Matt, just a few brief answers.

#1 - This is something that is largely based on your experience with the plants in question. Some plants just seem to accept pollen better than others, so would make better seed parents. Until you have that experience, though, it's probably a good idea to do each cross both ways. You don't have to grow them all out, but at least you have a back-up if one doesn't work.

Some other considerations: if you know a particular plant is a habitual self-pollinator, it's probably not your best choice as seed parent. Also, if there is a great disparity in size between the floral parts of the two parents, putting the larger one's pollen onto the smaller one is probably going to work better. Each grain of pollen is programmed to form a pollen tube once it comes into contact with a receptive stigma. This tube is what travels from the stigma down the style and into the ovary, fertilizing the ova inside. The length of the tube it can form is determined by the distance between its own flower's stigma and the ovary, so a smaller flower's tube may not be long enough to effectively pollinate a large flower. Yes, size matters. ;-)

You'll also find, once you start doing it, that some seed parents set up more quickly than others. In general, I've found that ampullacea or lilliputiana and their hybrids will set seed a month or two faster than a carolinae or carolinae hybrid. It is not size-related, though. Correia-araujoi is another quick setter. By quick, I mean 2-3 months, as opposed to 4 or more. Not a big deal, but all else being equal, that might influence your decision somewhat.

#2 - This is a lovely theory that I've heard put forth many times, including by some of the other posters here. I wish it were true, as it would make my job much easier, but in my own experience it doesn't make a bit of difference which way you do it. I'm sure I will be shot down by others who swear it does, and I'd certainly like to see some examples, but unless you do every cross both ways and look at every seedling in each grex, a single example won't prove much. By all means, feel free to experiment with it though. Whether it's right or wrong, you will learn something.

Now, if you're talking about variegates, that is a different story, but that is advanced stuff with its own set of rules, which I'm not going to get into here. Best to learn the basics first.

#3 - I know of no other such reference, other than picking the brains of those who have some experience.

#4 - No list anywhere that I know of. You might search the forum for "self-pollinator", as this has come up on several threads. Some self-pollinating species that come to mind are zonata, pascoaliana, and apparently kautskyi. Blushing Tiger selfs, as do most of its offspring. The trait is often genetic and hereditary, but there are some self-pollinating hybrids, like Milagro, where I have no idea where that trait came form.

#5 - What do you mean by "zero results"? If it never sets any seed at all, then it's definitely not a self-pollinator. It may be sterile, or it may just be tempermental. I've found that different cvs. seem to behave differently for different people, but whatever the reason, you just have to find out what works or doesn't work for YOU. If Red Macaw won't set seed, try it as a pollen parent. If you get nothing that way either..... well, you may just be out of luck there. Maybe someone else will have some ideas about how to overcome this type of thing, but I don't. Best to just go with what does work, unless there is a particular combination you have your heart set on and can't replicate any other way.

Okay, maybe that wasn't so brief. Hope it helps!

Great questions Matt.
Lisa, thank you for that very valuable info, us budding mad scientists gotta learn all we can!

Hi Matt,

What ever you do you are embarking on a most interesting and wonderful journey and at your age you have it all in front of you.

I, like lots of others, have successfully followed lots of Lisa's advice and I can't emphasise enough the importance of listening to others who have 'been there and done that' as there's no point in wasting time re-inventing the wheel, especially when it's a "square one".

Also, find out as much as you can about the plants you are using for parents because remember they can pass on their bad traits as well as the good ones to their progeny.

There are probably many hybridizers on this forum (some are lurkers) but from what I have read of our regular contributers, Lisa is the Neo. specialist and Jack is the Vriesea specialist and they both freely share their knowledge; they have the "runs on the board", just look at the FCBS Photo Index for the proof.

What ever you decide to do, I'm sure you'll have very interesting and rewarding results.

Good luck with your future efforts, all the best, Nev.

Hi Matt,

Good to see youre doing a bit of research before charging into a season of hybridising. IÂll add a few comments based on what IÂve learnt over a few years of hybridising.

# 1. Select the very best clones you can, even if you have to beg, borrow, or buy new plants. It takes just as long to grow out hybrids of poor clones as it does of superior clones, so start with the best you can.

If I have a choice, IÂll will used the plant with the largest flower to be the mother plant, simply because itÂs a lot easier to work with. The few examples of my correia-araujoi hybrids IÂve posted here were all done using c-a as the mother plant because the cup opens right up on flowering, making the hybridising process easier.

Sometimes you do not have too much choice, for example, IÂve done a few hybrids with Grant Groves Purple Star, as itÂs one of the few of his hybrids that performs well in our conditions. However, for me it never accepts other neoÂs pollen, so IÂve only been able to use it as a pollen parent.

# 2. As Lisa said, do the cross both ways, then youÂve got a better chance of it taking. If both are successful, then you can grow on the batch that ripens first.

