Blog Timeline

Introducing Phal. SDO Indigo Dragon

I'm really excited to introduce my new tetraploid cross P. SDO Indigo Dragon. This cross will be an important foundation cross moving into more tetraploid large flowered coerulea hybrids.

P. SDO Indigo Dragon
(P. Louise Burns X P. Princess Kaiulani)

This cross is the result of 3 generations of breeding plus a lot of work doing colchicine conversions with the parents.  It is primary a cross with lots of P. violacea and then a little bit of P. amboinensis and P. equestris.  These plants will get rather large and should carry 4 to 6 flowers on each inflorescence.  

SDO Indigo Dragon

 

Known Website Issues

KNOWN WEBSITE ISSUES....  (updated 4/02/23) Please check this post for the list of known issues with the new website.

The site is brand new and we are still working on some issues and adding new functionality.  We know a couple areas are not working correctly, so please check this list before you report issues to us.  If you find anything that is not on this list, please send us note.

 

Updated: March 27, 2023

  • FIXED - Shop/Store Out of Stock are not working properly at the moment.  Everything is showing as out of stock, but the stock number gives the correct quantity of available orchids.  If you run into this issue, please let me know.  But as of 4/2/23 an update has been made that should fix this 
  • Newsletter Sign-up is partially working, you should be bale to submit your e-mail and then we'll manually add you to the newsletter.  There is no account level management yet.
  • Forums
    • Community Membership - we have to manually change new accounts to Community Members for you to be able to post.  Hoping to improve this in the future, but for now if you want to join the community, please send me a note through the contact form.
    • Right now we have a basic implementation of the forums.  This will be improved as we get more features added.
  • My Orchid Vault
    • The pages for MOV have not been populated.   We have a new version in the works that will be getting released as soon as this website upgrade is done. 

Coerulea pulcherrima's at SDO

Coerulea pulcherrima's at SDO...

We have been really lucky over the years to be able to pull together a first class collection of different coerulea pulcherrimas.  Our breeding program has combined some of the best lines from around the world. We are really excited to be able to start offering very select divisions and some great new hybrids.  Check out our store for our new offerings. 

What "really" is the Coerulea Color From?

What is the coerulea color form in Phalaenopsis?  I see a lot of comments these days about what is a coerulea and what is not a coerulea, and using being loosely determined by what other pigments are and are not being expressed. Ultimately I think we are looking at this incorrectly and we need to redefine what a coerulea form is.

In the genus Phalaenopsis, there are no blue pigments.  There are a range of green, yellow, orange, magenta and violet pigments.   It's the combination of these pigments that gives us the full range of colors that we see in Phalaenopsis.   While coeruleas are sometimes referred to as "blue" Phalaenopsis, in reality they are a violet in color.  But what actually makes them this violet color?

There are three different pigments in Phalaenopsis called Anthocyanins that produce the range of colors from light pink, magenta, purple, and violet.  Yet only one of these three pigments gives us the violet "coerulea" color.  We refer to that pigment as Anthocyanin C, the third Anthocyanin.  When Anthocyanin A and/or B are also expressed in the flower, it is no longer a violet color and starts to go to more of a purple or very dark magenta.  So a coerulea form is very simply, the absence of expression of Anthocyanin A and B in the flower with only Anthocyanin C present.  Other pigments will always be present, even in what appears to be a completely white flower there will often be some green and/or yellow pigments.   This process is a mutation in the pigment production pathway where Anthocyanin's A & B are turned off and in some cases completely deleted from the pathway.

So what I want to propose is that a coerulea form is strictly defined by the absence of Anthocyanin A and B and expression of Anthocyanin C.   It does not matter if other pigments are present or not, and to what level of saturation they appear in the flower.

With that line of thinking some of the cultivars of P. tetraspis f. brunneola would actually be defined as coerulea.  There are other hybrids that will appear peach to brown, that would also be defined as coerulea because the only Anthocyanin being expressed is Anthocyanin C. 

