Marlow's and Akatsuka
 

Okay, I haven't bought anything from Marlow in almost a week, which might be a record. I haven't bought anything from him currently.

But I did buy a flask of seedlings from Akatsuka recently. I really liked the bottles they use. They're rectangular,plastic, so they lay flat on their and there's plenty of head room, and they have a twist on cap that has a tiny hole stuffed with waterproof cotton to let air flow occur without letting any contaminants in. They are really cool. Go look at the flasks on their website and you'll see.

I want to try my own little seed sowing project. I know home seed sowing is very difficult with an abysmal success rate, but it looks fun and I want to try it, and I want to use those bottles Akatsuka uses. I emailed them and asked where they got them. She wouldn't tell me. In fact she got real defensive about it, and kind of rude, like she couldn't believe I had the audacity to ask her where to get a plastic bottle. It was so weird. She wouldn't even give me the name of the lab they use so I could contact them.

Well, then I thought the best possible plan at this point would be to email Jonathan at Marlow. They know everything that goes on in the Orchid world. He said those bottle like that come from Asia, and he thinks he knows a lab, and he's going to try to remember the name of the lab, or figure it out for me. Easy as pie. No weirdness. He didn't ask why I wanted those particular bottles. I guess he figured it was my business, not his. He was super nice and super helpful, and he's actually going to try to locate these bottles for me. That's a real class act. Words have not been invented yet to describe how awesome Jonathan and all the team at Marlows is.

I'm a little disappointed in Akatsuka. I've always had good feelings about them before, but this kind of makes me want to find another place to shop, because she was so rude about it, and refused to help for no reason at all.

People respond the way they do because of experiences they have. Perhaps she didn't want to broadcast that they get all their orchids from Asia or, if not, make people think that they do instead of these being their own hybrids. For a time, orchids from Asia had a reputation for carrying virus (Many Asian vendors have gone to great lengths, destroying many plants, to try to ensure that what they are exporting are free of virus so importing from Asia doesn't carry the stigma it once did). She might still feel this, though.

As for Marlow's Orchids, he probably sees that you are really interested in the hobby and wants to encourage you. His experiences might have included someone encouraging him, once. So, now you found someone who you can rely on as a mentor and that is always pretty great. :)

Good luck!

Another interesting thing I discovered... it is incredibly difficult to find flasks that were made for orchid seed. Other than your typical Erlenmeyer flask, there just isn't much out there. A lot of people are flasking in like plastic deli containers, like you'd get soup in to go from a sandwich shop, but I want to use real bottles.Not glass tho. I want them to be plastic and rectangular so they lay flat on their side. I want the ones that Akatsuka has, in fact. But I couldn't find anything even similar online.

A lot of businesses don't want to give away trade secrets and give an advantage to competitors.

i understand that, but I'm hardly a competitor. I'm one hobbyist dude who wants to do a little experimentation just for my own amusement. I even mentioned that to them.

It's hardly a trade secret. A quick Google search shows a number of orchid flask vendors in Asia using the same format.

Competitors impersonate other people to get information all the time. The source of the flasks might be a trade secret.

I can google "orchid flasks in Thailand" and those bottles are EVERYWHERE. It's hardly a trade secret. Everybody knows about those bottles and everybody knows they come from Thailand. There's no secret here.

I would not put too much weight on this. I doubt it is personal. More likely, they just do not want to reveal that they are importing their orchids rather than doing their own breeding and flasking. She may not know the source of the containers as the orchids arrive this way. To give you the information where they are getting their orchids is not something that would be good for the business. So, naturally, she would need to decline to share that information with you.

Marlows, on the other hand, might buy their orchids closer to blooming as well as do their own flasking (or send out pods to be flasked). They would then have nothing to lose by trying to help you.

Glass containers with narrow openings were often purposely broken to extract the seedlings. If you don't want to do that, you can use any container that can be sterilized and properly sealed. If you know of any vendors or orchid society members in your area that do flasking, they might be willing to help you get started (they might be doing group orders for containers from a medical/lab supply company that arrive already sterile).

Critter Creek Laboratory, who now only does virus testing, used to be a flasking service as well. They used clear plastic “clamshell” food boxes. They shipped about a hundred to me over the years and I never saw any contamination.