Question on symbiotic germination

[Fabian24]

I would like to know your opinions about something that has really puzzled me for some time.

Before the development of asymbiotic germination of orchid seeds by Bernard, Burgeff and Knudson, around 1922, lots of hybrids were germinated and grown in the same pots of adult orchids.
I see that many people, out of curiosity, still try to replicate this natural germination process, but so far I have never seen any blog or webpage where they get past the stage of protocorms or much further .

Why something that was usually done 100 years ago to get hybrids is now so difficult to achieve.

I leave here some options but as it is just speculation I would like to know what do you think the true reasons could be...

a.) The effort and work to germinate seeds and grow them this way is immense but hybrids were so expensive at that time, that it was worth the endeavor.
b.) People are now lazier than people at that time
c.) There was no TV in 1900
d.) Most orchids in 1900 came from the tropics and were wild collected. So they came with the precise mycorrhizal fungi that allows seeds to germinate more easily. Now they are grown in vitro and even if they get some mycorrhizal fungi afterwards when they are deflasked, these are not the best strains of fungi for seed germination.
e.) ..........?

[Orchid Whisperer]

On various orchid forums, from time to time I do see that some people have seeds spontaneously germinate in the pots of adult plants. You certainly can get some seeds to germinate and grow this way - people still do.

To answer some of your specific points:


a.) "The effort and work to germinate seeds and grow them this way is immense but hybrids were so expensive at that time, that it was worth the endeavor."
Originally, before asymbiotic germination, success with symbiotic germination was very hit-and-miss. If you did not have the right symbiotic fungi present (or if you did have pathogenic fungi and bacteria present), your seeds would fail to germinate or fail to grow. But, before 1922, symbiotic germination was really the only option.


b.) "People are now lazier than people at that time"
Hardly a fair assessment - I disagree. I would make this assessment instead. Before 1900, if you wanted to grow 100 acres of wheat, you would hitch a plow to a mule and row-by-row till the soil (if you were really poor & had no mule, one person would pull the plow, another would guide it; even harder work). Then spread seed by hand. Some seed would be buried too deeply, some not buried at all, but some would germinate. Farmers toiled hard, prayed for the best, hopefully harvested some wheat. Added later: In some parts of our modern world, this is still the only option.

Today, most of the brute force work is done by machines, humans operate the machines. You can cultivate thousands of acres with less effort than was once required to cultivate 100 acres. Wheat price is today based on this type of effort (wheat would cost MUCH more if we still plowed with mules).

So, we now have asymbiotic germination for orchids. This technique is much more efficient and much more likely to produce a large number of plants at reasonable cost. Given the time and effort required to produce viable seeds before germinating them, the asymbiotic method is much more likely to produce a good outcome at a lower cost. Asymbiotic growing medium will also provide nutrients to protocorms and seedlings more efficiently.

c.) "There was no TV in 1900"
In my opinion, not relevant. See b, above. Asymbiotic germination is just much more efficient.

d.) Most orchids in 1900 came from the tropics and were wild collected. So they came with the precise mycorrhizal fungi that allows seeds to germinate more easily. Now they are grown in vitro and even if they get some mycorrhizal fungi afterwards when they are deflasked, these are not the best strains of fungi for seed germination.
Some of the spontaneous germination examples that I have seen were with hybrids, so not wild collected. I think you can get the right fungi without wild-collected plants, and I also think it would be possible to lose the "wild" fungi in a plant raised in a greenhouse for many years. It is a good thing that the wild plants and associated fungi are not required for germination, as collecting those wild plants should be discouraged (and in many cases, it is illegal).

So, it is usually much more efficient to grow orchids from seed using modern asymbiotic methods. You can certainly try to grow plants symbiotically, but if you have seeds that you really want to germinate and grow, I suggest that you try growing some asymbiotically, as a "hedge" in case your symbiotic germination does not work out.

[Fabian24]

Maybe I didn't explain myself very well...
I said people out of curiosity try to do symbiotic germination. And that I never saw any successful report of anybody getting their germination to the seedling stage.

OF COURSE if you have to choose you will always go for asymbiotic germination, by far an easier, more efficient and less demanding method of germination. Anybody knows that.

You are totally changing the point in question.

Regarding my last point, did you really see spontaneous germination and growth of hybrids reaching the seedling stage? Have you seen any webpage or blog where they show pics of that? So far I've seen just failures.
One of my favorite pages, Lotte and Thomas Orchids, just show Epidendrum and Pleione reaching the protocorm and early leaf development stage respectively. And stop there.

I've seen germination and development but just in orchids that are endemic of this part of the world. Many people from here told me that they also observed germination and growth of these local orchids but never of hybrids, or species that were not local. That's why I thought that specific MR fungi strains could play a part in this.

Regarding inoculation of specific mycorrhizal fungi in greenhouse grown orchids, they already do that. There are many publications about the benefits of MR application in phal production.

[Orchid Whisperer]

You would need to search for it, but I think on the Orchidgeeks.com forum, 2 or 3 years ago, someone posted about seedlings of Dendrobium Little Green Apples spontaneously growing in a pot. The seedlings were small, but looked viable. I don't know if they matured into larger seedlings or not.

I have personally tried germinating reed-stem Epidendrums and Cynorchis fastigiata without asymbiotic medium, no luck. I was not trying to grow them with specific mycorhizal fungi, however.

[Ray]

Keep in mind that for orchid seed to germinate, they must be supplied sugars from the outside. In flask, we do it via the agar formulations. In the wild, or symbiotically in pots, that requires a fungus that is very specific to the plant.

In the early days of orchid collecting, repotting was a rarity, and the media were often stuff collected in the woods, locally or remotely, and not the relatively "purified" materials we use today. That afforded any fungi associated with the plants to potentially populate the medium, thereby giving the seed a chance of germination.

And, 100 years ago, there was no Physan, or manufactured fertilizers that could be overapplied, killing the fungi.

[Orchid Whisperer]

Quite right Ray. Same goes for fungicides like Cleary's and others. I think it's important to mention that orchids dying in cultivation was more common back then, due to the lack of repotting & disease control.

[Ray]

This is sort-of a bit of a hijack, but I think it's interesting how horticulture is swinging not a new direction about microorganisms.

Plants interact a great deal with microorganisms - good and bad - but all of our focus has been on the use of disinfectants and biocides to get rid of the bad ones, ignoring the fact that it kills the beneficial ones, too. Fortunately, there is getting to be more and more focus on supporting the "good bugs" and using them to rid plants of the bad ones.

One of the earliest commercial applications was the use of Bacillus thuringiensis to kill mosquitoes, grubs, and fungus gnats. Now, there appears to be more of a drive to introduce beneficial microorganisms into the plants and media.

I was "pushed" into it a couple of years ago when a customer sent me some samples of a Canadian-made product, Inocucor Garden Solution, and I have essentially discontinued my use of disinfectants. Other products out there, like Rootshield and Quantum Orchid, have similar actions, but are far more limited in the number of species they employ, making them less broad spectrum treatments.

I doubt that any of them will allow the widespread return of symbiotic germination (just a guess), but it certainly provides a better environment than do disinfectants and fungicides.


Ray Barkalow
firstrays.com

[Fairorchids]

In the past sphagnum/bark medium was much more common. That medium is far more conducive to successfull sowing in parent pots, than the granular mixes commonly used today.

I used that approach for Paphs 40 years ago. Germination rate was in 5-10% range, and viable seedling numbers were in the single digits.