For a hybridizer, I believe this distinction is very important.  What we care about with coeruleas is simply, is there a mutation that is blocking Anthocyanin A and B and/or genetically there is only a pathway for Anthocyanin C?   For example in the case of the tetraspis cultivars 'Sue's Coffee' and "Jia Ho Coffee'; the answer is yes, the Anthocyanin blocking mutation is present and only Anthocyanin C is present.

With that in mind and to further illustrate this concept, I would classify the following example cultivars as coerulea even though the flowers do not appear as the traditional violet coerulea color to the eye:

P. tetraspis 'Jia Ho Coffee'
P. Yellow Angel
P. Yellow Angel
P. Penang Jewel 'Peach Parfait'

I have a longer article in progress attempting to further define the coerulea form and put in place some common terminology to help with describing the different coeruleas.  But thought I would get this early/short description posted to gauge everyone's reaction.

Best, Rob

Hybridizers Notebook - Staying Focused when there are More Options than Time, a look back at 2018/2019

Originally Published: December 24, 2019

I periodically try to write a retrospective article that recounts some of the progress and challenges that have happened over the last few years.  It's been a number of years since I have  done this, so this article is long overdue.  While I started writing this as a mini-article, it ended up taking on a life of it's own and frankly took much longer to write than I was planning.   So ironically there is an element of the impact of time going by within this article where the status of things were actually changing over the months as this was being written.  So my apologies if this is a bit difficult to follow.  I started writing this in mid-Feb 2019 and well, it's almost been a year later.  *Gasp*  

Looking back on 2018 (and now 2019) turned into a reflection back on the last 16 years of breeding coerulea Phalaenopsis and how little progress I have made over the last few years.  2018 was fraught with the realization that I was horribly behind and the year ended with a desperate attempt to catch up on lab work, getting new crosses done and repotting in the greenhouse.  Some years I've produced lots of crosses, some years I've produced none, some years I find myself blooming out all magenta flowers, then some years a really special cross blooms coerulea.  On the best of years, a cross blooms out that answers a fundamental question or helps verify a theory about the genetics of the coerulea color form that has eluded me for over a decade now.   2018 and 2019 did have a few successes, so the last couple of years were not a total loss.  But it was still a bit disheartening to look back at the last couple of years to see how far behind I had gotten.

 

Phal. Sapphire's Angel and Phal. Louis Burns 4n
Phal. Little Blue Bird (Kenneth Schubert x pulcherrima)

I've had a lot of ups and downs over the years. Some years have been especially bad.  The last few years my day job has been so busy that my hybridizing has suffered.  I've had some crosses sitting in the lab for over 4 years; flasks covered in dust with orchid seedlings waiting for some attention to restart their growth.  It's heart breaking to realize you have lost two or more years of progress and crosses.  That realization was a bit of wake-up call and along with more normal work hours has given me the motivation to get caught up and refocus in 2019  and going into 2020.

A couple of things have changed since I first started breeding coeruleas but none has been more impactful than the shear number of different options that we now have with coerulea breeding.  When I started there were less than 10 different coerulea species and hybrids in total to work with, and of those, only four were easily obtainable.  Now we have access to so many different and unique coerulea Phalaenopsis that it is all too easy to fall into a trap of going toothpick crazy and trying to make every interesting potential cross.   That shotgun approach was logistically feasible 10 years ago, now it's just completely impossible to deal with because of high volume of options.   

 

Phal. Louis Burns 4n selection
Phal. CTL Vio Michollens
Phal. Sapphire's Violitz '082314'
Phal. YangYang Bluebird
Phal. Louis Burns 4n selection
Phal. Yellow Angel var indigo '031817A'
Phal. Little Blue Bird selection
Phal. Sapphire's Little Steve selection
Phal. Purple Martin v. indigo 'Sapphire's Pride' AM/AOS

The huge number of options has lead to the ongoing need to prioritize; how does one decide which crosses to make and focus on?  So many options, so many potential breeding lines, so many potential new directions....   I have to constantly internalize that my time is very limited, so realistically I can only handle producing 20 to 30 crosses in a year and even with that I risk running out of space in the lab and greenhouse.  Granted in a good year I make 200 or more crosses and 10 to 20% of those produce viable seed pods.   So in many ways this self limits the number of crosses produced. 2018 turned out to be a bit of an exception; in February 2019 I had almost 60 different crosses actively growing in the lab and at least 40 more viable pods in the greenhouse that needed to be harvested over 2 to 6 months. At my scale it's just not feasible to produce this volume of crosses on a regular basis.  

