Hi all,

I haven't made any Paph crosses (or any other orchid crosses for that matter) in over 7 years. This year, I tried a few crosses and most failed. The ones that failed, the flowers wilted and died within a few days of the attempted pollination.

I did three crosses about 3 weeks ago now and all three crosses, the flowers remained fresh (albeit damaged from my handling) and are just now starting to wilt. I don't remember if this is typical? I always thought that the flowers died very shortly after pollination. Is my memory wrong? Do pollinated flowers remain fresh for several weeks?

Thanks
Lien

I have never pollinated any plants before, so hope those who are more experienced in that field help answer your question. I think from what I have read before that pollinated flowers do not stay fresh for too long.

In my VERY LIMITTED experience with Paphs, if the flower remains in good condition(minus the pouch) for one to three weeks and then shrivels and REMAINS ATTACHED to the end of the flower capsule, the pollination was most likely successful. Ususally if the flower falls off shortly after pollinating, the attempt was unsuccessful and the capsule dries up shortly thereafter.

Great, thanks! I sort of thought that was the case, since the other failed attempts all shrivelled up almost immediately and fell off. These three have been in fairly good condition now for about 3 weeks and are just now starting to wilt (but not fall off).

Thanks for the help.

Lien

I do a fair amount of pollinations of paph and phrags. I'd say 10 days is about average before the flower collapses for a paph (a little shorter for phrag). But I've had good capsule formation on one that collapsed at 3 days (henryanum), and my esquirolei took a good 3 weeks. So there is a lot of variation.

RickL,

Thank you for your input! For some reason, I thought the flowers almost always collapsed quickly after pollination. Guess I was wrong :) But it has been quite a while since the last time I made any crosses.

Do you do your own flasking? If not, do you have a lab you could recommend? I used to use Monsoon, but they are no longer doing private lab work.

Thanks
Lien

Some other species I have tried like any pleurothalid, and some bulbophyllums do shut down fast (sometimes just overnight) but the slippers are slower.

I have also found that if air humidity is high (>70%) the success rate is higher. Especially for phrags.

I don't flask myself, and have only been doing species pollinations at this point. So I've been using Troy Meyers (Meyers Conservatory) for flasking.

IF THE POLLENATION WORKS, THE FLOWERS WILL WILT.

The longer you wait the lesser are chances for a "good" pollination.
I always pollinates paphs as soon as I can get in there with the pollen.
I do between 20 and 40 pollination per year and mostly species siblings

Uri Baruk France

I thought I'd re-emphasise the humidity thing, because it was almost like an experiment (unintended)


When my humidity was low (less than 50 to 60%) my pollination success was less than 30% (and worse for phrags). I tried pollinating earlier and earlier, with some phrags as soon as they started to open with no good results.

After increasing humidity (always greater than 60 and usually 70%) pollination success went to about 70%, and timing has not been much of an issue as long as your not pollinating within the last week (of a phrag) or the last couple of weeks (for a paph). But it's easy to loose track of time, and you can't often tell how long a flower will last, so in general Uri is right about getting in there sooner than later.