How to Breed Cattleya Orchids

Video Transcript

"Breeding across orchid generic lines is the rule today. Why? Because we can do things like adjust the size of the plant. We can sometimes carry across color. Most of the plants that you think of as being a straight cattleya are very unusual if they were a straight cattleya. The particular plant that you are looking at here looks like a cattleya but it is actually a trigeneric cross between a brassia, laelia and cattleya. We don't usually write this out in a name and we usually abbreviate the name BLC. The name of this particular plant happens to be "BLC Judge King Serendipity." It is possible using the multi-generic cross process to actually go as high as five and such genera in a particular cross. If you see a name you may find that there is a series of initials that precede the name. That will indicate each genus that's involved in the cross. Actually and eventually because it is so complicated, we look for other solutions for orchid names."