Seedy Action

Pardon my blurry cell phone images. Doing this post in the quick and dirty style.

I took a little time this afternoon to surface sterilize a ripening seed pod and to sow seeds today. The cross was Paph (victoria-regina x lowii) x fairrieanum (I'll post a photo of the fairrieanum at another time, it was a nicely marked, slightly fragrant one) made January 31st. I thought the pod should stay on the plant another 1-3 months, but it started to dry out, so I harvested it. I somewhat expected the pod to contain nothing, so I decided to use some nearly year old media I had stashed in the lab rather than making fresh. Much to my surprise, the seeds actually look reasonably decent. They have a nice dark umber color, but weren't very 'fluffy' in the pod, making me think they weren't quite mature. Possibly the heat caused the plant to abort development early. Hopefully they'll germinate anyway and be FABULOUS.

And here's another fuzzy cell phone pic of some intermediate stage Lc Green Veil x June Bug seedlings. To see these guys as wee seeds, see this post. I'll need to space these out onto new replate media soon for their final flask development stage. If all goes well the flasks will be ready next Spring/Summer. Green Veil is a bright lime green with a white & purple lip and great flower count, and June Bug (as you can see from the link above) is yellow with a red lip.

I also did a quick "spread plate" of some recalcitrant Phal taenialis protocorms which have been refusing to develop. Hopefully this will kick start them.

If you're interested in learing more about orchid hybridization, flasking, and seedling development, join me at the Susquehanna Orchid Society meeting this Sunday at 1:30PM in Camp Hill, PA. If you can't make it, ask your society's officers to schedule me to give a lecture in your home town! :)

Upcoming Events

Fellow plant geeks: Just a quick note to let everyone know I will be speaking at the Brookside Gardens Orchid Club tomorrow, Sunday June 20th at 1PM on the topic of hybridization, flasking, and seed development.

Some of you may have caught the talk last month at the Maryland Orchid Society. Those of you who did, thanks for coming & hope you enjoyed it.

For those of you who have or will miss both of the above, I will also be giving the talk to the Susquehanna Orchid Society soon.

Photos of the Nursery

I've been keeping busy lately, making lots of crosses and flasking. The photo at the top here shows a shelf full of jars housing the 'infants'. Some of these are crosses I made, some are species grown from purchased seed.

Here's a little secret for you - most crosses fail in some way or another. Out of 26 hybridization attempts in the past two years, twenty failed to produce seed. Mainly this happens by just not making a mature pod, failing very early, but there were a couple that carried a reasonable looking seed pod for months only for me to split it and find it was empty later. Of the 6 remaining, one failed to germinate, two were contaminated (@$#! fungal spores in dry seed), and three grew nicely.

Among these three that grew nicely is Paph. (Pucks Apple x gardineri). There are 8 pots of these among the group of flasks recently potted out to community pots. This cross has been growing so fast. If they continue to do well, I'll begin making seedlings available in the spring, though I may make a small flask available before then. I'm hoping they continue to be speedy, so that we can see them bloom in a couple years.

That's Not Lint

Friday I lingered at work, quietly making use of the tissue culture hood for some clandestine seed sowing. (makes it sound spicy, doesn't it, like James Bond was involved) In actuality, I'm almost always there late, and doing my seed sowing late on Friday means I'm neither in anyone's way nor taking up valuable time I could be using to dissect genomes.

Today I split open and sowed Paph (Hsinying Alien x wardii), a cross I made mostly for awesome foliage. The seeds were a lovely dark brown and rather large on the orchid seed scale. There were a good number that looked viable. Hopefully they'll germinate.

While struggling to get them out of the pod and into a tube for sterilization, I once again had that realization that they look like dust or lint. They act like it, too. They fly every which way, get stuck on paper, stick to the inside of the tubes by static. This, combined with losses stuck to tubes, pipettes, and lost in washes during sterilization can result in loss of what seems like a third to a half of the seed. In actuality, I'm not going to count and find out, even if I should by some miracle catch them all.

The photo attached is of a set of seeds which were sown late spring/early summer (Lc. Green Veil 'Dressy' x Sc. June Bug 'Venice Sunshine'). This bunch was actually rather well behaved, perhaps because I split the pod when it was still green. The little pile of seeds in the bottom left were sown on three plates, one of which was contaminated. The remaining two are now covered with protocorms. The rest of the seed is in storage.

