Japie, I've never tried the ripe apple method. I think I told someone that I thought a day or so would be enough, but then I read somewhere that they recommended a week, which seems a bit excessive to me. It won't hurt your plant to be deprived of fresh air for a few days as long as it's not in a hot area where the plant will cook in the bag. I'd be more concerned about depriving it of light, but again, a few days shouldn't hurt.

Ripe fruit is hit-or-miss, though. The whole point is to generate ethylene gas, and you really don't have much control over how much gets generated that way. That's why I use Florel (pronounced flor-ELL, see link). There is also another product called Ethrel, which is essentially the same thing. They are sold as fruit eliminators, but forcing bromeliads to bloom is a secondary use. As I said before, ethylene basically speeds up the aging process, so in addition to triggering bloom in broms it will ripen unripe fruits and cause immature ones to drop, and it also causes any damaged or diseased part of the plant to senesce (turn brown), so it should only be used on healthy, mature plants. It is a toxic chemical and must be handled with care. It is also very expensive, and not widely available on a retail basis. I don't know if it is sold in SA, but if there are fruit growers there then there is probably a similar product. If it is, get the smallest possible quantity available. It needs to be greatly diluted in water, so it doesn't take much. I can't remember the rate offhand, but I think I was able to treat a few dozen plants with less than a Tablespoon, and it's volatile, so once you mix it up you have to use it immediately.

As far as breeding two unequal sized plants, you don't have to worry about pollen's effect on the fruit produced. Every mother plant will produce a berry or seed pod that is in proportion to itself, regardless of what it is pollinated with. It's not until you grow the seed out that you see any influence from the pollen parent. For example, you can make a xNeophytum either by pollinating a Neo with an Orthophytum, or vice versa. Othophytum berries look very different from Neo berries. They are drier, produce fewer seeds and the individual seeds are much bigger and differently shaped. Nevertheless, if you do that same cross in both directions, the resulting offspring will look the same either way, despite coming from very different-looking seeds.

I usually don't cross a really small plant with a really large one, but for different reasons. Small size seems to be a recessive trait, and so is stoloniferousness, so if the small plant doesn't have anything else going for it besides those things, it's not going to contribute anything to the final product. I tried ampullacea x corriea-araujoi when I was first starting out, hoping to get a small plant with c-a's markings and all I got were some medium sized mongrels with washed-out marmoration which was further dulled by a light coating of silver scurf. Onto the trash pile!

I'm not trying to discourage you, just save you some time. If you have a small plant and a larger one whose markings each seem like they'd each improve on the other one, then by all means go for it! But if you're trying to make small plants, then cross two small plants, otherwise you'll most likely lose that trait.

Here is a link that might be useful: Florel

Thank you for the info Lisa, much appreciated. As I said, I will first give the totally natural way a go. It is just in case I feel I need to encourage my plants a little bit to give me some flowers, that I will resort to some more drastic measures. I just wanted to get all my facts ready so I do not need to run around like a mad dog at the last minute! It is actually terrible to sit and wait for the time to be right but now I do some mental practising - do it over and over in my mind. So, hopefully, when I got my first two flowers ready for the job, I will feel like a boffin and do it with confidence.

I promise, you will have the option to come get the first one that will have the world gasping for breath!!!

I'm not sure what a boffin is, Japie, but it sounds like a good thing! If you do manage to have the world gasping for breath, I'll certainly be there. I'm still waiting for that to happen. My local customers are singularly unimpressed with new hybrids. It doesn't matter what you come up with, somebody is bound to say "Oh yeah, I have that one already." No, they don't....... *sigh*

Boffin : expert, inventor, researcher, investigator. But we here locally use it as a kind of slang meaning: Jack of all Trades, Master of None!!!

I am sure it is nice to dream that one will be lucky to get a plant that's awsome. Just think how the creators of N carcharodon Tiger, N Linda Cathcart, N johannis De Rolf . . . . . . must have felt. A pity it is such a slow process seeing the end result. Imagine how it would have felt if after all your effort, you 'open the box' and the final product just jump right out, dressed to kill! I am dreaming!