# 3. FCBS is a great resource, but nothing beats seeing plants ÂliveÂ. Visit local collectors, growers, nurseries to see what plants perform best in your area, then you get an idea of what traits appeal to you, & what you can aim for in your own hybrids.

# 4. Here are a few self pollinators that IÂve discovered thru experience, or have been mentioned here before:-
Sp; kautskyi, zonata, johannis, stolonifera
Hybrids; Hannibal Lector, Painted Lady, Little Rose, Milagro, Marnier-Lapostolle, Blushing Tiger, Blueberry Tiger, Morado.
Often hybrids with these plants as parents will carry on the self pollinating trait.

# 5. Asking about possible outcomes is half the fun, & can save you a lot of time. I did a few pauciflora hybrids, imagining the resulting plants would have the nice long stolonsÂuntil I posted a question here, & discovered that pauciflora does not pass this trait on!
Also, when pollinating do at least 10 flowers of each cross to increase the chances of success. A number of times IÂve only had 1 or 2 take out of the 10 pollinations.

Good luck, & enjoy the hybridising journey!
Cheers, Andrew.

Andrew could you explain how does Hannibal Lector become a parent in so many crosses both as pollen and seed parents if it self pollinates. The same is true of Milagro.

On a side note, as my Bill. Domingos Martens is ready to bloom with no suitors in sight yet, what is the proper way to store the pollen and for how long will it be viable?

Hi Minxie,

The problem with self pollinators is that they pollinate themselvesthats probably why theyre called self pollinators ;-) And thats why theyre a big problem in hybridising. The best way to get around this issue is to use self pollinators as the pollen parenthowever, they can be used as the seed parent, but each flower needs to be emasculated (anthers removed) well before the stigma is receptive.

HL is a very popular plant for hybridising, & as you say has been used as both pollen & seed parent. I would always look at hybrids where HL (or any other self pollinator) is used as the seed parent with suspicion, and unless there are clear signs of the pollen parents influence on the hybrid, theres a high chance the hybrids is really HL F2 (HL selfed).

Make good notes. How does everyone else here do it? Excel spreadsheet or database? Notebook?

Label the flowers somehow...people have mentioned personal methods in other posts (I haven't found a suitable one that works for me and my note keeping list yet).

Someone here on the forum also gave me the advice of practice pollinating and growing stuff you don't necessarily have your hopes and dreams set on...that way if a batch of seedlings die you can learn from it and not have to cry over something you were really hoping to see grow and develop.

Good luck!
-andy

WoW..... thankyou all for your replies. This forum is truely a gold mine.

Lisa I don't mind the long version at all. The information in your reply is fantastic.
I must apologise; i should have explained question #5 alittle better. It relates to my searches on the fcbs where I am unable to find any results for Red Macaw being used as either parent.

Further from this i've got several large Neos including Red Macaw, Braz-el Species and Correia-Araujoi who are coming into flower. I'm unsure about using these now as Andrew has listed Johannis as a self pollenator.
Without going too off track here isn't Braz-el species possibly Correia-Araujoi and Correia-Araujoi a possible hybrid from Johannis?
I guess the easy question would be:
Has the following strains ever self pollenated for anybody here?
- Correia-Araujoi
- Braz-el Species (Australian known)
- Red Macaw

Nev thx for the inspiring comments, there always welcome...;)

Andrew your information/comments too are fantastic. You've made some great points.

Gonzer has asked another question which i'd like to see some responses to about storing pollen.
- Best methods? i.e. what to use to remove, swabs, cotton tips?
- Where do store? i.e. fridge?
- Life of stored pollen?

Thankyou all again,

Cheers Matt

I should have mentioned that list of self pollinators is just a list of plants Ive gathered over the last couple of years, & its not to be taken as a definitive list. It would be good if others can add, or subtract from this list.

Actually not sure about johannis, but a local hybridizer said it does self pollinate. Have also read that an Aussie hybridizer indicated that Break of Day self pollinates, but this hasnt been my experience to date.

My thoughts about Braz-el, & correia-araujoi are that they are one in the same, and that c-a has mixed parents. Ive grown on a few c-a x c-a and in the resulting grex were plants that were very johannis looking. My trials with c-a indicate that it is not a self pollinator; It will not even accept it own pollen, but it will accept pollen from another c-a clone.

Red Macaw looks like a great plant, not sure if we have it here. I can understand why you would want to use it as hybridising material. It has a johannis look to it, so I would suggest you study johannis type hybrids to get an idea of what traits it would pass on.

Onto the issue of pollen storage, there seems to be number of options. To date Ive only been successful with sort term storage, using small plastic containers. Ill collect the pollen, anther & all with a good pr of tweezers, store them in a plastic container, with the name written on the lid, & pop it into the fridge. Pollen stored this way will keep for a few weeks, but then tends to lose viability quickly. For long term storage, then freezing is the answer, but my trials are still trials, so Ill let others comment who have succeeded in the method.