So the questions, "What should I focus on?" and "What is actually important to get done in a given year?" are becoming very necessary to deal with.  With so many options on the table, I really struggle with staying focused.  There is that word, "focus".  Even as I wrote this, I looked at my "Crosses TBD This Week" list and I had 17 crosses listed there. Given I had something like 40 close to mature pods in the greenhouse at that time, I really should not be making 17 more crosses.

 

What I have found is it becomes more and more important to have clear goals and strategies in order to maintain focus and be able to scope down the potential work.   This helps guide the decisions that ultimately allow you to stay focused on the tasks that are going to work towards achieving your goals.  I know I'm sounding like some corporate "motivational" speaker right now.  But I've found myself needing to apply some of these thought processes and work habits to my own hybridizing program.  With coerulea breeding there have been so many questions that needed to be answered to really know what path would work to achieve any specific goal.  In many cases the only way to answer those questions was to make lots of different crosses.  So the potential permutations and total volume quickly became unrealistic to sustain. The only feasible approach is to stay focused and constantly reduce the scope of what I'm going to try to get done in a give year.  The hardest part of all of this is my own breeding program has produced so many different lines of breeding that I actually can't continue moving everything I have created forward.  It's like having 4 children and having to decided which 2 you are going to send to college.  No one wants to make that decision. 

So I keep going back to my goals...  My high level goal continues to be working towards producing larger, fuller form coeruleas with higher flower count with an end goal of producing a tetraploid standard form coerulea Phalaenopsis.   I would like to think I'm closer to making a big improvement in flower size, but so far every attempt to introduce standard form phal characteristics has resulted in failure.  I know much more now than I knew even five years ago.  New learning's keep surfacing every year; based on new results in 2017 and 2018 I have been forced to yet again rethink the approach for crosses that would allow me to hybridize with something as simple as Phal. aphrodite.  So the high level goals stay the same, but unfortunately the strategy and tactics to achieve them continues to change.

Part of being able to stay focused, making sense of the data I have and being able to weed through all the possible crosses is really about staying organized.   I use multiple organization tools day to day.  I have started using a online planning program call Trello to keep track of crosses I want to make.  

 

It easily allows me to organize crosses by priority, keep up with crosses that I need to make in the current week and crosses that need attention in the lab.  This really helps with staying focused as I can prioritize crosses and use prioritized lists to determine which crosses I'm going to make next.  I can then also use that prioritization to determine which crosses in the lab I really need to put more time and energy into.   I still use a database to keep track of all my crosses, but so far that database has not been integral to the pre-planning stages.  In the future I still may develop a module for my database that facilitates cross planning, but tools I am currently using work as they are so it's a lower priority.  Prior to ever putting anything in Trello I often work through multi-generation lines of breeding on paper that are related to different strategies that I believe will help achieve specific breeding goals.  So my workflow has become this:

  1. Identify individual goals and work through the blockers for achieving that goal.

  2. Plan out crosses and multi-generation lines of breeding on "paper".  (In my case digital paper, I use a program called Evernote so that I can have the information on multiple devises and I'm writing this article in it right now.)

  3. Block out strategic priorities and individual crosses that need to be made in Trello.

  4. Constantly prioritize the crosses to be made and maintain a consolidated list of what crosses need to be made next.

  5. Record crosses that are made in my hand written Hybridizers Notebook.

  6. Create database entries in My Orchid Vault (MOV) once a cross is harvested and goes into the lab.  From that point forward all of the record keeping for a given cross goes into MOV.

Looking forward into 2020, my goals really have changed very little from years past.  There have been minor tweaks and refinements.  My high level primary goals are currently as follows:

  • Work towards creating large flowered (standard form) tetraploid coerulea Phalaenopsis.