Let them plebs say yeah I got that one, YOU know that's not the truth. And someone like all the guys and girls on this forum will applaud you - like they HAD somany times in the past. Keep on creating 'I got that one's'. I am trying to move heaven and earth at the moment to try to get one of yours : N Ring of Fire.

avane where are you? Ring of fire is do-able

HDD, Here I am, still in Cape Town, but I just went for a bath and made some supper. Now I am ready to talk away!

How do you mean 'do-able'? Like crossing N correia-araujoi with Lambert's pride? But I do not want to wait years, and what will my chances be to get that exact one? Lyn fro East London is trying to get it for me from Michaels

thats the route I was talking about..Lyn should be able to get one for you if Michael has one available

avane you should have your wish in Lyn's next order...but you will have to talk with her about when the next order will be

Why, HDD, is Michael running low? There migt be a chance that I would not have to wait for the next order as she got one with the previous order for someone else and that person now cannot make up his mind whether he wants it or not. So, she has givin him a time limit now, so maybe in the next week or two it will be here with me!

Now another question. Which of Lisa's babies that Michael has stock of, would you say I would like most? A Neo of course. You've seen some of my plants, so have an idea of what I like.

If the person takes the plant...you will have one avane...but lets hope he passes it will be your lucky day
LOL avane if your like me I like all Lisa's plants...
Caviar
Kiko
Java plum
correia-araujoi X oeser 100 variegated
Popoki
Ruby throat
Blueberry muffin
Lisa plants.. even the small ones.. pack alot of color

HDD, I'm actually scared that I will not get all that colour on my plants here in Cape Town. Like My N correia-araujoi - it is much less intense in colour than Lisa's plant. I could actually have a diffrerent clone that she got - she's got 2 - but my one did come fro Michaels.

I will let you know as soon as I hear from Lyn what the outcome is on Ring of Fire!

How many months of good light do you get? Im not familar with your conditions there?

Ruby Throat, Kiko and Java Plum I have no idea what they look like. I like Blueberry muffin a lot. Also another cross she made with c-a x concentrica x Midnight.

We do get a lot of sun here in Cape Town. Maybe my sun problem is more my garden's fault than our geographical location. I created this jungle like garden here with a lot of palm trees, but they do help to controll the mid-day sun in summer, which can be very intense. The main problem is that in spring and the first part of summer (September to January) we do get a lot of wind. A cold south-easterly wind. It blows for a week or two on end and then is stops completely for a day or two and everything burns to pieces. From about February we get really hot weather - into the thirties, sometimes reaching forty. That's for a month or two and then the sun starts going lower and lower and the intensity is much less. Huge parts of my garden that get the baking sun in summer, get no direct sun at all - for about 3 months. That's why most of my Neo's are loosing colour now - fast. I do have a few young ones that I put in pots and move them around so they can get the best sun possible to develop a bit faster. But once my plants are almost mature, I plant them in the garden and then they have to deal with this hot summer sun/winter shade. I do have a few spots that get filtered sun in summer and almost full sun in winter. That's perfect. BUT that is basically on my pavement. Anyone can walk by and pinch a plant or two. So my special broms are not getting planted there.

I have picture some where I will try to post them tonite

Japie, can you grow plumerias there? Or maybe some other type of deciduous tree? Plumeria works well here for shading things out during the summer and then letting in more light during the winter months. Not the evergreen variety, of course, the deciduous ones.

A few comments on some of the plants you mentioned: First off, some of the things you've seen pictures of on this forum are not available yet. That (c-a x concentrica) x Midnight clone that you mention is called Ikaika, but it's still only one single individual plant. That's it! It keeps going up and up and hasn't shown any indication of ever blooming or pupping, so finally I Florelled it so that I can cross with it. It's blooming now, so there should be some pups to follow, but it'll still be a while before there's enough to get it into circulation. There is a sibling of it called Nohea, which is very similar and a better pupper, but I'm pretty sure Michael isn't ready to sell any of that yet. You have to keep in mind that I only just sent him some of these things a few months ago, and not very many of most of them. It usually takes a couple of years before new varieties start showing up on the price list, although it never hurts to ask.

