Growing vanilla from flasks
 

I’ve picked up a new project at work, where I will need to grow vanilla to young plant stage. Being the orchid ‘expert’ among my colleagues, they asked me to take it over. Even so, I have a number of questions.

The plants were grown in tissue culture (unsure if it’s stem props or meristem culture), and will arrive in flasks or petri dishes. I don’t know more than that.

*Can they be potted up individually immediately, or would they do better first in a compot?

*What sort of media is appropriate? I know that vanilla is tolerant of a wider range of substrates, so was wondering if any standard peat based substrates (with additives if necessary) would work, since we have a storage room full of different types. Sphagnum is not an option.

*What light levels and light duration are needed at first?

Fairorchids (Kim) posted a fantastic explanation of deflasking and using large plastic storage bins for enclosures. I don't recall exactly where it is but you should be able to find it.

Thanks, I'll see if I can dig it up!

I found this. Hope it helps

http://www.fairorchids.com/resources...%20Rev%202.pdf

Thanks for the link, I had searched the forum for it with no luck!

The flasks arrived yesterday and the plants are stem props, not seedlings. They'll be potted up tomorrow and covered with plastic since we'll need too many of them for the number of plants. They should be fine, I've set their growth unit to 90% humidity and 26°C. The only question mark is the light intensity, I have no idea how blue and red LED lamps compare to levels of natural light, since we only supply PAR wavelengths.

I wonder if these people would give you pointers? Obviously commercial vanilla is a cutthroat and lucrative business.

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I found the post and thread I was thinking about.
https://www.orchidboard.com/communit...lla#post861661