  • Continue to improve the color and saturation of coerulea Phalaenopsis.

  • Create fuller form novelty complex coerulea hybrids with increased size.

  • Create higher flower count novelty complex coerulea hybrids.

  • Create additional tetraploid coerulea hybrids.

  • Create coerulea multiflora's (pot plants) with larger and higher flower count.

  • Continue to line breed and improve coerulea species.

  • Create new and novel color forms with coerulea and other color pigments. 

This is still a lot and frankly covers too many areas to maintain any real focus.  Often multiple goals apply to the same lines of breeding which further complicates the potential strategies and tactics needed to reach these outcomes.  Never the less, these are still all goals that are part of the foundation of my breeding program. 

No retrospective is complete without looking at what was actually accomplished during that period.  During the last couple of years I got so far behind on labwork that I did not have many new crosses blooming out from 2017 to 2018.  I only had 5 or 6 new crosses bloom out during those two years and only 3 were actually coerulea.   Luckily one cross ended up adding more information to the list of important learning's that will help with future coerulea hybridizing.

 

Sapphire's Violet Sherbet (Kenneth Schubert X Sapphire's Violitz)

was what I considered to be long shot cross.  In this cross, you have standard coerulea violacea, coerulea pulcherrima and indigo violacea.  Traditionally it has been impossible to produce coeruleas out of any crosses where either coeruelea violacea and/or coerulea pulcherrima were crossed with an indigo violacea. The mutation that causes the coerulea color form is different in these two groups and has always resulted in the mutation being fixed and 100% magenta/pink flowers produced.    So I basically had low expectations for this cross, but it turned out to be ground breaking.

The first couple of seedlings bloomed out dark magenta and I assumed the cross was going to be a failure.  About 6 months after the first seedlings bloomed, the first coeruleas started flowering and I realized that this cross was going to produce some really interesting color forms.  There were two breakthroughs with this cross:  

One: This was the first time a cross that included standard violacea, pulcherrima coerulea and indigo violacea has produced a coerulea form flower.   So basically there was something different about this cross that kept the mutation in place that blocks the production of the pink and magenta color pigments.  (Anthocyanin's A and B)

Two: It produced 50% standard color form (magenta) and 50% coerulea color form.  It's always a good day when I start to see this type of result, it means the color inheritance in the cross is now following a pattern consistent with standard Mendelian genetics.   This greatly increases predictability when making hybrids if you can rely on that standard inheritance model. Most of the time, this is not the case with coerulea hybrids.

So Sapphire's Violet Sherbet was a great data point and validation for some of the work I've been doing to work through techniques to improve the stability and reliability of coerulea breeding. 

SDO Blue Heaven (Louise Burns X violacea)

was basically what was expected from this cross.  This is 3rd generation line breeding continuing to go back to indigo violacea to increase flower size and color.     Some of the resulting seedlings had extremely saturated color.  These seem to be very compact plants and as was expected, a lower flower count than Louise Burns.    These plants are in bloom for 7 to 8 months out of the year.  I feel like this cross has gone about as far as it makes sense to go breeding back to violacea, but it should be useful going forward in other crosses.

Sapphire's Violet Jewel (Sapphire's Little Steve X Sapphire's Violitz)

is another cross that mostly produced what was expected.   I was hoping that Sapphire's Violitz would have helped improve the form more than it did.  Instead the form is about the same as Equalacea, but with larger flowers and strong vigorous plants.  It's technically an improvement on some levels over Sapphire's Little Steve, but it really brought the cross back to being like Equalacea.  It probably has some uses working towards multi-flora crosses, but really was not a significant improvement of any kind other than having some new genetics in the cross with Tzu Chiang Tetralitz in the background.  That alone may make this cross more useful for future hybridizing. 

Louis Burns 4n (Equalacea 4n x violacea 4n):

I also produced a lovely tetraploid strain of P. Louis Burns produced from one of my tetraploid Equalaceas and a tetraploid indigo violacea.  I'm currently growing out a large batch of these with hopes of being able to get them to AOS judging.  The next generation of tetraploid breeding from this strain is currently in the lab.  These are extremely vigorous plants, so I'm excited to see where this is going to go.

