Tissue culture oncidium gift- what do I do now?
 

Hello! Been given a tiny orchid seedling in a tube, wonder what i should do now. Can I leave it growing in the tube, or should I take it out and pot it?

A part of the plant is submerged under the gel, starting to see brown/black patches so not sure if this is rot.

The paperwork that came with it says it's an oncidium, no further info other than that.

I've attached some pictures, hopefully they are clear enough for someone here to guide me along! I'm a keen gardener but have never grown orchids, and I don't want to kil this!

Thanks!

Only seem to be able to post a single photo per post, so here's another one. Apologies for it being sideways too!

It's cute! But I have no idea ... sorry
Hopefully someone else can help!

It looks good and healthy at this point, to my untutored eye.

The Troy Meyers Lab is a great source of information on flasking, de-flasking, and caring for young plants. Go to the informational section of their website for an article on potting up new seedlings.
Flasking Home Page

I have no hands on flasking/deflasking experience, so can't advise directly (and don't know if it has enough roots yet for deflasking).

But the basics are to get the plant out and rinse off the agar under warm water. (you may have to roll the tube in newspaper and gentle break it with a hammer to get the plant out without damaging it).

The outside world is very stressful for a freshly deflasked plant, so it need to be kept warm, in very high humidity (ex plastic mini greenhouse) and not too bright. Generally people pot them up in sphagnum, or a mix of fine bark and sphagnum.

I don't know how long they need to stay in a humid environment and when to start opening the lid a bit every day.

But here are some informative threads that may help you until people with first hand experience chime in:
flask-compot-individual-pots
flask-arrived
deflasking-oncidium-ampliatum.html

The plant and agar look pretty good. I think you could leave it for some time. The bigger the plant when it comes out of the agar, the better it will do.

If the agar starts getting what looks like obvious mold, it is time to move. Or, if the agar begins dessicating.

The plant is large enough it should not be damaged by just-warm water. Use this to help dissolve and loosen the agar. Then pour out the mess into a bowl. Rinse off most of the agar with warm water, but not too warm.

Pot the small plant in a small pot with very small bark, long-fiber sphagnum moss or horticultural perlite. Don't let it dry out. Put it inside an enclosure so it stays very humid. Plastic take-out food containers with transparent tops work well for this, as do large jars. Set the pot inside the jar lid, invert the jar onto it and screw it down.

Set the plant where it gets bright shade, but no direct sun ever.

In a few weeks you can begin opening the enclosure slightly and admitting some air. Gradually increase this until the plant is in the ambient atmosphere.

Oncidiums, especially seedlings, don't every like to dry out completely. But they also don't like to stay dripping wet. Many people find this easiest to manage in long-fiber sphagnum moss.

Begin feeding right away with very dilute fertilizer, say 15-25 parts per million nitrogen (ppm.) You can find a dilution calculator at the First Ray's Web site - look for the Free Information section.