The best homemade orchid flasking medium
 

Hello!

What kind of medium do you use for your mother flasks?

I'd like to flask some Vandas or Ascos and ready made medium (Sigma or others) are not available in my country.

So I have to make it on my own.

Last time I used the following:

2 litres of RO water
40 grams sugar
1 whole potato blended
Coco juice of 2 coconuts
Foliar fertilizer in the recommended dose (2 ml Wuxal Super)
18 grams agar
A bit of vinegar

It was an epic fail. I had no contamination at all but I got no plants.

I blame the seeds or the medium for it.

This time I want to try the flasking one more time with other seeds. Should I sow them in the flasks that remained clear or my recipe is the reason of my failure then I should prepare completely new flasks with different media? If I should make new media what would be the best compilation of them?

While I have never done any flasking of my own, someday, if I live long enough to see flowers.... or plants, I'd like to... here is a recipe I found on another board that seems to be successful.

1 Liter of rain water (aprox. 4.2 cups)
300 grams of grated or blended potato with peel (aprox. 10.5 Oz)
25 grams of honey (Aprox. 0,85 Oz)
7-8 grams af Agar (Aprox. 0,25-0,3 Oz)
Citric acid for adjusting pH
Optional:
Orchid fertilizer same amount as you use when watering This should include micro nutrients!
A bit of banana

This is another formula from the same place.

1 Liter of rain water (aprox. 4.2 cups)
25 grams of honey (Aprox. 0,85 Oz)
Orchid fertilizer same amount as you use when watering This should include micro nutrients!
½ multi vitamin pill
7-8 grams af Agar (Aprox. 0,25-0,3 Oz)

The procedure is more or less the same as above:
1. Get water to boil
2. Stir in ingredients and let simmer for 2 mins.
3. Adjust pH using citric acid


Good luck and share with us your results... there are lots of us that are very interested!

If you still want to use ready made media as a back up plan, OSP (Orchid Seed Project) in the USA will ship it abroad. I ordered some a bit over a year ago from them and shipping (to the Netherlands) was more than reasonable ($12) for a baggie each of germination (P669) and replate medium (OspEx 1.0). Shipping to you shouldn't be much more I think.

media

I don't plan ordering it because its expensivity.

Just to add another idea.... do a search of this forum for "flasking media". There are a ton of threads and many with media instructions and DYI ideas, etc.

Hi

My homemade orchid flasking medium
1 litres of RO water
20 grams sugar
1 gram charcoal
1.5 grams NPK 20-20-20
6 grams agar

optional:
Coco juice of 1 coconuts
or
pineapple juice 100 ml
or
5 drops NAA

I use this medium with:
phalanopsis
bletilla
sophronitis
epidendrum
masdevallia
restrepia
dendrobium
chysis

failed with
Cattleya
Aerangis
Spathoglottis

Anyway, honey is a good idea to use it instead of sugar.

But using charcoal is a bad idea in my opinion because it tricks the litmus paper when checking pH.

but without charcoal, there are problems with metabolic exudates, and you need transplanting every 2 or 3 months. Especially in phalaenopsis

hello roby, the use of charcoal is interesting.

anyway, is there a way to germinate phal seeds not doing the sterilization steps. i'm thinking of mixing the medium and mix it with CRH.

CRH is an hormone, I do not understand

Activated charcoal is present in many professional culture media , is not my idea: D