I think the ones HDD mentioned are ones that he's had for a while, so they may be available, but I personally would like people NOT to get the c-a x Oeser #100 variegated. Much as I hate to undercut his sales, the fact is that that one should never have gotten into circulation in the first place. It's a cull. The variegation on it is very weak, and the marmoration is not as strong as on its sibling, Vallenato. It's really hard to get both the marmoration and variegation on it at the same time because the variegation disappears if you don't fertilize it and the marmoration disappears if you do! I gave a pup of it to a "friend", just to see if he could get it to grow better than I could, and to let me know if he did, but not to share it with anyone. HA! I never heard back, and he subsequently released it and wrote an article for the Journal claiming credit for having caused it to variegate by innoculating it with tobacco mosaic virus. Completely bogus! I told Michael the story because I saw it on his list, but it's not one that I care to sign my name to in any event, so please don't call it a "Lisa plant". :-p

You can get Vallenato when it's available, or better yet, get yourself a variegated marmorata, which is 100 times nicer! I wish I could create something half as nice as that, or, as you mention, johannis 'De Rolf' or carcharodon 'Tiger', but to do so I'd have to play God because those are all species, not hybrids! ;-)

Kiko and Ruby Throat should show up on FCBS as soon as the current registration log-jam has been cleared out. Kiko is a good one for full sun, it can take it.

Yes, Lisa, we can gro Plumeria's here. I have got 3 in my garden. A white with a small yellow centre, a totally yellow one and a maroon/red one. The red one I brought as a cutting over from Malaysia 12 years ago. I am sure they will all be evergreen if you plant them in your garden. Here they drop their leaves the moment they get cold and wet. The leaves do not colour first, like at the moment, the leaves are dropping, unwilted, green, like someone jusst picked them. I do not know of any other deciduous variety. As for other deciduos trees, they need that cold, dormant time to grow well.

But what about a Chorisia speciosa (Floss silk tree - from Brazil)Beautiful flowers and semi deciduous. But dropps all the leaves in autum to produce flowers. Or a lagerstroemia speciosa (Pride of India) Anoter stunning option will be the Australian frangipani (Hymenosporum flavum) I do not know if it will be totally deciduous but it is a beautiful shade tree with pale yellow flowers that deepens as they age and has an exquisite fragrance!

On the Neo's. I will patiently wait, maybe someday befor I lay my head down, I will be the owner of an Ikaika. In the mean time I can ask HDD to wisper in Michael's ear that I will be ovejoyed if he slips a Neo Nohea in Lyn from East London's box for me with her next oder! Have you got a picture of it? And also, I am sure it won't hurt to play with it's parents once I get myself going. I know the chances are very slim to reproduce the same plant and especially with a concentrica in the make-up. You have'nt a pic to show of of the c-a x conc parent or do you want to keep from prying eyes? Have you a picture of N Vallenato?
Another 'breeding' question. I would very much like to try and get a N johannis that look like your's or so many nicely coloured ones every where else pictured. Here in Sout Africa I just saw green ones. Will it help to self-pollinate c-a, to get a johannis that has slighly more colour than just green?

This is what the correia-araujoi x concentrica parent looks like:

{{gwi:461745}}

and this is Nohea:

{{gwi:461746}}

Vallenato:

{{gwi:461664}}

Another c-a hybrid, Afropop:

{{gwi:459096}}

Kiko also has c-a in it, although the olens parent is easier to see:

{{gwi:461747}}

As far as improving on your johannis, if there was some red in it there would be a chance that selfing it could produce a redder clone, but if there is none then it's not likely to do any good. The trait has to come from somewhere, you can't manufacture it out of thin air. Are you sure that what you have is the true Neo. johannis? That's one of those names that has been confused and misused over the years. What most people were calling "johannis" 20 or 30 years ago was a purple-cupped plant much like a concentrica. Then there is "johannis rubra", of which there are many forms, none of which look anything like either the true species or the concentrica-type non-johannis. To further add to the confusion, what is now considered to be the true johannis used to be called "cruenta rubra", and THAT name has now been more appropriately applied to the red form of cruenta, which formerly went by the name of "hatschbachii". These are not taxonomic changes, just cases of misidentification turning into standardized usage. There are a lot of others examples I could cite, but now people like Harry Luther and Derek Butcher are trying to straighten it all out and get us back on the right track (assuming they can agree, which isn't always the case).

