Home Made Flasking Media & Flask Sterilization
 

I'm relatively new to flasking orchid seeds. I'd like to start growing my own orchid seedlings from seed. The plants I plant to pollinate have tiny flowers and quite possibly tiny seed pods. I don't think sending them to a lab would be very practical. I've read articles on how to do it, and it sounds rather complicated. So...I have two questions:

1. Are there ways to properly sterilize the flasking jars without an autoclave or a pressure cooker? I've read somewhere about using an oven or steam from a pot of boiling water.

2. What are some good home made recipes for flasking media that any of you guys here use? The use of laboratory media isn't within my budget at the moment.

Agar is inexpensive here and I can get it at an Asian supermarket. I've read some people using mixtures of agar and potato water, agar and carrots, agar and pineapple juice, or agar and bananas.

Thanks.

1. Ovens may work for glass, but is dangerous. I have tried it as suggested by another member here: ~300 degrees F for about 20 min. None contaminated or broke, but I was pretty nervous. I was skeptical because in theory, the liquid would only get up to the boiling point before loosing energy through evaporation. That's why a pressure cooker is really the best - it raises the boiling point of the media so that sterilization temps can be achieved before evaporation occurs.

2. There are several threads in the Propagation forum section on this topic if you want to make your own. But I wonder how small your budget is. You can order a packet of media (agar included) from OSP for about 6 dollars, some even cheaper. You would spend more than that in the produce section. I would highly recommend using prepared media, especially if you're just starting out - one less variable to scratch your head over.

I used my oven and it worked fine. I did not have any contamination. You can't put plastic and rubbers stoppers in the oven though. I still want a pressure cooker. You don't fasten the lids down tight in the oven until AFTER they cool, and you don't open the oven until everything is cool.

I did the homemade media route and it did not save any money. Don't know if anything will grow yet as it has not been long enough. I went ahead and ordered the media from OSP. If you want the recipe just PM me, but again, I don't know how well it will germinate your seeds.

The Orchid Seedbank Project has supplies/seeds in small quantities and is very cheap. Aaron is very helpful too. So is Royal but don't tell him or he will get a big head:)

Pat

Thank you both. I will check it out. :)

How long does it take for Aaron from the OSP to respond to his emails?

I sent him one about a week ago and there was no response.

Send him another. He is usually very quick. Maybe he missed it?

I've not been able to contact him at all.

This time I placed an order last weekend.

How long does it normally take to recieve anything from him. Does he even send notification that he's sent the products he sells?

Does he answer his emails at all? I literally feel like I'm being punished for doing something I'm unaware of.

Me too, I'm also still waiting for an answer from him. He answered the first email in 20 minutes, but not the following ones. I ordered medium on May 8th, the money was taken from my account the 13th, but I still haven't recieved anything! I now I live overseas, but still, that's a long time. I have no idea if my order was even shipped out, since I didn't get any news from him, and my email regarding shipping remains unanswered.

Wow...that's close to a month.

Is he not in good health or something? What's going on?

He just updated his seed list on the 20th of this month at around 11:25 pm Pacific Standard Time.

Has anyone gotten anything from him?

Not really a month, just a bit over 2 weeks! I know he's busy most of the time, but I would have at least liked to know when to expect the package. I'm kind of feeling "ok, now what? :dunno:" It's frustrating, I only have a few weeks left during which I can use the school labs to flask. I guess I'll try sending another email monday and hope he answers this time.