I tried pollinating and... well, not happy.

[cythaenopsis]

I have a blooming phalaenopsis that had four healthy flowers. After watching a video on how you can pollinate an orchid flower, I decided to give it a try. I selected two flowers, plucked open the pollen cover, snagged the sticky line, took out the pollen, then exchanged the pollen between the two flowers. I followed the technique shown in the video and it turned out pretty much as I saw it.


Well... about 2 days after I did this, I noticed one flower starting to droop. 4 days later, the drooping flower is clearly dying, ready to drop in another day or so. The other pollinated flower is now starting to droop as well.

Did I do something wrong? I thought that pollination would cause a seed growth in the flower stem. Instead, it's as if pollinating them sent a trigger to say "you did your job, time to die." At least the other two flowers are still healthy...

[Phalguy]

After a few days, the flower will start to fade and change color... and then, the stem will start to swell and grow as a capsule. ( pod ). But sometime, the pollinisation doesn't work and you end up with dying flower... ;-(

It also depend when did you pollinate them? The flower receiving the pollen should not be too old and the donor should be older...I have more succes when I use an older flower pollen on a very young flower...

[Kelo]

Phal pollen is best to use after the flower has been open for two days - approx. You wont always get a successful pollination and any swelling of the pod could be hormonal rather than being caused by seed development. Also, some phal pods can be cut open after only two months and others around nine months. Have a search on the forum using the search button at the top of the page and you should find a fair amount of info on the subject e.g. not removing the pollen from the flower about to be pollinated. I tried one pod after two months and flasked the few seeds there were but so far, after three weeks there is no sign of life.

[RosieC]

It is usual for the flower to fade after pollination... the flower has done it's job of attracting a pollinator and the plant does not want to waist energy on a flower that has done it's job.

As said above you won't always get a successful pollination, but the flower fading is not a sign of failure.

[cythaenopsis]

Thanks for the input on this, folks.

Well, I can see I made my first mistake, that being the idea of "swapping" pollen. Best to leave the incumbent pollen in the receiver. The other thing is that the flowers were already about 6 weeks old. I started noticing one of the other untouched flowers is beginning to wilt. I hope it wasn't due to the pollination attempt and that it is simply the flowers having been out for their due time.

I did read up on the pollination a bit more on this website... and I didn't realize how tricky a topic this is. Definitely not something for a newbie to try out. I think I'll put this idea on the back burner!

[FairyInTheFlowers]

If you found pollination to be a tad difficult, just imagine what would come after that! You would have to have the seeds sown, and then grow them from flask, and then from seedling. This whole process from pollination to first bloom from the progeny can take about four to five years!

[cythaenopsis]

^ Yes, the person who did the pollination orchid video I watched apparently sent off the seeds to be cultivated by a place that specializes in that. It does take quite a long while to eventually achieve potted progeny. I was more curious about seeing the initial seed producing process and not really serious about following through. Anyway, given how this will seriously shorten the life of the flower (something not mentioned in the video), I don't think I'll be experimenting again any time soon!