When many flowers are blooming, prepare more pollination tools, and be sure to use one set of pollination tools for each male parent. Determine the optimal pollination time
When the perianth of the female parent's floret splits open for 2-3 d, the stigma of the pistil begins to secrete mucus, and the pistil matures; this is the optimal pollination period. The optimal pollination time in a day is 9:00-10:00 in the morning or 13:00-14:00 in the afternoon each day.
Collect pollen in time
When the stamens of the male parent emerge from the perianth, the anthers split open, and the pollen begins to shed, remove the stamens of the male parent with tweezers, tap the yellow pollen into a glass dish, cover it with a lid and set it aside for use. Pollen collection must not be too late, as the pollen is easily lost if collected too late.