Judging of Cymbidiums at showtime

[Des]

Although I have grown Cymbidiums for some years I have never before become interested in the judging methods at shows However reading an article on the subject the other day pricked my interest . so I asked for permission to observe the judges at work at our show last week (it was my job to tie the ribbons on )
Just prior to the show I downloaded the "principals of judging by the Cymbidium orchid club of South Australia and read that a few times just to make sure that I was not completly stupid ! And in the hope that I could follow the method they used to determine first ,second and third places
To my surprise the judges voted for first second or third First of all choosing what they considered to be the best three plants in their category on the table.Now let me tell you that in most cases I was in agreement with the choices made
But being a practical sort of person I expected the process to be a lot more scientific and I expected that they would give points for things like color,substance shape of flower , number of flowers per spike ,how well grown the plant was etc etc and then total the points to determine the places.
I would be interested to hear just how plants are judged in your part of the world

[Andrew]

Were they judging for awards or for ribbons/cultural awards, etc? The latter is predominantly judged on how well the plant has been grown and flowered rather than the quality of the breeding. I've seen a lot of well grown and flowered orchids win grand champion at orchid shows that probably wouldn't come anywhere near to getting a quality award.

[shakkai]

Des, My application to become a trainee judge was just accepted a couple of months ago. I have yet to go to a training (the next one isn't until October) but here is a link to the judges manual: British Orchid Council

It does talk about judging/picking the top 4 plants, but also talks about the point scoring system. I know we do the point scoring at our local society meetings and use the scores to determine first, second, and third.

[Bird Song Farm]

Congratulations Shannan, you're desire to become a judge is wonderful.
My question to you is: Where in the heck to you find the time to do all that you do~!!!!!!

Al

[shakkai]

Thanks, Al. I think its an exciting thing to be involved in - and my hope is that what I learn training to be a judge will help improve my own growing.

To be honest, I sometimes do struggle with too many things to do: raising a 12 year old daughter & other family committments, work, housework, gardening, orchids, being a school governor (the equivalent of the school board in the US), coordinating and running IT workshops in schools to encourage girls into maths and sciences, being the treasurer and committee member for a national plant society - and then there are my hobbies! LOL! I guess I just really like to get involved, as I find that I the more involved I can be, the more I get out of things.

Anyway, the orchid judging stuff seems really interesting and there is a lot of great stuff to learn - and I love learning things. This thread should be really interesting and instructional - to see the different methodologies used in judging around the world.

FWIW, the point scoring used by the BOC here awards 50% for flowers and 50% for the overall plant, so overall culture is as important as a good flower.

[Des]

Originally Posted by Andrew

Were they judging for awards or for ribbons/cultural awards, etc? The latter is predominantly judged on how well the plant has been grown and flowered rather than the quality of the breeding. I've seen a lot of well grown and flowered orchids win grand champion at orchid shows that probably wouldn't come anywhere near to getting a quality award.

They were judging for ribbons at the stage I was there . They did the award judging later . By that time I had to leave as I was in charge of plant sales . It was thrilling to see my plants get 4 firsts 2 seconds and a third and i only entered 8 plants !

[Des]

Shakki thanks for that ,i am going to download and read at my leisure.

[shakkai]

Originally Posted by Des

They were judging for ribbons at the stage I was there . They did the award judging later . By that time I had to leave as I was in charge of plant sales . It was thrilling to see my plants get 4 firsts 2 seconds and a third and i only entered 8 plants !

That's a great result - congratulations to you!