 

 

 

Equestris var cyanochilus line breeding: 

I have been slowly working on trying to improve the color saturation in the sepals and petals of equestris var cyanochilus. This has not be a really high priority project for me, so I've just been fitting in crosses as I have time. This year I bloomed out a new 3rd generation cross that is showing some incremental progress and suggests that eventually we can get to a fully saturated coerulea equestris.

I took these photos with my phone, so the color is not very accurate.  In real life this flower is more violet and not as pink as it appears in the photo.  But you can see the improvement in color saturation as compared to equestris 'Violet Eyes'. 

2019 has been a little light on new hybrids blooming out, but with the high volume of crosses going into the lab and coming out of the lab right now; 2020 and beyond should be really great years with lots of progress.  

But there has been one really exciting development this year... I set out to remake George Vasquez and hopefully create a coerulea form many years ago. While technically it's not a true George Vasquez, my cross SDO Royal Dragon (Fintje Kunriawati x violacea) has started blooming out some coeruleas.  This cross is |LS|(violacea X pulchra) X violacea|RS|.  The original Luedde-violacea's were made with pulchra but also likely had some bellina in them.  So this cross is not exactly the same.   But it's still great to finally have this line of breeding in coerulea form.

 

At some point I'm going to have to go back and try to reproduce a coerulea cross that has the same background as the Luedde-violaceas that have been the foundation of many of our novelty crosses.  That is going to be a whole different challenge. 

Meanwhile I have lots of new crosses in the greenhouse and the lab.  Let's see if I can stay "focused" until that new batch of crosses starts blooming out and I have even more options to choose from.  ? It may be time to build a new greenhouse. 

Have a happy holiday season and happy new year.  Looking forward to what 2020 will bring.

All the best, Rob

Phal. Yungho Gelb Canary - coerulea

(Princess Kaiulani var indigo X Gelblieber var flava)

Exciting new cross going into the lab.   This is a first attempt at making an indigo coerulea form of Yungho Gelb Canary.    The Gelblieber that we used was made with the same amboinensis that also produced the coerulea Princess Kaiulani's.  So we have every reason to believe that this cross will bloom out coerulea. 

Announcement: Sapphire's Violet Sherbet

Really excited to announce Phal. Sapphire's Violet Sherbet. This is a cross of Kenneth Schubert X Sapphire's Violitz. The Kenneth Schubert used is the standard coerulea form. So this is the first time that we have successfully paired a standard coerulea Kenneth Schubert with an indigo form.

Phal. Louis Burns 4n

New tetraploid Phal. Louis Burns cross made with our own tetraploid Equalacea and violacea indigo.

A Decade of Chasing the Elusive Blue Phalaenopsis (IPA April 2012)

Phalaenopsis Vol. 21(3) 2012
April 2012

I'm extremely proud to announce the release of my first article written for Phalaenopsis, the journal of the International Phalaenopsis Alliance.

Contents:
A Decade of Chasing the Elusive Blue Phalaenopsis is a 9.5 page article featuring 18 full color photo's, now available in Phalaenopsis Vol. 21(3) 2012. This article cover's my history growing up in the orchid community, my hybridizing goals and progress over the first decade of my coerulea breeding program.

Please support our national and international orchid organizations whenever possible. If your not a member you can join the International Phalaenopsis Alliance and/or can also purchase copies of this volume directly from them at http://www.phal.org/.

Rob

Hybridizers Notebook - Looking back at 2007 and forward to 2008

Happy New Year and thank you to our current patrons and friends that have supported us over the years. Welcome to our new friends that have starting to discover the exciting new breeding direction of coerulea Phalaenopsis. 2007 was a fun year for us as we've started to see some our work come to fruition with some first blooms that have validated our program. The greenhouse is full of new crosses that are spiking for the first time and the lab is full of even more exciting crosses that represent the leading edge in coerulea Phal breeding. 2007 was a great year and looking forward we can see that 2008 is going to be even greater.

