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The Species Identification Task Force now has its own website. Learn about their important mission, how to photograph and submit species for identification, forms to download and more.
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New Provisional CBR

Sunday, September 13th, the Cincinnati Judging Center awarded a CBR to Catasetum osculatum 'Clara' CBR/AOS (note: this award is pending positive identification).

This and the rest of the 2009 Awards granted by the Cincinnati Judging Center can be viewed at our website.

V-Center new installs and 4.2 update

Attention center chairs and secretaries: V-Center new installs and updates are now available online for easy download.

* new install is here
* update is here

There is a readme.txt file with instructions included in each Zip file.
Click on the appropriate link above, choose "save file", save to a folder on your desktop, unzip file and follow instructions in text file

Worth the drive

John O'Connell drove from the Carmel area to Sacramento arriving just in time to enter his Cym. lancifolium for judging at the CSNJC's Speaker's Day. He was rewarded with a CCM of 89 points. Award description can be seen at the California Sierra Nevada's web page.

Cym. lancifolium 'Cammie' CCM 89

All AOS judges please note that the full set of judging forms is now available on the AOS website. The forms are 2-up with similar awards being paired, or in cases of commonly-used forms, 2 duplicates per 8-1/2x11 sheet. You do not need to not write to the award registrar to request forms, but can now download and print them on-demand right here.
Show and regional center chairs can download and save these forms to a laptop for use as needed.
Thanks to Kathy Figiel for reformatting and creating these PDF's.

FCC/CCE Mystacidium

Mystacidium capense
'Carrie Chu'

FCC/AOS 92 pts
CCE/AOS 95 pts

Exhibitor: Don Brown

Pacific South

7-15-2009

NS= 3.3, NSV= 2.5
DSW= 0.4, DSV= 1.1
PW= 0.3, PV=1.1
LSW=0.4, LSV= 1.5
LIPW= 0.3 LIPV= 1.3

FCC Cattleya

Cattleya aclandiae'Krull-Smith' FCC/AOS, 93pts
Exhib: Krull-Smith Orchids
Redland International Orchid Festival
Homestead, FL; 5-14-09

NS=8.5, NSV=7.5; DSW=3.0, DSL=5.2; PW=2.2, PL=4.8; LSW=3.2, LSL=5.3; LW=5.4, LL=6.3

FCC Phragmipedium

Phrag. Penn's Creek Cascade
'Island Ghost' FCC/AOS, 90pts
(Phrag. Grande x Phrag. wallisii)
Exhib: Bernard Lavaud
W. Palm Beach; 4-25-09

NS=6.2, NSV=44.0; DSW=3.2, DSL=16.3; PW=2.1, PL=42.0; LSW=6.1, LSL=13.2; LW=3.5, LL=7.8

FCC Cattleya

Cattleya mossiae var. semi-alba
'Taylor' FCC/AOS, 90pts
Exhib: Peter Von Scholl
Florida-Caribean judging; 4-18-09

NS=18.4, NSV=19.0; DSW=2.7, DSL=11.1; PW=6.9, PL=10.8; LSW=2.8, LSL=9.3; LW=6.3, LL=8.9

Space. The final frontier.

The web pages for the Pacific Central and the California Sierra Nevada judging centers are experimenting with award data optimized for 3G mobile phones. To date only the Pacific Central's April award data is available. http://www.aospacificcentral.org Click on the link to the optimized pages, then click on the individual thumbnails for award information. Images have successfully been seen on Kindles (black & white). I'm interested in feedback.

K Barrett
mormodes@hotmail.com

Rhynchorides Norma

This plant received a lot of oooohs and ahhhs from some judges at last month's West Palm Beach regional judging so I thought I would post the award photo. Next week I will post a shot of the C. mossiae that got an FCC at today's Fl-Carib judging.

Rhynchorides Norma'Sweet Fragrance' AM/AOS, 85pts
(Aer. Bangkok x Rhy. gigantea)
Exhib: Carol Joyce
West Palm Beach judging; 3-28-09
NS=4.2, NSV=4.1; DSW=1.3, DSL=2.1; PW=1.2, PL=1.4; LSW=1.8, LSL=1.6; LW=1.7, LL=1.8
Sixty two flowers and forty two buds on three slightly arched inflorescences.


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Laptops

Since we all need a laptop these days, shall we talk about laptops?