Also today I split open a pod from a Nobile dendrobium x Dend tetragonum, made for "what ifs". The pod had developed very nicely. Unfortunately, it produced no seed.

Update: Germinating orchid seeds

More spectacular microscope adventures, starring a gazillion orchid seeds!

This series of photos was actually taken last Sunday, placing the time line at 4 weeks post sowing. This first one shows the Laelia tenebrosa 'Coast Ovelins' AM/AOS x self, first shown in this post. You'll see some are much further along, some are starting to swell, and some are just sitting there thinking about it. The forming protocorms (green) have now shed their seed coats. This you can still see on the top right green mass - there is the empty husk along its bottom right side. Magnification is about 38x in this photo.

This one is Encyclia mariae, OSP #2769, magnification ~29x in the top photo, 144x in the bottom two photos, which were taken with blue light and a red-green filter. Here again you see a variety of developmental stages. The higher magnification photos also gives you a better look at the cast off seed coats, to the top right of each large protocorm. (Remember that chlorophyll naturally auto-fluoresces red under blue light, that is why they appear red in these photos) Possibly the most interesting thing about these two photos, however, is that on the bottom of the center protocorm you can see the beginnings of two nearly transparent root-like structures. I do not believe they are actual roots, but a simpler, more primitive structure. As protocorms develop, they form their first leaf and several fuzzy hairs on the other side. I suspect these are most similar to root hairs in structure, probably formed by one to a few cells each with no differentiation in terms of cell function, for the express purpose of improving water absorption over short distances. A true root has many cell types, each with its own function, shape, and location. Can anyone confirm for me the nature of the little hairs in the photo?

I also have plates of Cattleya leopoldii v. alba, OSP# 1383 which were sterilized and plated at the same time. Unfortunately these show no definite germination at this time, only an obvious difference between viable and not viable seeds. Not all seeds will germinate as quickly as the ones shown above. Hopefully these will start to germinate soon, too.

Germinating Orchid Seeds

Creatures from the Black Lagoon!!!


Yeah, maybe not, but just as rarely seen by the average human.

What you are seeing here are orchid seeds just beginning to germinate. They are Laelia tenebrosa 'Coast Ovelins' AM/AOS x self, OSP stock# 1071, 12 days post sowing (FAST!). Orchid seeds are tiny, dust like things (see also this post), so images were taken using ~30x magnification (if I remember the lens magnification correctly) on a dissecting 'scope. The first really obvious sign of orchid germination is the presence of tiny little green balls of undifferentiated tissue. From this the first leaf and first root arise. But before any of that, if you have a sharp eye you'll notice the seeds get "fat" and more noticeable on the plate. This is the stage you are viewing now.

The seeds with the opaque mass in the center are the ones that are growing. The ones that are thin and transparent are not growing. These may germinate at a later date, but more likely they will not germinate at all. The extra fat one is a little further along. In another week or two it should be obviously green and enlarged. The image above was taken with 'normal' light. The one below was taken using blue light and a red/green filter. With this setup, you can see the presence of active chlorophyll under this setup as evidenced by the red color of the fattest seed. Chlorophyll pigments naturally fluoresce red under blue light.



They're alive!!! Eek! :)

In Bloom: Paph. wardii and Hsinying Alien

I'll admit this Paph. Hsinying Alien has lovely, but actually somewhat average flowers. They have good size and clear markings. The real charm of the plant is in foliage, shown in the next photo.

The foliage has striking contrast between a light yellow-green background and a lovely emerald green foreground. I honestly purchased the plant just for this wonderfully marked foliage. I'd like to breed some paphs specifically for striking foliage. I think they would make great windowsill plants, looking fancy year round. Many paphs have great foliage, so I should have no problem putting together a good genetic palette.

At the moment, I have a couple Paph wardii plants in bloom as well. They also have lovely foliage, they are not high contrast, but do have interesting markings. As an added bonus, they are compact, have wonderful color and shading in the flowers, and great lasting power. I have one listed in my shop that has been in bloom for two full months already, and its just a first bloom seedling! I think I might cross the wardii onto the Hsinying Maru. It should yield exciting foliage on vigorous plants, and flowers with stronger color. I'm also tempted to take the other pollina from this wardii and stick it on my Paph. primulinum flavum, for no particular reason, so probably won't do it.