Some of our first breeding experiments with equestris var cyanochilus are blooming out for the first time now and even more are spiking. So far we've had one significant success and we're closely watching the other crosses to see what they are going to reveal about how well the cyanochilus variety will carry the coerulea color into its progeny.

The First Tetraploid Phal equestris var cyanochilus:
Creating tetraploid lines of coerulea phal species has been a core part of strategy for improving the color of coerulea phal hybrids. The very first cross we were able to treat with colchicine was an equestris var cyanochilus cross between 'Martel's Blue' and 'ABC'.

These seedlings came out of the lab early in 2007 and proved to be stronger growers than their untreated 2n siblings. This was contrary to the myth that colchicine treated seedlings are poor growers. Later in 2007 we did guard cell measurement survey of the 2n and potential 4n seedlings. Many of the potential 4n seedlings appeared to be tetraploid during that initial survey based on guard cell measurements and comparisons with the known 2n seedlings.

In late Dec 2007 the first of the potential tetraploid seedlings bloomed out and we are very happy to announce that flower size almost certainly confirms the plant is a tetraploid. Later in 2008 we will be doing root tip gene counts on this plant to certify that it is a tetraploid.

This is a significant advance and we will begin line breeding the 4n plants now and it should be much easier to increase the pigment density in a the tetraploid line. The intensity of the lip is already somewhat more intense than either 2n parent. 

 

Left: equestris var cyanochilus 'Martel's Blue' 2n
Right: equestris var cyanochilus ('Martel's Blue x 'ABC') 4n

On the left is the diploid pod parent and on the right is its probable tetraploid progeny. The overall size and shape of the flower segments had improved considerably. The intensity of the pigments in the lip has increased some. In the greenhouse the difference is more obvious.

 

The Norton Indigo Violaceas: 
As of this year, we now have 4 confirmed indigo Norton violaceas to work with. 'Sapphire's Navy' bloomed for the second time this year and both the color and intensity of the pigments improved. This plant has been used in 3 crosses now and is going to be one of the foundations of our coerulea breeding program. We've been successful in remaking Dtps. Kenneth Schubert with violacea 'Sapphire's Navy' and a good coerulea pulcherrima. This will be potentially give rise to a new generation of Kenneth Schuberts with even more intense color.

We've also been able to self violacea 'Sapphire's Navy' this year and the resulting seedlings will be colchicine treated to create one of the first generations of tetraploid indigo violaceas. This the most significant accomplishment this year and will allow us to start breeding with large tetraploid whites once these seedlings bloom out.

We currently have Phal. Equalacea and Dtps. Purple Martin in flask using violacea 'Sapphire's Navy'. These seedlings have been growing very quickly and we should be able to make some available to the public later in spring 2008. These crosses have a huge amount of potential.

 

New Breeding Lines:
For over 5 years we've been planning out some new coerulea Phalaenopsis breeding lines. Many experiment crosses have been made and this year the first of some of our unique are starting to spike. In the months to come we will start announcing some new crosses and sharing the results of this research. This is an exciting time for us and we are now anxiously awaiting to see if our breeding theories are going prove out to be correct.

The future of coerulea Phalaenopsis is bright and we are looking for to an exciting and rewarding 2008. We hope you have a great and are looking forward to seeing what you bloom out from our crosses.

Happy growing!

 

Hybridizers Notebook - Current Breeding Program as of July 2007

This article was originally written for the HybridizersForum.com. If you are interested in orchid breeding, then it is a great online community to participate in. Some of the information in this article is a rehash of some previous things I have talked about and some of this is I am presenting for the first time to the public. As I will state several times, please keep in mind some of this changes on a frequent basis.

Sometime around 2000-2001 I decided I wanted to focus on breeding blue Phalaenopsis. (I was also the ridiculous grower that had Masdevallias growing in East Texas back in the 90s, so this seemed like a similar challenge!) So I started trying to get my hands on everything that was even close to blue and started doing lots of research. I've tried to talk with as many people as were willing to share their thoughts on blue phal breeding as possible. As many of you have probably realized they are few and far between. My current breeding program is the result of my own research, discussions with other hybridizers and the resulting conclusions I've come too. So you're reading the results of about 6-7 years of thought and research into all of this.