The true johannis likes lots of sun to bring out the color, so give it as much as you can, and don't overfertilize it. If it still stays green, you may have an off clone, or it may not be johannis.

Lisa, they are beautiful! Nohea and Kiko are my favourites.

What I meant by selfing, was do it on Brazil (correia-araujoi) Proofing it was a hybrid(even though natural) you self'ed it and told Uncle Derrick that yougot some green plants (johannis) and then some with varying degrees of marble-ing amongst the seedlings. So that is where I mean the red must come from.

Well, you could try it, but I didn't actually self it. I had 2 different clones to start with so I just crossed them. I don't know if correia-araujoi is self-incompatible or not. It's certainly not an automatic selfer.

The more johannis-y offspring of that cross aren't nearly as nice as the clone of johannis that I have. I guess it was a bit misleading to say that the results could be considered a classic F2 split, which would have had 1/4 of the grex looking just like johannis, 1/4 looking just like marmorata, and the remaining 1/2 like correia-araujoi. What I meant by that was that 1/4 of the grex showed no marmoration, while the other 3/4 did, which was enough to convince me that it's a natural hybrid. None of them look exactly like johannis, though, and all of them are bigger than marmorata.

Here's a couple of the offspring. They look pretty similar, except that the first one is marmorated and the second one isn't.

{{gwi:461749}}

{{gwi:461751}}

Forgot to mention that I HAVE selfed Neo. johannis, so I know that can be done, just don't know if c-a will self. You could also cross c-a with johannis, then pick the 2 seedlings that look closest to what you want and cross THEM, etc. etc. until you build a good clone, but that could take a while. Might as well just get a good johannis from Michael, or one of its hybrids that has the characteristics that you want.

Hi Japie,

I have tried self pollinating correia-araujoi, and for me, it was not successful. I pollinated 10 flowers over a 2 month period. I tried just swooshing the pollen around in a few flowers, and, for others, tried using refridgerated pollen that had been obtained from flowers that had opened a day or so earlier. Now, I also did a little hybridising with this correia-araujoi, and everything on the hydrid side of things has resulted in seed forming. So...from this little trail & error experiment, I would say that correia-araujoi is not self fertile.

Also, as a trial, I have a few seedlings growing on from c-a X c-a. This was seed obtained from our local seed bank, & was said to be..."a nice dark coloured clone, crossed with a lighter coloured clone". Unfortunately the seed was a little old by the time I got it, & only 5 germinated. From this small batch, all five have survived, & are now almost 12 months of age. While still early days, 3 already show some marmoration, while 2 (the largest) are just plain green.

Now, there is debate on the fact that c-a is, or is not a natural hybrid. It is said that populations of johannis never occur in the same area as marmorata, hence the natural hybrid theory is not possible. However, now having grown a few c-a, they have many trails that are VERY similar to johannis.

Anyway, I think your best option for a nice johannis is to find a clone you like, & then do whatever you need to do to get a pup off that plant.

BTW, just looked at johannis photos on FSBC....isn't that 1st one c-a...?!

I noticed that too, Devo. The Dorothy Berg picture is definitely c-a, in fact it's a better picture of c-a than any of the ones they show for that species. Go figure. Even the one in the Michael Andreas photo shows some faint marmoration if you look really hard.

The Peter Tristram picture is what I would consider classic johannis. Uncle Derek's is right too, but either his clone has less red on it, or his growing conditions don't bring it out as well. I'm surprised he let the first picture be posted without challenge, though.

Thanks for confirmimg that c-a is not self-compatible. I kind of suspected that.

Here is a link that might be useful: Neo. johannis on FCBS