Hmmmmm......... interesting theory, Japie. Any ideas how to "peel away the pink"? I'm listening, but I haven't got a clue how you'd do that.

I've heard there already is a Neo. Blue Hawaii, although I haven't seen it. At any rate that's the name of my new Globba hybrid, so I probably wouldn't reuse it.

I have no idea! I thought you are the expert!!!

But if you take HDD's Criss Cross and match it up with Scarlet. Chances are if one colour is going to get lost, should be the pink as it comes from one side only, and the blue from both sides so it should (theoretically) have a stronger chance to be carried over.

LOL Japie Treasure chest does that blue color in to strong of light and so does Scarlet charlotte's evil twin "Maribel'

Sounds nice in theory, Japie. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

If any color is going to get lost, it will most likely be the blue. It's just not a dominant color. I have a very blue-cupped form of burle-marxii which I tried crossing with a very blue-cupped form of coriacea, thinking that at the very least I'd have to get a nice blue cup. Wrong, just a dull purplish tone and no redeeeming qualities whatsoever.

The "default setting" for colors seems to be somewhere where all of the extremes blend together into a muddy maroon. That's the most common result of any cross involving more than one color. The further away from that you get, the more difficult it is. Even a pure strong red is not as easy to get as you'd think, and if you're trying for the outer extremes of yellows or blues, well........ good luck! I haven't been able to achieve either of those two goals yet, and not for lack of trying.

Thanks for the explanation, Lisa. Sometimes one has an idea how colours work when you stick to one medium - for me, painting in oil paint. And when you step outside your experience field, you have a totally upset apple cart and has to learn from scratch! Thanks for sharing your experience! Another thought: won't it help to try and 'bleach' the pink with Nivea?

HDD, I do not have Criss Cross, or Treasure Chest, but I have a plan up my sleeve for Scarlet AND Maribel - want to marry them both to Big Mac. And I have a very nice pale green Grande with almost no markings on the leaves, but that has a fantastic form. So, him I also want to try, especially with Lemon Tease!

You paint, Japie? Okay, here's a painting analogy: if you have blue paint and want purple, it's fairly easy to make it by adding pink, but what do you do if you have purple and want to make blue? There's no way to "subtract" the pink once it's there, although if you keep adding enough blue to it you can eventually drown it out. In order to do that, of course, you'll need a source of blue to add, which brings us right back around to square one. Might as well just start with the bluest blue you can find rather than trying to work backwards from something else.

Similarly, in regards to using nivea or another white-cupped species to "bleach out" the color, there's no reason to think it would bleach out only the pink while leaving the blue. In fact, most of the time it probably wouldn't bleach out anything at all. The mechanism behind the white-cupped species is the same as the mechanism behind the red or purple-cupped species: the green pigment in the central zone merely "shuts off" during flowering. If there is red or blue pigment in the leaf that is being masked by the presence of chlorophyll, it will show through at this time. If there is no other pigment present it will appear as white or pale yellowish green, but you can't SUBTRACT the pigment that's already there by ADDING an "absence of pigment" to it. You may be able to lighten it up a bit, however, Skotak's 'Key West' being a case in point. This is something I have yet to experiment with, but I intend to.

Now, of course, genetics is not paint. You have dominant and recessive traits to deal with, and the only way of knowing which is which is by trial and error and studying other people's results. Also, everything I've been talking about so far is in terms of probabilities, and nature being what it is, freak occurances do sometimes happen. That's what makes it so exciting, the idea that you may get a result that flies in the face of everything you thought you knew. It's not LIKELY, but it's also not impossible. It is far beyond my skills to be able to engineer that sort of thing, though.

I have a Neo called Blue Boy
I picked it up a week before i took this pic
is this the kind of Blue that your all talking about
or is there something else your after?
This is not a good shot and the colour is just starting to fade
Its got 2 pups on either Brom there, so i cant wait to raise these pups in my own environment in the tropics

I would just love to see more Blues out there
{{gwi:471361}}

Tropogem, is that color true to life? Yes, that's the kind of color I want, but I want it covering the entire leaf, even when it's not blooming.

Lisa, the colour is a blue. My camera has highlighted this blue to be a bit more brilliant than it naturally is. So if you tone it down by a shade then thats the blue it really is.I did not raise this plant to be to maturity so im hoping that when the pups become mature like their mummy then they will be more brilliant and more along the leaf. It seems that where i live the climate brings out alot of colour.I have noticed this from bringing home pups from places they change to colour up to their best.
I live in Northern Queensland up in the Atherton tablelands in the rainforest and everybodies broms grow beautifully up here.
Are you able to get your hands on a Blue Boy?
Blue Boy seems to be a large plant but not alot of leaves. About the size of Gee Wizz but not the same amount of rounded leaves.
Im certainly no profesional brom person, im only begining so my wording is definately not up to the brom lingo scratch that you guys speak here..LOL
Is there anyway that i get a Blue Boy to you by chance if you are unable to get one from where you live?
Maybe some seeds or a pup?I would love to help you on your experiment if im able to, thats if Blue Boy is usable of course!
if crossed with another brom that has full leaf colour, thats not green, can he do some part in the job?
I wonder...lol
but your the expert here...hehe

Ive just checked on the Florida site for Blue boy and hes not there, so i dont know where he has come from or who his parents are. So if your interested in finding him then i hope you know of other sources as to where to track him down.
I could possibly ask the lady who i bought him from when i next get in touch with her if she knows who the parents are or where she got him from.

