Screening

Screening orchids for production seems to be a necessary and ongoing process. There are a number of factors that determine whether an orchid variety is going to be viable as a pot plant or cut flower for your nursery. The first consideration is whether you can grow it in your location.Does it grow reasonably well in terms of producing attractive foliage? Is it easy to bloom and blooms repeatedly each year or several times a year? When it flowers does your market prefer it to others? Do the flowers have a long enough shelf life? Does the plant handle shipping well? There seems to be a never-ending array of concerns that are important to consider when selecting orchid plants to grow.

Because we grow a fairly wide range of orchids we find ourselves paying particular attention to certain generas to make sure that primarily we are able to grow the plants reasonably well. We also try new generas and varieties in small quantities to determine if it is worth trying them on a larger scale. We find ourselves constantly screening orchids that do well not only in our nursery in general but also in particular areas of our greenhouses. Variation in light or air circulation seems to play a fairly large role in terms of what varieties do well. Once we map out our greenhouses we then screen for more similar types to grow in those areas.

Over the years experience has taught us that screening begins prior to pollination and continues through adulthood. Screening for viable parents takes a number of years. One very effective area of screening is in the laboratory. Not all seedlings grow alike. The lesson experience has taught us is, that if plants are not growing vigorously in the lab, then there is a high probability that this will continue through adulthood. No matter how great a set of parents may seem, there are unknown genetic consequences of each pairing, and the early stages seem to be the best indicator of their progeny's merit. Yes, it may seem horrible, but we do discard thousands and thousands of orchids before they even get a chance at life. If a batch of orchids is showing signs of some abnormality or general lack of vigor we simply throw them away, no matter how wonderful we envisioned the cross to be. On a positive note we do look for extra vigorous seedlings and will tend to produce a greater number of flasks of these. Although nothing in orchids seems to be a guarantee, our aim is really to increase the probability and proportion of superior seedlings by screening the seedlings during their first year of development.

Screening also continues after seedlings are removed from flask. Here we are looking for plants that do extremely well in the open environment. This continues through their adulthood and the final screening comes when we select plants for future generations. Many growers have asked us to remake hybrids much like the University of Hawaii cultivars. Yes, we are working toward developing similar reliability of the University of Hawaii cultivars, but we also find that we need to fulfill an even greater need: The need for a continued flow of new varieties that are improvements over the previous years.

So how do we screen new hybrids if we are constantly looking for improvements? Ultimately it seems that the parents and their ability to produce reliable progeny is a vital consideration in new hybrids. Over the years we have found that particular parents paired with particular types will produce exceptional progeny. Also particular parents are well suited to be crossed to particular groups. For example Den. Jaquelyn Thomas (4N) produces excellent hybrids when crossed to the Dendrobium phalaenthe group (4N). This group we termed 'Inter-Den-Phal' because it is somewhere in between the two. This particular pairing produces vigorous plants that tend to bloom early with fairly large flowers and blooms many times a year. The parent of Dendrobium phalaenthe needs a good amount of scrutiny but once it is determined that it will produce exceptional progeny then other possible combinations can yield a wide range of colors with similar success.

Having full control over what gets propagated in the lab plays a key role in producing quality seedlings. Having experience with each parent being used and an understanding of what types of combinations will have a high probability of success helps to minimize the discarding of seedlings in the flask stage.

But what about screening for plants if you are just beginning to raise orchids? Looking back to our beginnings I think first and foremost it is important to raise healthy, virus free plants. There just doesn't seem to be an efficacious way to economically remove virus in orchids and if you have a few virused plants they can easily spread it to others. The next step is to trial plants and see what types grow best in your area. Over the years we have adapted our greenhouses to raise a number of different generas that we previously couldn't grow successfully. So it's really like moving in two directions at once.

Then as you get more experienced raising more groups you can try more and more types. At some point though it may not be economical to raise particular groups that require temperatures that have a marked difference than your particular temperature ranges. And most times it's not really worth the expense of trying.