With the recent Cypripedium posts, I thought maybe it was time for a breeding/advanced DNA discussion regarding Cyps!

What are the current breeding trends going on these days?
What is being done to increase blooming time? Ease of growing? Etc....
I'd be curious to hear some disuccsion on this.

Cypripedium breeding is in its infancy. The first reproducible method of asymbiotic germination AND growth of seedlings to pots and blooming was not reported until 1986. Up to the present there are still a lot of primary hybrids that have not been reported yet, and of the 45 or so species in the genus, about a dozen are only rarely able to be kept alive in culture and three of them, the ones from Central America, have never been kept alive by anyone in culture. At this point there are not any complex hybrids that have made it to blooming size, most of the hybrids available are either sterile or produce very few viable progeny - it was only two years ago that the first flowering progeny of a hybrid with another species was reported (and that flower looks suspiciously identical to the pod parent!). It is not that complex hybrids will not be possible, it is only that a few people are propagating Cypripediums yet and there are many things to try. Paul Perakos is attempting complex hybrids with very specific goals in mind (every else I know hybridizing is doing random work based on whatever pollen is available at the time a flower opens). This year Paul gave me a green pod from andrewsii (parviflorum x candidum) x Aki (macranthos x pubescens). So far a fair number of seed germinated, the protocorms are doing well and the more precocious are producing their first roots. Hopefully some of these will make it to blooming plants (there are many primary hybrids that produce normal-looking seedlings in flask only to have them always die when potted). I have hope for several of Paul's crosses however since they are doing well and most other complex hybrids I have tried have resulted in nothing or early death of seedlings.

At this point there is little information about mass propagation, meristem techniques are in their infancy - althoug some progress is being reported using methods very similar to those which have been successful for Paphiopedilum. I am working on protocols now using root tip meristem with encouraging results (my work is based on the work of a Japanese group that is having some success).

The only DNA work with which I am familiar is simple phylogenetic fingerprinting. There are several labs doing this work.

Ron

One thing that's interesting with Cyps is their extremely large genome size -- in general, larger genomes mean longer times for cell division, and thus longer generation times (times to flowering).

Interesting information, particularly about the larger genome, complicates things! I am sloooowly learning....:)

Another note about genetic compatability. I'm no orchid breeder, so I don't know what it's like out there with other slippers (except that there are many complex hybrids around). I can tell you that many primary Cyp crosses have yeilded no viable embryos due to genetic mismatching, often between plants that you many think could work. Also, quite often resulting protocorms fail to produce viable seedlings, or seedlings don't grow well, or even juvenile plants refuse to grow and flower well, if at all! So this work has been progressing quite slowly since the 1980's, but with greater strides since the mid-1990's. You have to remember that microprogation of "easy" species like C. reginae barely existed before 1990, but is common nowadays. To wit, we are just learning.

Having said that, a number of very unusual crosses have been made including C. parviflorum x C. formosanum (Carson), C. yatabeaum x C. candidum (Werner), and C. reginae x C. lichiangense (Princess). These are some pretty strange combinations!

Turn around time from initiating a seed capsule to having the first flowering plants is about 5 or 6 years at earliest (there are rare exceptions). This is not an endeavor for the impatient grower!

Tom Velardi

The impression I am getting, and please correct me if I am misinterpreting, is, Cyps are harder to propegate/breed than Paphs and Phrags?

Hi, Cyps are not more difficult to propagate than Phrags or Paphs, but many are very difficult to keep alive in culture for prolonged periods of time (although the increasing availability of artificially propagated seedlings is allowing better understanding of cultural needs. The group of ground-leaved species, e.g. Cyp lichiangense has been extraordinarily difficult to keep in culture, but the availability of large numbers of seedlings has allowed their cultural needs (rather strict and unusual!) to be deciphered and now they are being cultured for long periods and propagated.

A big problem, however, is hybridization - many species are simply not compatible with one another.

Ron

Hi,

I've read somewhere that similar compability problems occured in early Phrag. bessae breeding, and that this type of breeding really took off only after the introduction of Colchicine-converted 4N plants.

Would that be a way to go with Cyps? Did anybody try either to convert Cyp species, or a primary cross?

Best,

As meantioned earlier it is not all hybrids that are so good.
Many do not grow better or bloom earlier or have any advantage at all. Of all the hybrids that are out there not that many is actually worth growing or not prime examples of an better plant.
The German breeder Werner Frosch has developped several hybrids and yet they sell only a few of these.
http://www.w-frosch.onlinehome.de/hyblist.htm the compleat list

http://www.cypripedium.de/ the ones actually for sale

The Swedish breeder Svante Malmgren says he is going for easy culture and easy flowering so that everyone that likes garden should be able to grow them. He is also discussing the problem with for example reginae that it is often not a hybrid it will be a reginae even with a different parent. He seems to be using "excellent" plants to see if this would improve seedlings and their growing habits.

http://www.lidaforsgarden.com/orchids.htm here you can read about his work on terestial orchids. Nice pictures aswell

Much of the problem is that it is so new that only recently there have been strategies of what to grow. Fine exampes are seen in the galeri postings of Ron and Tom

The trend to use "excelent parents" a plant with bigger flowers than the rest of the specimines or a plant that grew fast and flowered early or unusual has an unusall shaped/colored lip etc has only stared.
The physical number of plants in cultivation is increasing very rappidly and hence the chances to have extraordinary exampels of the spieses for breeding increase.

I think we are in the begining of a avalange of high quality seedlings with nice properies and with improved meristem techniques there will be really outtanding plants of cymbidium as well.

This is what I have seen and read and I am not any breeder so I have only opinion and no work.

It will be nice to see the development.

Kind regards
Joakim

Ah, the colchicine comment about besseae is very interesting! There has been little colchine work with Cyps to date. Indeed, I have bottle still in its armored can in the lab for some attempts one long winter's night this season. You have added another reason for trying it out!

Thanks!

Ron Burch

Regarding my post it should in the last sentence be Cypripedium and not Cymbidium.

There have been some attempts to get 4n but not much have been seen in other forum, so maybe the results are not yet public or it has not been any attempts.
The one I have seen is this.

http://www.cypripedium.de/forum/messages/1639.html

I do not know if the Cyps are tested for cromosone counts like the phrags have been. Then it would be a point to make 4n if there is 2n and 4n plants. If there is only 2n plants there might not be much gained by the treatment regarding avoiding 3n. It would be worse if not both where treated!! That is only what I would guess based on comon knowledge in DNA and not in any way an expert.

Good luck.
Joakim

To pick up an old thread

Regarding breeding trends this subject was up at an other forum as well and the answer then was people hybridize what they have but there is now some thoughts about that aswell. Here is the discussions comments http://www.cypripedium.de/forum/messages/1190.html

Hopfully there will be more plants and people out there that work with this and even to improve techiques.

The very importent step of meristem propagation is still lacking but maybe not for long? My German is not good enough to see if they say the have developped it. The language is german so I would really be happy if any one could clearyfy if they claim meristem propagation or if it is "normal propagation"

The link is here http://www.gartenorchideen-koch.de/

Here is onother Greman Company that must use meristem techniques to be able to reproduse their different 3 Types / clones of reginae and one ventriculum. Or maybe they only provide blooming plants so they can be sure what they sell.
The pictures are nice even if they seem to have sligtly improved colours.
Here is the pdf of their products, the web page seem to be under construction http://www.bockbioscience.de/pdf/gartenorchideen.pdf

Enjoy and think what can be possible in the future :)

Joakim