In Bloom & Update on Paph Protocorms

Hi kidz! Sorry I've been out of touch. New job, still workin' old one on a part time consulting type basis, and trying to survive the lack of sunlight that is December. I think I might be a little photosynthetic. I hate short, cloudy days.

Anyway, I'm trying to get back on track. So for today we have an in bloom:

This is Blc. George King 'Southern Cross' AM/AOS. Yeah, I knew I kept that plant around for a reason. Such a lovely flower. There are actually several nice clones of George King. It is compact growing, and fragrant like cheap liquid soap.

Now, I didn't take any photos, but the paph protocorms mentioned in an earlier post are doing well. A week or two after that post, the protocorms in the light started to look a bit more green. I moved the ones in darkness to light and they greened up too.

Now, someone on OGD suggested they would be too difficult to transfer them at a young age, but its actually not that bad. Also, lets remember that my germination media had no complex sugars added, so there was not really enough there for them to grow any more. (Frequently germination media has a small amount of some complex ingredient to get them started, but not so much that it might stunt them, but I did not have the appropriate stuff for paphs). They couldn't stay on that media for long or they would die.

But for anyone interested, it is not actually that hard to do. Using a sterile spatula like this one, I simply scrape little piles of protocorms off the mother flask media with the spoonish end, then spread them onto replate media. I have done this before. Its a great opportunity to spread and thin out your protocorms so they are not so stacked on top of each other. In this case, I transferred each of the 10cm petri dishes onto 2 or 3 pint size containers with the media on the long side (like the photo in the previous blog post that shows the phals, but with a LOT more protocorms).

Later on down the road, when they have itty bitty leaves, I'll pluck the paph seedlings with forceps to another set of flasks for them to grow up large enough for deflasking. In many cases, this three stage system results in bigger, happier seedlings anyway. I have high hopes for a quality output here.

Success! I think.

These are new protocorms of Paph (Puck's Apple x gardineri). And so many! I have 4 plates like this. It's a little odd that they're not green, but maybe this is normal for paph protocorms. At least I hope it is. I had not checked them for a while, so I hope they weren't green to start with then turned brown because they're going to die!! This is actually my first experience with Paph protocorms - any words of wisdom out there? I suspect they're fine.

For comparison, (although not easy to see) the second photo shows a more advanced stage of Phal (Newberry Snowdrops x (Neon Spots x Soroa Wild Thing)). Germination rate was low on these, but they were harvested as a split pod and perhaps the bleach killed some. They looked like the paph protocorms to start with, but green, then they expand and start producing a first leaf. These are at the stage of having their first proto-leaf, and will soon have wee little roots starting.

The real test, of course, is to see if any survive to other stages of growth - no contamination in the replate flasks where they'll get bigger, survive through the community pot transition, then grow to flowering size. Let's hope for a real success of fun and exciting flowers down the road! :)

Bahhh!!!

Fungus attack is not fun! These are some Phal seeds I sowed one week ago. I found the pod had split earlier than I expected at a couple weeks shy of 6 months. Seems to me the previous pods have all gone to 6 or 7 months with no trouble. Must be the stuff I'm breeding now. Although, most of my previous years' efforts have used plants heavy with section Zebrinae (violacea, luedde., tetraspis, etc.) genetics as pod parent. Maybe they take longer to bake.

I don't know how long the pod was open, but certainly a good 30% of the seeds fell out. I gave them a 24hr sugar soak, but admittedly I've never worked out what a good concentration of sugar is for that approach. This was followed by a bleach treatment, then the seeds were sown on a pretty standard germination media. Three days later there was one fungus colony on each plate. I carefully excised them off. Either they had already sporulated, or there were just unused spores in the mix. I hate contaminated seeds.

For kicks I'm going to try a last ditch attempt to save them. One plate will get a Daconil spray, and I'll have a go at the other one with oxidative stress (hydrogen peroxide...it'll probably kill the seeds but I'm going to try it anyway). w00t.

*BUT* there is some good news today. In fear that another pod would split early, I snatched it off today and sowed it. Its a cross of Paph (Yellow Butterfly x fairrieanum), pollinated back in March. Sounds fun, yes?? It was a smallish pod, but it really came through with a lovely crop of dark sable brown seeds. I've got one plate in the light and 2 in the dark as I do not know which this cross will respond better to. Next week sometime I'll be taking the Puck's Apple x gardineri for sowing. You may remember those contestants from March.