For the purposes of discussion, I'm going to attempt to outline my current breeding goals and the planned breeding lines that I hope will help me accomplish them. This is an aggressive and multifaceted program. Keep in mind that I am 100% focused on blue breeding, so I can have a broader scope and be a little eclectic at the same time.

None of what I'm writing takes into consideration flower pH, blue contribution from different pigments, much less co-pigmentation. At this early stage I am not trying to take that into consideration other than just being aware that there are multiple processes at working giving us the blue pigmentation in different coerulea phals. However further down the line, some of the experimental crosses may begin to help us better understand the mechanisms at work. I expect that we will learn as much form the crosses that don't work as we will learn from the crosses that do work. As we begin to better grasp of the mechanisms at play my approach will become more focused. 

 

Goals: 
Create high quality blue Phalaenopsis with better form, vigor and saturation/hue than currently available hybrids. The end goal is to create large/standard solid blue phals and multiflora solid blue phals; both with great form, color and vigor. Both dark blues and light/baby blues are part of these goals.

  • produce high quality breeding stock that can contribute to blue Phalaenopsis breeding long term
  • produce saturated blue cultivars that rival the quality of currently available stock
  • produce a multiflora line of blue Phalaenopsis suitable for pot plant culture with improved vigor and flower count
  • produce a standard form blue phalaenopsis with great color and form
  • produce a new range of colors including baby/sky blue, navy blue, indigo, violet and purple

Breeding Lines:
This is of course where it gets fun. I have five bigger picture areas of focus at this point. If I'm lucky I'm getting 10 of these crosses to take per year. So none of this is going particularly fast, but it should be noted that I have been able to complete 15 of planned coerulea Phalaenopsis crosses to date. Some of them are growing out in the greenhouse and some are currently in the lab.

 

1.) Line breed existing coerulea phal species and create polyploid cultivars during the process.

a.) Phal. equestris var cyanochilus line breeding - currently in progress. 
b.) Phal. violacea var indigo line breeding - the first crosses will hopefully take this year. Assuming they are successful, I'll start treating protocroms with colchicine. (The updated to this is we have two crosses in the lab at the replate stage using violacea 'Sapphire's Navy'. Both crosses were also treated with colchicine.)
c.) Line breed other coerulea phal species that may happen to come up.
d.) Dts. pulcherrima var coerulea - other growers are currently focusing on this. I'm not planning on doing an line breeding unless I just end up with two really good ones and can't help myself!

 

2.) Coerulea on Coerulea Crosses - Utilize existing coerulea phal hybrids where possible to breed for improved color and shape. A couple of these types of crosses that are in the works are:

a.) Dtps. Summer Rose (Kenneth Schubert x equestris) I've got this growing out in the greenhouse and still in the lab using the equestris var cyanochilus.
b.) Phal. Equalacea (equestris x violacea) I've got two of these in the lab with both forms of coerulea violacea on the equestris var cyanochilus.
c.) Dtps. Purple Martin (Kenneth Schubert x violacea) As previously mentioned I have this in the lab made with the indigo violacea.
d.) Dtps Kenneth Schubert (violacea x pulcherrima) This will need to be remade in the near future using the indigo violacea. I tried to get it to take several times last year and had no luck. I'll keep trying.
e.) Dtps. Purple Gem (pulcherrima x equestris) I've been trying to get this take with the cyanochilus for several years now. One of these days I'll get this one done. 
f.) Dtps Siam Treasure crosses. I've been trying these for a few years. I have one seedling in flask of Siam Treasure x equestris var cyanochilus. Other than that I've had zero luck with this direction. If you've seen my Siam Treasure 'Blue' in its full glory, then you know why I keep trying to get this thing to breed.

