How many plants do commercial orchid breeders work with?

[tmoney]

Originally Posted by Fairorchids

Whoever you spoke with is selling flasks. In that case the parent details are obviously needed.

Most labs simply do contract work. Grower sends them a seed pod (announcing only the genus), and how many flasks he wants back. The lab is then supposed to destroy any excess production.

yes, that is correct about the flask sales. i should also augment my previous uncalled for rant by saying that yes, the more you dig into the orchid world the more you realize how much you don’t know! and when you are new to the game it takes awhile to figure it out. i can also fully understand why some flaskers don’t often want to deal with home breeders who may be crossing no name hybrids, or be making junk or undersirable crosses without any knowledge or access to really good breeding stock.

anyways, thanks kim for pointing that out.

[katsucats]

I'm guessing the flasker tmoney spoke to is Troy Meyers; since it's a conservation effort, they require/prefer parentage info so they could sell the excess flasks. Most other flasking services, just going by what they say on their websites, do not (googled "orchid flasking services"). But maybe they need something else when you contact them, I wouldn't know as I haven't contacted any...

Actually, just realized, maybe things work differently in Germany.

[Ray]

Originally Posted by katsucats

I'm guessing the flasker tmoney spoke to is Troy Meyers; since it's a conservation effort, they require/prefer parentage info so they could sell the excess flasks. Most other flasking services, just going by what they say on their websites, do not (googled "orchid flasking services"). But maybe they need something else when you contact them, I wouldn't know as I haven't contacted any...

Actually, just realized, maybe things work differently in Germany.

I think things probably work the same there.

I think some are confounding the different purposes/outcomes of "flasking".

1) A breeder and seller of plants must know the parentage. If they use an outside lab, they will not likely disclose that parentage to them - just the genus, as Kim said - which keeps the seedling proprietary and takes away any incentive to sell the excess plants.

2) A lab simply doesn't need to know the exact parentage. Yeah, sometimes it might help with using the correct media for unusual breeding, but generally, knowing the genera involved is sufficient.

2) Troy Meyers' operation is sort-of a combination of the two. It is more of a conservation effort than a retail outlet, and the person submitting material for flasking knows that up front and it aiding in that conservation effort, so species disclosure is needed.

[tmoney]

hey there, so i have not spoken to anyone at troy meyers, but considered their website info in with my previous comment. the folks i have spoken to personally are in germany, and they both required the same info.

i should state clearly that my opinions are only half baked, as we r learning this process in real time and we just don’t plain no enough people to contact about flasking we we have only reached out to mid-large scale commercial flaskers. after speaking with one of them they wouldn’t even take our capsules and only said we weren’t a major provider or customer and so needed to look elsewhere. not encouraging for beginners....especially when i believe in what we r trying to do and think we may be making some interesting things.

so yeah, if these more experienced folks are saying other things, it’s only cause they are exactly that, more experienced!!!

i should edit to say we do have another person who is willing to flask our seeds but i consider that a different situation and had it not been for the orchidboard we wouldn’t even have that. we r only seeking other flaskers out of respect for this person and the fact that they have a normal life and i don’t want to drown them in seeds and flasks. so mostly my original comment was attempted to be made from the perspective of a total outsider to this game (which we essentially are), and the responses are telling me we need to keep digging!