There are two different Blue Boys listed in the registry, Tropogem. Both are Takemura Princeps hybrids, so I'm not sure which one yours is. I don't know if it's available here, but don't worry about it, it's not that big a deal. There are a number of Neos that have nice blue cups when they're blooming, and the challenge is the same: to get that color when they're NOT blooming without toning it down by crossing it with something not as blue. I'm sure it'll happen sooner or later, but it's not an easy thing to do. For one thing, the blue only seems to be true when the other pigments are "shut off", as in the cup during flowering.

I've been thinking about Japie's observations regarding Scarlet Charlotte and other varieties that get bluish marks on the leaves for a short time when they become damaged or stressed, and wondering what the mechanism is that causes that. Although it's possible that an excess of blue pigment could be produced as a response to trauma, it seems much more likely that it's just a matter of the red and/or green pigments in that part of the leaf being temporarily "shut off", allowing the blue to show through. The question is why does it shut off, and how do you trick the plant into doing that without stressing it, or depriving it of the chlorophyll it needs to survive?

Blue also appears in cool weather here and lasts longer..just an obeservation..

Oh I do hope you come up with something Lisa, I would so love to see it.
How awesome would that be huh!
All these kind of things take time and you seem to have patience...LOL
It seems an absolute impossibility to get this colour when NOT flowering by the sounds of it
Believe in the impossible
Good luck with it
Love Gem

Anothern old posting that really stirred my interest and i loved the way you explained about colour Lisa ,clever girl! yes you can't bleach out one colour and leave the rest , if you could i would have produced bright yellow Vrieseas by now , most of the 'blue' colours are not blue,they may appear that to the naked eye but look at flowers of Till,cyanea ,looks blue ,photographs in shades of lilac or mauve or purplish depending on light and camera,true blue(corn flower blue)is much much rarer for broms,still you can at times get close to producing a colour that is not there,look at the "yellow zygocactus " looks golden yellow (was never in the species)but it must be flowered cool to stay that way,if flowered warm? flower goes peach, why ? flower is genetically a peachy shade ,cold just hides the red in the colour, used to have this with "white Cattleya orchids " a lot of them are soft pinkish colour if put onder a 'Grolux tube' ( the type a butcher uses) the orchids that stayed white ? ah they where genetically white, if you are going to produce a 'blue neo'? i would certainly use Concentrica as it bleaches in the centre as it ages and passes this on in its hybrids a lot,and has a 'blue 'look to it, and as you say Lisa ,sometimes freaky thing can occur,look at all the patterns we have created in hybrids of Neo's and Vr, that never existed, good fun isnt it ?as for plants like Scarlott Sharlott showing 'blue'on damaged red parts? hate to say it but its not true red to start with ,colour is a very very complex thing and what appears to the eye may just be caused by refraction nothing more ,after all a butterflies wing is really not coloured at all,just reflection and refraction ,you know ;white light thru a prism ? rainbows , but you can't see it ,well the reverse also happens.is 'nt it all wonderfull ? Jack

While this thread is resurrected, what about showing us what happened to those pups of your Blue Boy, Tropogem? Did you get them to be that same blue colour again?

Japie

Hi everyone,

I think tropogem's camera is telling "porkys" 'cause when you crop the pic and get rid of the blue centre, the grass still has a blue tinge. Maybe a bit of camera "hanky panky"?

{{gwi:471362}}

What do the rest of you think?

All the best, Nev.

Nev, if there was more blue added to the picture over-all so that the grass underneath is starting to show a blue tinge, then surely the green on top of the leaves should also show that? Underneath the plant is less light and then most cameras on auto-exposure will add a bit of blue to the shady areas. There was also very little light when the picture was taken - probably a rainy and overcast day as the camera used a shutterspeed of 1/32s with aperture value of f2.8. So over all the whole image might be a little more blue than when viewed with the naked eye, but Tropogem said to Lisa that the colour is blue, but " a bit more brilliant than it naturally is".

Japie

Sorry guys but that plant is not 'true blue' even the 'bluest' leaf shows red/violet pigmentation , in order to be true blue (cornflower blue )the colour must remain blue as it bleaches/fades a bit and ultimately would have to be on the grey shade of blue as it gets real pale, but the other innermost leaves are any colour but 'blue' I have worked with colour(s) for 52 years,did a course on colour definition ,etc. its a beautifull colour no doubt about it and you may breed a true blue from it,nothing is beyond my imagination only beyond my ability . Jack