Cheers, Andrew.

Sorry Matt, I misunderstood your "zero results" remark. There are a lot of cvs. that seem like they might make good parents, yet when you run a search for hybrids made with them, you come up empty. There can be several reasons for this: a) the thought never occurred to anybody before you, b) it occurred to them but they didn't have a good match blooming at the same time, c) it occurred to them, they had a good match, but the plant did not cooperate (turned out to be sterile, unreceptive, a selfer, etc.), d) it occurred to them, they had a match and the plant cooperated but it didn't actually produce anything worth keeping, or e) all of the stars lined up BUT they just never got around to registering it and/or submitting a photo to FCBS. Just because something is not on there doesn't mean it wouldn't make a good parent.

Rather than to repeat my little rant about @#%&! Braz-el one more time, see the link below for a recap. Suffice it to say that if the plant tagged Braz-el is the same clone as the one labelled "Brazel species" in Zaghini's book (which it is SUPPOSED to be, but I've seen at least one other photo claiming to be that which lacked marmoration), then it is absolutely correia-araujoi. The clone pictured in Shane's photo has been IDed as such by the BIC (Bromeliad Identification Center). I don't know how much more definitive you can get than that.

I agree with Andrew that c-a will not accept its own pollen, but if you have two or more different clones of it you can cross them. The jury is still out on whether c-a is a johannis hybid or not. Harry Luther first said yes, it is a natural hybrid with marmorata, but now says no, it's actually just another form of johannis. I'm still clinging to the natural hybrid theory, as it makes more sense to me, but whichever is right, it is almost certainly closely allied to johannis.

As for johannis being a self-pollinator: well, yes and no, but mostly no. What I mean by that is that if you don't do anything to it, it won't self. At least mine doesn't. I have once or twice attempted to get self seed from it by hand pollinating it with its own pollen, and I did get one or two berries, but most didn't set up. The resulting plants didn't show evidence of having got anybody else's genes in them, so I am assuming it is not self-infertile, but you really have to work at it. It's not going to do it without help, so I wouldn't worry about it. More problematic are the teeny tiny flowers that often don't want to open. Oddly enough, cv. DeRolf has much bigger flowers that open wider, I have no idea why.

Hannibal Lecter is another in-betweener. Sometimes it will set seed without being intentionally pollinated, but very often it won't. You do have to be aware that it is self-compatible, and that if it hasn't been emasculated before the pollen is ripe there will likely be a few seedlings in your grex that have gotten their own pollen, but that won't keep it from accepting outside pollen too. If you cross it with something fairly different from itself, you should be able to tell pretty easily which ones are the selfs.

Another link:

Thankyou both Andrew and Lisa for yet again more valuable information, its great.

Lisa i've only just finished work so my eyes can't look at this white screen any longer so i'll read your Storing Pollen link tomorrow after work.

Sorry again Lisa your comments in the 'Biggest Neo' thread are spot on. Would you be kind enough to confirm this as a C-A for me by the following two pictures. You can see mamoration throughout the centre as known in your C-A pictures.

{{gwi:485866}}

{{gwi:485868}}

Cheers Matt

Matt, I can't guarantee that is c-a and not some similar man-made hybrid, but it certainly could be. If that's what it is tagged I see no reason to doubt it, it's just that it looks a little different in my environment, so that makes it harder for me to rule out all other possibilities. It has the right general look, though. Johannis traits: check. Marmorata traits: check. The only thing that strikes me as perhaps a bit off are those dark spines. I don't recall seeing those on mine, but I'll have to go take another look.

Hi matt,i will add something (not related to Neo's) with Vrieseas ,(should you have a go ) it does make some difference on pod and pollen parent re the outcome ,and in general pollen parent influences colour and pod parent size and shape ,However that does not mean that Vr.gigantea (as a pod parent )will make plants large(r) as it has a habit of reducing plants in size,(do not know why) but gives you very broad leaves,differing genera all have their own little quircks ,and experience is the teacher,fcbs is very good for a guide as you can check how often a particular plant has been used with what type of result so you get a general idea of what does what,and some plants are just great parents and other are a little suspect,and then how true are the records ?(some people rely on memory)and as Lisa mentioned re;Neo aussie dreams , Olens ? hmmmm , but best of luck,you will develop patience and please write it all down ,use the best of parents ,its hard to breed champions using donkeys ,and yes as Lisa said do the cross both ways,as with orchids i found you get some plants that are good one way only ,some plants do not set seed for cultural reasons i feel,in nature they will,some require two unrelated clones to do so,at least with self fertile plants you know they will set seed ,I think Lisa has given you a very good starting point(ers),have a definite aim in mind as what you wish to do , some plants have hidden traits ;Vr.platynema variegata,used correctly it will give white to pink centred plants though you would not think so looking at it .Anyway the good thing on this forum is that;ask and you shall receive, cheers for now Jack