Phalaenopsis Journal Second Quarter 2014 | Page 19

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9. The painted Phalaenopsis; and 10. Phalaenopsis Wedding Promenade.

ers; they said that “Happy Birthday” was the most popular. A plant of Phalaenopsis amabilis Hsiang Bin CCM/AOS
came second in the Phalaenopsis species section. It is probably Phalaenopsis aphrodite. Discussion of these two species
is a whole new topic. Phal. Little Venus ‘Erica’ was awarded
the Trophy Award for Phalaenopsis and a Silver Medal.
At the APOC Conference in 2013 in Okinawa the blue
Phalaenopsis was introduced to the registrants by Professor Masahiro Mii of Chiba University, Japan, he explained
the history of creating the blue flowers and the successful
method used in achieving this breakthrough. He briefly described the previous attempts to breed blue Phalaenopsis;
this method had limited success and required some imagination to see the blue. The other method was to fuse the
cells of the Phalaenopsis with those of Vanda coerulea. This
method produced plants that were reported to be short lived
but did flower.
In his presentation Professor Masahiro Mii showed an image of a Phalaenopsis where the gene controlling the size of
the plant had been replaced. It showed that the size of the
leaves can be designed, however the smaller the plant the
shorter the inflorescence and the fewer the flowers.
In the successful process the blue gene flaveonoid 3’,5’-hydroxylase gene from Commelina communis was used to introduce color. The researchers at Chiba University used an
agrobacterium to cut out the color gene in the Phalaenopsis
... continued on page 21
Phalaenopsis | Second Quarter | Volume 24 | 2014

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