 

3.) Leverage other phal species that appear to carry color well - I've done a great deal of research on this and have been trying to follow SE Asia breeding trends as well. Phal. micholitzii shows up in their blue breeding very frequently. Phal. tetraspis to a lesser amount. I've had a hunch for a very long time that tetrapsis would carry blue well. This was partially confirmed when Tzu Chiang Lilac was created. I've also seen some Jennifer Palermo's that were almost blue. I've got a Jennifer Palermo in flask now using a regular coerulea violacea. I'm trying to do that cross with indigo violacea.

I have been trying to get crosses in place along this line since 2000. I now have a number of different crosses both in the lab and now in the greenhouse using different blues and tetraspis. The first of those should start blooming next year. I'm also planning on using Tzu Chiang Tetralitz as it does have better shape than tetraspis alone and has been proven to carry blue. Phal Penang Jewel (Penang Violacea x violacea) also appears to carry blue and I'm hoping to remake that cross using an indigo violacea in the near future that can then be used in further breeding. The information I've been able to get so far is that the current coerulea crosses using Penang Jewel, were made with an alba form.

Side Note: Tying into section 5 below, we were discussing this in theHybridizersForum.com and another breeder reminded me that he is trying to get some blue genetics into the crosses as early as possible. Thinking that direction it's very likely that I will take these crosses, put them on a white like aphrodite and then go back to blue. With this approach I will accomplish basically the same goal as what is outlined in section 5, but I won't have to take the time to make all of those crosses. Jennifer Palermo and Penang Violacea made with an indigo violacea would be used.

I have two reasons for doing all of this. I believe tetrapsis will impart additional vigor and a tendency to bloom through out the year. It may just result in light blues. But I'm not completely against that either as long as they are more vigorous than the current coerulea phals. Also micholitzii's short stems just might balance out pulcherrima's long stems and it does tend to contribute better shape.

 

4.) Leverage 2N and 4N whites to improve shape - this is going to be a very long term work in progress.

a.) Coerulea lines need to be converted to 4N in order to do good 4N breeding. Many of us have already started on this.
b.) 4N crosses with standard whites will be done once confirmed tetraploids are in place.
c.) Blue on existing 2N Whites- I'm current trying to get crosses to take on aphrodite along with a few other folks. Aphrodite x violacea is the main target. I currently have aphrodite x equestris var cyanochilus 'ABC' growing in the greenhouse/. I doubt if these will be blue, but will be interesting to see what happens.
d.) Custom whites for blue breeding - see next section.

 

5.) Create and use custom whites for blue breeding - The last resort approach. Again this goes back to that gut instinct. This is not based on science and is really just a theory/personal opinion. So don't take any of this as the truth, its just one thing rolling through my head and so I'm working on this direction as one part of my breeding program.

I have this feeling that a regular satin white like aphrodite is not going to carry blue as well as hoped. I believe other species can be introduced to increase our chances some. So I'm remaking some white crosses that are not currently available in order to create my own line of whites tailored to later breed with blues. If the straight blue on aphrodite crosses work, then this is a total waste of time. If they don't work or don't work as well as planned, then this could be worth the extra effort. So as I've said before, I prefer to hedge my bets and try a few things that go against current schools of thought.

The following crosses are planned:

a.) Phal. Formosa Star (aphrodite x micholitzii)
b.) Phal. Snow Twinkle (aphrodite x tetraspis)
c.) Phal. (aphrodite x Tzu Chiang Tetralitz)
d.) Phal. (Formosa Star x Snow Twinkle)

In every case, aphrodite will be used as the pod parent to keep as much of its shape as possible. I've found photos of some of these crosses both ways and the crosses with aphrodite as the pod parent are superior in shape to the reverse cross. Once available, these whites would then be used with the best current blue phals.

Please keep in mind that all of this changes frequently. As new information is available, I'm am constantly adjusting my breeding program. So this information represents a snap shot of what I'm up to at this moment. During the time that I originally wrote this and now, I'm having second thoughts about even needing to deal with the section 5 part of this. So as I said, this is a living and constantly changing plan.

Keep and eye out for more updates and new crosses. As we start to bloom some of the current crosses out, we will start to release more of these. In many cases we don't get lots of seedlings and want to bloom some of them out to make sure we are able to select good cultivars for future breeding.