I usually tell people to buy the lightest one they can afford. Lifting a 9-10 lb laptop over the center console of the car gets old really fast, not to mention dragging one through an airport. You begin to feel like Quasimodo after walking down one causeway. Lighter ones can be costly. There are so many deals these days it almost seems stupid to pay a lot for a laptop. But remember you could potentially be dragging a laptop around a show floor to judge-in-place. So its a trade off. Maybe we should start recruiting students under the age of 30 so they can carry the computers.....

AQ+ and Vista seems to have different installation requirements. I don't know how much trouble that is (if at all). Dell still offers downgrades to XP, but I don't know for how long they'll continue to do that or whether these operating system differences are even important.

Many of the newer laptops come with internal modems that connect to the internet using free WIFI. Very cool for judging purposes, if slow. (We used a shopping mall's WIFI to connect to the internet to look information at the Stockton show)

With this freedom comes the bane of virus security. I get MacAfee security free from Comcast and it never fails that it'll install a security upgrade in the middle of judging or start scanning the harddrive right in the middle of my work such that the computer really slows down. AFAIK MacAfee won't let you disable this feature, but you can stop it once it starts.

I've tried turning on the computer *before* I leave for judging so it'll get these installations/scans finished before I start work, but no. The computer is craftier than I am. It still scans and searches and tries to protect me like a dedicated minion. If you ever wonder 'WTF is slowing down this freaking computer' look at the lower toolbar and I'll bet your computer is scanning for viruses.

Well, I didn't mean to turn this into a gripeing session. But figured I can't be the only one out there with 'issues' LOL!! And I've never been too proud to show my lack of knowledge.

First time blogger

This is looking like a really great site to get some substantive discussion about the 'prickly issues'. We spent an hour at judging on Saturday hashing through some good ones. I just got my own laptop so it was really cool to be able to call up and share award photographs from AQ Plus of plants that happened to come up in the course of discussion.



About me, I have about 50% Catts, lots of Dendrobiums, just got my first Paph award in January. I enjoy judging at our center (Carolinas) and seeing plants in shows. It is still exciting to see a new species or hybrid and watch new trends develop. I think that digital photography and having rapid access to pictures has greatly advanced our judging process. Some time soon I will be doing a training session on AQ Plus in our center just to make sure we are all up to speed on all the features.

Miscellaneous Prickly Topics

It's fairly difficult to get average orchid growers to our orchid judging sessions. It's not clear that this is necessarily a new thing. I remember somewhat sparse attendance, even as a child in Hawaii (a long time ago). However, given that orchids have gone mainstream ala Home Depot and the local grocery store, shouldn't we be able to take advantage of the growing number of people growing orchids to get a few more to our judging sessions? Here are a few questions for the crowd to mull over and discuss. I tried to stay away from conclusions to allow equal discussion from all sides.

1. Are orchid judging sessions too elitist? Do we need to do things to be more accessible to guests? I've seen far too many people bring in their prized plants only to be told that they're not awardable for some reason they never considered, only to never return.

2. Alternately, are orchid judging sessions just plain boring for the average person? Why do people go to society meetings? Is it the raffle? Is it the fun speakers? Do we need speakers in parallel with the judging to boost attendance? Free plants? Maybe an open Q&A? what's that bug? Why is my plant not doing well?

3. I have seen awesome plants on display at the local orchid society but they seldom seem to make it to orchid judging. Should we co-locate with society meetings to encourage participation? Should we judge the plant table at society meetings (perhaps ribbons all around and regular judging for actually entered plants)?

4. Shows are a lot of work to put on. Even little shows. I have heard occasional points of view, typically at little shows, that there are no displays that meet that judges "quality standards" for the show award. Are show awards as strict as quality awards or should they be used more liberally to encourage the hobby and to reward societies for putting on shows?

5. New quality awards and (unregistered) alternatives: should we have other awards available to increase interest and participation. Some possibilities include foliage awards, fragrance awards, "cuteness" or "impact", most improved (before photo and after plant), ribbons... People like to win things and might attend more often if they did. Is there a way to help them feel accomplishment rather than leaving empty handed and crestfallen without lowering judging standards for traditional quality awards? Would offering a foliage award increase sales of variegated and other novel foliage types? Would a fragrance award increase sales of fragrant orchids?

6. Is larger, flater, clearer and brighter necessarily the only way? For things with necessarily twisty, curvy, wonderfully obtuse flowers, should we really be trying to breed them into urbane flatness?