In Bloom: Kingidium deliciosum

Kingidium deliciosum, also known as Phalaenopsis deliciosa, is a miniature species. The name 'deliciosa', which means "delicate", refers to the appearance of the flowers. They have a very crystalline, thin appearance. They are typically born singly or twos on an inflorescence in sequential fashion, much like Paph. Pinocchio, and can have more than one inflorescence at a time. Individual flowers don't seem to last long, but the plant does produce many over time. Also, the leaves are interesting thanks to a slightly ruffled margin.

I find it to be easy to grow and flower. This one lives on a cork mount and seems quite tolerant of the occasional drought.

RHS uses the name Kingidium for registration purposes. Only a few hybrids are attributed to the species. Many of the small species have been left behind for hybridization, probably because of a combination of size (little ~ not impressive or easily overlooked?) and in some cases difficulty of growing and breeding them. For this one, there is also the somewhat undesirable characteristic (for a Phalaenopsis) of not carrying many flowers at once. I have no idea how easy this one is to breed, but I'm going to give it a shot using the Phal. equestris alba from my previous post. If it works, we'll get little plants perfect for windowsills, and more flowers than deliciosum, though maybe not as many as equestris. That's ok, equestris does produce an obscene number of flowers! I pollinated the plant today. Let's all cross our fingers!

In Bloom: Phalaenopsis equestris alba

Main reason why Phal. equestris is cool: TONS of flowers. This is a first bloom seedling with a 3-way branched spike. I've seen some make 2 spikes like this. And they just go on and on, making new flowers. Many of the 'multifloral' hybrids have equestris somewhere in there history, contributing the multitude of flowers characteristic. This plant is about to join the ranks of pollen donors in my house.

They are also a species that is prone to making keikis. An individual fan of leaves will stay relatively small, but as they mature and produce a mountain of keikis the plant can become quite impressive. Alternatively, you can remove the keikis and share them with your friends like so many summer squash! For more information on growing phalaenopsis, see this post.

Contents of an Orchid Seed Pod

This is a phalaenopsis seed pod that recently split on its own. Fortunately I found it before it sent its charges to the wind and there was plenty of seed remaining. The pod was only about 5 months, but the seeds are a nice straw color, which suggests that they are ripe and viable. I didn't inspect them any more than that though. the remnant of the pod is there on the left. It is still very green as you can see. The contents come easily out, maybe with just a little coaxing.

The fluff shown here is what remains of the pollen tubes. It serves just like the silks you see on corn. In the photo you can see there is a darkened area of the fuzz, which is where there are seeds trapped in the matrix. To give them "the red pill" and free them from the matrix, I just grasp them in the forceps and rap sharply on the metal. They fall free easily onto the paper.

Here you can see the fuzz is free of seeds now.

And finally below, my nice crop of seeds ready to be sterilized and plated on a nice, rich media.

Dry seed sowing has some challenges. A split pod allows a chance for fungal spores to get into the seeds. Spores are rather difficult to kill. So as an added measure with dry seed I use the trick of soaking the seeds 8-16hrs in a mild sucrose solution with a little wetting agent. This can encourage the spores to germinate, essentially bringing them out of their protective shell, making them much easier to kill with a quick, low concentration bleach application (I use 7% of a high strength bleach (~6 or 6.15% hypochlorite) for 7min). This is followed by several washes with sterile distilled water and then the seeds are ready to plate on media. Too high a concentration or too long an exposure will kill the seeds, so you have to balance between the best sterilization you can get with the least collateral damage.

Timeline: Momma Plant to Flowering Daughter

At the prompting of Swamprad, I've decided to chat a bit more about my orchid breeding attempts. I thought a good place to start might be a time line of the waiting game that is making new plants. This is just an estimated framework based on Phalaenopsis plants. I plan to expand on some details later. Please note this is based on growing plants at home in Maryland.

** Agonize over what combinations to make. 1 week.
* Pollinate flower. Drop pollen. Bark swear words. Get down on floor and look for it. Pollinate flower. 15 min.

* Wait. Wait some more... If a cross succeeds in making seeds, it will take on average 6-12 months to mature. In many genera, you can harvest the pod before it is fully mature, though, which actually makes handling the seed easier. If its going to fail miserably, it can do so at any time.

* Harvest the pod, sterilize, and sow. 1-2hrs.
* Wait. Germination times vary considerably. Typically I find phals will germinate in less than 2 months if they're going to do it. Lets say time on this is 1 month to 1 year.

