I'm going in!

[calvin_orchidL]

Hey everyone! Thought I'd document my little adventures in seed sowing tonight - I've done reading, and I'm as nervous as ever, but there's no time like now to start! My package from the orchid seed bank project came in last week, so tonight I will begin my sowing! I will try to take some pictures of the process as I go...wish me luck!

Some last minute questions-

1 - In terms of seed distribution for dry seed sowing after sterilization, for those of you experienced, in how much water do you have the seeds in when you pour it on top of the medium?

2 - How much seed do you sow per flask? I know it's really dust like - so do you sow a pinch? I don't want to over crowd them.

3. How do you store left over media after reconstituting it with water?

Thanks!

[Royal]

Wooo Hoooo!!! Good Luck!

My first run taught me A LOT. I probably used too much seed and had too much water on top of the media. The water moves the seed around every time I look at them.

The next time around, I may use a microspatula to scoop the seed out after disinfection. A dropper works too, but if the seed floats, it's hard to get with a dropper.

As for how much, I don't really know. I used the 'Grain of Rice' amount (about 1/4 to 1/3 of an OSP seed pack) and it was a lot of seed.

[Royal]

Still very new to this too, so don't hang too much on what I say.

p.s. B. 'Little Stars' is getting closer! I haven't forgotten about you.

[calvin_orchidL]

Well, I finally did it! I flasked my first seeds...now to see whether I get contamination. Fingers are crossed!

Here are the photos of the procedure: Flasking - a photoset on Flickr

Biggest obstacles:
1) Sterilizing the dry seed - apparently cymbidium goeringii seed not only floats, but sticks to plastic! I probably lost 50% of all the seed during the washes and I even tried centrifuging, but to no avail.

2) Plating the seed - real difficult distributing the water-suspended seed around the plate.. Luckily I checked today and it seems that the water has dried up in some of the plates already

I used p668 media at half strength and I supplemented with 20g/L of sucrose. I know p668 is not the greatest for seed germination - here's to luck!

[Dorothy]

I'm with you Calvin .. sending you a little things work out well for you

[Royal]

Calvin, Nice photos. With all those toys laying around, I'll think you're going to be just fine. I would suggest (since you have all those toys and all that room), is to sow some of the same seed on a few different media. You may make a discovery!

[calvin_orchidL]

Hi everyone! Just an update - (no pictures yet but I will try and take some asap!)

The Laelia lucasiana has germinated like crazy - all the little protocorms now have their first leaves and I see what I believe are the beginnings of roots! Yay!

My C. bilamellatum is forming these weird green cell clumps...I think some of them are becoming protocorms. I don't remember where I read that this indicates some sort of excess nutrient but I don't remember the solution nor where I read it, so any advice would be helpful

The others (coelogyne confusa, sarc. falcatus) are showing variable slow germination - actually I have an embarrassing confession - I may have contaminated those flasks with l. lucasiana seed, because during the first flask I didn't realize the size of the seed and may have blown a bit into the other seed vials! So all we have to do is wait and see what these babies turn out to be. No action from the cymb. goeringii.

They are sitting quite close under cool white CFLs, but I don't see any burning, so it should be OK but any other advice regarding lighting would be appreciated!

In addition, I've flasked an additional 8 species this weekend (I know I'm being over ambitious but I couldn't resist!)...unfortunately, I think I screwed something up with the media because for some reason it turned out much more dilute and soft compared to last time I used p668 at half strength with 20g/L of sucrose like last time so I don't know what went wrong...maybe my calculations for my media were messed up. Regardless, I plated some seed and if it fails then I guess I'll know what happened. I was tempted to try using W2.5 to germinate, but I realized I need to save it for replating my laelias (which I believe I should do soon?? I'll post pictures for you to judge soon although they are awfully hard to capture through the flask!)

Royal (did your package arrive?) I will definitely try different medias for my next wave of sowing - I think I'll order some different types this weekend from Aaron!

[Royal]

Way to go!!! Germination definitely calls for the banana slide!

Sometimes if the agar is not evenly distributed evenly, the flasks don't want to gel right. Try giving them a swirl every 5 minutes or so as they cool until you see the media getting viscous. Just before it sets, as the agar is thickening, a final swirl may help distribute everything a little better (even the charcoal). As soon as it gets to this point, I do one final swirl and then position the flasks how I want them to solidify.

You might be able to re-autoclave the 'soupy' flasks. The heat will liquefy the medium, and you can try the swirl trick as they cool.

Oh, and I did get my package! Thanks again! I'll be sure let you know how they go. Keep us posted!

[Lagoon]

Calvin, this is very exciting -I'll be reading and learning. Thanks for posting your efforts

[calvin_orchidL]

Thanks for all the encouragement! Royal - I actually autoclaved in larger bottles and transfered the liquid media to the separate flasks (unorthodox, I know, but unavoidable given the nature of my flasks and so far only 1 contaminated flask from my last set of 25) so I make sure things are swirled around. I actually think I added too little media, because after weighing it out, I still had some left which is weird since I remember weighing out half the last time...I just thought I was lucky and got given more media than I bought, but I guess I was wrong...hopefully things are still okay - I will likely have to replate if these do germinate, as I feel there won't be enough nutrients.

Here are some pictures of the new little babies. Say hi to laelia lucasiana!