Breeder News

MURRAY WILSON/STUFFOrchid expo organiser Allan Rae explains the lengths orchids go to in search of love. Many of the blooms on display at the National Orchid Expo in Palmerston North are likely to have been bred from test-tube “babies”. The pollen donor and surrogate flower will have been hand-picked by growers, the ripened seed pod delivered to a laboratory, germinated and nurtured in a dish of nutrients. But as organising committee chairman Allan Rae explains, many of the orchid colours and shapes and features that fascinate and delight flower-lovers have evolved naturally for one important function. That is to get pollinated, using all sorts of sexual trickery and deception to lure the pollinator. READ MORE: * Orchid breeder’s quest for prize-winning golden blooms * Orchid show in full bloom this weekend * Orchids ready to rule at annual Manawatu Orchid Society spring show Some appeal to a desire for food: the Dracula orchid’s smell of rotting meat is irresistible to flies and some other insects. But mostly, they use sex appeal, giving off the odour of a female sex pheromone, inviting male insects to mate. The bee orchid, ophrys apifera, does not only smell like a bee, it looks like the fluffy bottom of a bee. Others have evolved even further to imitate animals, birds or other insects, such as the white egret orchid, the bird orchid and the monkey face orchid. The intention of the hanging naked man orchid, which is a real thing, was still something of a puzzle. Although orchids in their natural environment still depend on their sex appeal, most domestically-grown plants are created with human intervention. Rae still divides plants at the base, but also uses other propagation techniques. One is the mericlone process, where cells from the tip of a growing shoot are nursed in a petrie dish until hundreds of little plantlets emerge that should be identical to the parent plant. In the attempt to create new hybrids, pollen is taken from the centre of one flower and transferred to replace the pollen removed from another. Palmerston North will be treated to […]

Source: www.stuff.co.nz