* I usually let the protocorms gain a little size before transplanting, sometimes even with a little primordial leaf forming. They're not more than little green dots when they appear. Add 2-6 months.

* Transplant to new media, once or twice, continuing in flask for another 8 months to 2 years.


* Move seedlings to compots. Grow on 12 - 18 months.
* Pot out to individual pots. Grow on 6 - 24 months.












** At this point the plants are usually near blooming size or in some cases even first bloom size already. They might take a year or so to actually make the first few flowers. Adding all this up, it takes around 4 to 7 years to get the first couple flowers on your plants from the time a cross is made. Getting to mature size takes longer. In addition to plain time, how fast they get to bloom also depends on the genetics and environment/culture.

In Bloom: Phal. (Su An Cricket x stobartiana)

This is a first bloom seedling of Phalaenopsis (Su An Cricket x stobartiana) bred by Al. I couldn't be more tickled with it. Its miniature (well, it might get bigger as it matures, but probably not a lot), has cute-as-a-button rust colored flowers that are very shiny and somewhat fragrant. I'm very interested in breeding of the miniature species like stobartiana, and Al has had a fair amount of success with his crosses. I always enjoy browsing his young seedlings.

The mechanics of making crosses with miniatures have some tricks to them. For example, miniature phal species have much smaller pollen nodules than other phals, and its said that these do not have sufficient hormone to induce the necessary length in the pollen tubes. It could also be that there just not enough pollen grains to make the zillions of seed you get in one of those thumb sized phal pods. Its said that you can get around this by using the mini as the pod parent, but I'm always hesitant to do that--to paranoid to risk my minis!

A couple years ago I made a cross of P. Emily Grimball x honghenensis. Emily Grimball is a mid-sized thing with solid pink, waxy star flowers. It made a big giant pod but only a couple hundred seed. However, I figure that is enough seed for me to deal with as I do my own flasking and only have so much space. I have the first of them in compot now. I can't wait to see them bloom!

Who's the Daddy?

This is Paph. Puck's Apple. Its a pretty large flower, and with that name we know it must have appletonianum in the background. Its other parent was Mod Maude. This picture isn't great, but I'm sure you get the general idea.

I've decided to pollinate it but can't choose between two possible pollen donors. Yeah, yeah, the shape isn't perfect, but I'm not concerned about that. It has some interesting genetics to offer.

Anyway, I've decided I'd like to use either my seedling of Paph. gardineri, which is the second photo here, or my Paph. venustum var. pardhanii which can be seen in this post. The gardineri can offer two things of interest: (a) possible multifloral tendencies, and (b) an enhancement to make the slight twist of Puck's Apple's petals look "on purpose." The venustum offers (a) possible increase in color contrasts of the flower while maintaining strong color on the petal ends, (b) possible brains patterning on the pouch, which is always cool. I think they both offer general niftiness.

So far I've had one vote for each possible parent. Please give me a tie breaker!! What should I choose? And we need to decide quick, paphs take pollen best when the flowers are pretty fresh.

Today's Hybrid Attempt: Fun with Frozen Pollen!

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Phal Orchid World 'Brother' x Taisuco Glory 'Fruit Loops'
I pollinated my Orchid World just this morning with frozen pollen from my Taisuco Glory. I've heard you can make crosses with frozen pollen, but this is the first time I've actually tried it. Hope it works!

Both of the parents are fragrant and have similar habit and good shape. No other criteria were used in selecting this pairing. I like fragrant. Lots of people like fragrant. Seems like a good idea to make fragrant plants.

Orchid World is Malibu Imp x Deventeriana, registered in 1984 according to RHS. It has 2 grandparents that are amboinensis, which is only sometimes fragrant, and one grandparent that is Luedde-violacea, which is certainly fragrant. Orchid world has a strong, sharp fragrance.
Taisuco Glory smells like fruit loops. Really. And it is very strong, especially in the morning. The hybrid is Brother Lawrence x Salu Spot. This is a rather complex parentage that I'm currently too lazy to trace completely. Basically, its a carefully constructed combination of amboinensis, venosa, lueddemaniana, probably violacea and some other stuff. I've had this particular plant for almost 7 years. I from Kensington Orchids back when they were in business.

The downside of this pairing is that flower count will be low per spike. But the flowers will be both glossy and long-lived in addition to their expected fragrance. At least, if the cross takes...