Shas­tri Boodan

GML Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s rep­u­ta­tion as a home for tal­ent­ed or­chid breed­ers con­tin­ues to grow, with lo­cal breed­er Cur­tis Lutch­man and his team re­turn­ing from Flori­da with an im­pres­sive haul of awards.

Lutch­man com­pet­ed at the 2026 Plat­inum Coast Or­chid So­ci­ety Show, held from May 1 to 3 at the Ki­wa­nis Is­land Park Gym­na­si­um on Mer­ritt Is­land, Flori­da, where his or­chids se­cured 14 first-place prizes, two sec­ond-place awards and one third-place award.

Three of his first-place en­tries al­so re­ceived Gold Cer­tifi­cates, while sev­er­al of his plants at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of judges from the pres­ti­gious Amer­i­can Or­chid So­ci­ety (AOS).

Lutch­man said three of his plants were nom­i­nat­ed for AOS judg­ing.

One of the plants that placed third went on to re­ceive an Award of Mer­it from the AOS, scor­ing 83 points.

Among the stand­out or­chids was On­cid­i­um am­plia­tum ma­jus, which won first place in its class, a class prize rib­bon and the award for Best On­cid­i­um Species at the show. It al­so re­ceived a Gold Cer­tifi­cate and was nom­i­nat­ed for an AOS award be­cause of the size of its flower lip.

A Van­da Boon­choo X Dr Anek 4N al­so cap­tured first place, a class prize rib­bon and a Gold Cer­tifi­cate for Best Large Van­da.

An­oth­er ma­jor suc­cess came from Pha­laenop­sis White Cloud X Fuller’s White, which won first place, a class prize rib­bon and a Gold Cer­tifi­cate for Best Pha­laenop­sis at the show.

Lutch­man was par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of the per­for­mance of sev­er­al or­chids bred lo­cal­ly.

His Den­dro­bi­um Hap­py Fam­i­ly CL1 XX, a cross in­volv­ing Jairak An­ti­lope and Black Mag­ic, won first place. The plant was al­so nom­i­nat­ed for an AOS award, al­though one of its par­ent plants could not be con­firmed.

Den­dro­bi­um Prince Stephan, an­oth­er hy­brid bred by Lutch­man, al­so took first place.

His lo­cal­ly bred An­te­lope Den­dro­bi­um was an­oth­er first-place win­ner.

Oth­er first-place awards went to Cat­t­leya Cos­mic Cir­cle Se­lect X An­gel Eyes SVO, Pha­laenop­sis Smi­ley Blue­bird Blue X Blue Jen­nifer, Pha­laenop­sis Bal­dans Kalei­do­scope, To­lum­nia Ji­rak Firm Spot­ty, Pot. Hawai­ian Promi­nence, Pha­laenop­sis Fuller’s Pink Swal­low RL XX, Chiloschista parishii Nako­rn­panome­sis and Sei­de­nan­da Ted­dy Bear.

The Pha­laenop­sis Smi­ley Blue­bird Blue X Blue Jen­nifer won first place in the Blue Pha­laenop­sis cat­e­go­ry and was al­so judged the Best First-Flow­er­ing Seedling at the show.

A Cat­t­leya schil­le­ri­ana se­cured sec­ond place, while Pha­laenop­sis Chang Jhih La­dy al­so placed sec­ond.

The Gey Kyo­guchi M. Sauno Mu­ta­tion YN X Ctt Aussie Sun­set Cos­mic Fire placed third and was sub­se­quent­ly award­ed an AOS Award of Mer­it af­ter scor­ing 83 points.

36 years in the or­chid world

For Lutch­man, the Flori­da suc­cess rep­re­sents an­oth­er mile­stone in a jour­ney that has spanned 36 years.

His in­volve­ment in or­chid shows be­gan in 1990, when he par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Mi­a­mi In­ter­na­tion­al Or­chid Show un­der the ban­ner of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Or­chid So­ci­ety (TTOS). He re­turned to the same show in 1991.

Al­though the TTOS sub­se­quent­ly con­cen­trat­ed main­ly on re­gion­al shows, Lutch­man con­tin­ued de­vel­op­ing his skills as a breed­er and ex­hibitor, even­tu­al­ly tak­ing his lo­cal­ly bred or­chids to in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions.

Suc­cess at home too

The Flori­da tri­umph came short­ly af­ter an­oth­er out­stand­ing per­for­mance by Lutch­man and his team at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Or­chid So­ci­ety Show in May 2026.

They cap­tured sev­er­al of the show’s ma­jor awards, in­clud­ing the Pres­i­dent’s Cup for Best Flow­er­ing.

The team al­so won:

Best Renan­thera at the Show

Best Van­da at the Show

Best Lo­cal­ly Bred Hy­brid at the Show

Tro­phy for the Ex­hibitor Scor­ing the Most Points

The Best Lo­cal­ly Bred Hy­brid award was es­pe­cial­ly sig­nif­i­cant for Lutch­man be­cause it was won by his own cre­ation, Den­dro­bi­um Cur­tis Lutch­man, which orig­i­nat­ed in 1997. It is a cross of Den­dro­bi­um Gar­net Beau­ty and Den­dro­bi­um Ka­neo­he Beau­ty.

For Lutch­man, the awards are the cul­mi­na­tion of decades of ded­i­ca­tion to or­chid cul­ti­va­tion, breed­ing and ex­per­i­men­ta­tion.