Sophronitis coccinea 'Florence' FCC/AOS

This Sophronitis coccinea was awarded at the Long Beach judging (Pacific South) on Feb 23, 2009.
The natural spread on was 7.1cm.

California Sierra Nevada JC awards - March 2009

Orchids nominated for AOS awards at the California Sierra Nevada judging center are now online. These are considered provisional until published in the AQ+. http://www.csnjc.org

Pacific Orchid Exposition - 2009

Nominees for AOS awards from the 2009 Pacific Orchid Exposition in San Francisco can be seen at the Pacific Central web page: http://www.aospacificcentral.org Follow the 'Local Shows' link or try http://www.aospacificcentral.org/POE2009/poe2009.html

This is a work in progress, but the pictures and stats are correct.

FCCs of oncidiinae intergeneric hybrids

Aloha,

I'm preparing a talk to be given to our judging center in a couple of months on why there are no FCC awards on onidiinae intergenerics in the last 10 years. Oncidiinae in general have garnered 2 FCCs on Brassia Rex and one for a Rossioglossum williamsianum. Since I breed oncidiinae intergenerics, and want to have a plant worthy of a FCC in my career, I would like to know what it takes for a plant to achive that status. What do you think it takes? And, why are there so few over the last couple of decades and none in the last decade?

Fasten Your Seatbelts

Here we go again...more name changes on the way. But everyone knew this was coming....right?

READ THIS


pictured at left: Cattleya milleri

Invitation to AOS Judges

Any AOS judges or students may send an e-mail to newsflash@aos.org and request author priveledges at this blog which allows the user to create new subject posts. The first 90 requests will be honored.

New Website for Chicago Judging Center

Arnold Klehm announced the Chicago Judging Center's new page for their AOS award nominations. http://www.pbase.com/the_aos_cjc/orchids

Dendrobium x usitae 'Orange Fire'

This beautiful natural hybrid from the Philippines was awarded at the Miami Show this week.

CHM/AOS, 83pts
(Den. bullenianum × Den. goldschmidtianumi)
Exhib: Ching Hua Orchids
Miami International Orchid Show
February 26, 2009
NS=1.5, NSV=1.1; DSW=.4, DSL=.9; PW=.5, PL=.9; LSW=.6, LSL=1.3; LW=.5, LL=1.1

note: all awards are provisional until published in AQ+

New Phrag from Colombia

The December 2008 'Lankesteriana' published the description for Phragmipedium manzurii, native to the Department of Santander According to the article this time the taxonomist ( Paula Viveros) travelled to Colombia in order to identify the orchid, instead of the other way around, *G*!

Here's a link to Patricia Harding's picture on Jay Pfahl's Orchid Species Encyclopedia. Kinda cute, doncha think? Two toned.

Phrag. manzurii is in the Micropetalum section of Phragmipedium

Two Shows - Two Awards

Paphiopedilum Vintage Venus 'K.C. Lim'
HCC/AOS, 79pts
(Paph. venustum x Paph. Vintage Harvest)
Exhib: Kerry Richards
Martin County OS; 1-30-09
NS=12.0, NSV=7.8; DSW=5.4, DSL=5.2; PW=3.8, PL=6.0; LSW=3.2, LSL=4.4; LW=2.7, LL=5.4

Paphiopedilum Vintage Venus 'Christina Richards'
AM/AOS, 82pts
(Paph. venustum x Paph. Vintage Harvest)
Exhib:Springwater Orchids
Boca Raton OS; 2-14-09
NS=10.6, NSV=7.9; DSW=5.2, DSL=5.0; PW=3.0, PL=5.1; LSW=3.3, LSL=3.4; LW=2.9, LL=5.1

New Judges Forum

Welcome to the AOS Judging Blog. This will serve as a forum to post judging news, taxonomic updates, other nomenclature issues and a general exchange of ideas. Anonymous posts are not allowed, but anyone with a verified Google or other accepted account will be able to comment or create posts. Play nice.
pictured above:
Cattleya lueddemanniana var. coerulea
'Graf's Vero Blue'AM/AOS, 85pts
Exhib: Plantio La Orquidea
Boca Raton OS Show; 2-14-09
NSW=18.0; NSV=17.5; DSW=2.9, DSL=10.2; PW=7.1, PL=10.3; LSW=2.6, LSL=8.5; LW=4.6, LL=4.0