Shas­tri Boodan

The T&T Or­chid So­ci­ety’s (TTOS) Moth­er’s Day Or­chid Show and Sale drew near­ly 4,000 pa­trons to the Preysal High School in Cou­va over the week­end.

On dis­play was a vi­brant ar­ray of or­chids, in­clud­ing cat­t­leyas, den­dro­bi­ums, pha­laenop­sis, on­cid­i­ums, and nu­mer­ous oth­er va­ri­eties. For en­thu­si­asts and ca­su­al vis­i­tors alike, the event was an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­mire and pur­chase some of the re­gion’s most ex­quis­ite blooms.

TTOS pres­i­dent Christo­pher Wat­son ex­pressed pride in the event’s turnout but high­light­ed the chal­lenges fac­ing the lo­cal or­chid in­dus­try.

“The sec­tor is still heav­i­ly de­pen­dent on im­ports,” he said. “Es­tab­lish­ing a com­mer­cial or­chid-grow­ing fa­cil­i­ty is a ma­jor in­vest­ment that takes a min­i­mum of five years be­fore pro­duc­tion can be­gin.”

Ja­son Achong, a lo­cal grow­er whose award-win­ning hy­brids have earned na­tion­al recog­ni­tion, had sev­er­al of his or­chids on dis­play.

Achong’s pas­sion for or­chids be­gan 15 years ago when he start­ed buy­ing plants from lo­cal ven­dors and as his in­ter­est deep­ened, he be­gan im­port­ing and even­tu­al­ly ven­tured in­to hy­bridi­s­a­tion.

“We have the right ge­net­ics here in T&T to pro­duce world-class or­chids,” he said

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the fi­nan­cial hur­dles, he added, “It would cost over $1 mil­lion to es­tab­lish a full-scale grow­ing fa­cil­i­ty.”

In ad­di­tion to or­chids, the week­end show had var­i­ous oth­er of­fer­ings for plant lovers, in­clud­ing a va­ri­ety of fruits, flow­er­ing plants, and or­na­men­tals.

The T&T Field Nat­u­ral­ist Club pro­vid­ed an ed­u­ca­tion­al ex­hib­it on the coun­try’s di­verse for­est fau­na, adding a rich eco­log­i­cal di­men­sion to the event.

The TTOS, found­ed in 1956 as a non-prof­it am­a­teur so­ci­ety, has a proud lega­cy. It is af­fil­i­at­ed with the Amer­i­can Or­chid So­ci­ety, and its em­blem—the strik­ing Psy­chop­sis Pa­pilio—is one of sev­en species of on­cid­i­ums na­tive to T&T.