Phalaenopsis deflasklings update

About a year ago I deflasked three crosses of Phalaenopsis seedlings that came from Kingfisher Orchids.
Phal. Hannover Passion ‘CR’ X Yungho Gelb Canary ‘Chin Yo'
Phal. Yungho Gelb Canary ‘Chin Yo’ X Dragon Tree Eagle
Phal Gelblieber ‘Arianne’ X LD’s Bear King ‘YK #1’

Here is an update on their progress, looks like I will see the first bloom soon:

Cattleya araguaiensis deflasking

This is my first attempt at deflasking cattleya genus. As if it wasn't challenging enough, I have pretty bad experience with this particular species - Cattleya araguaiensis. I tried it back in 2012: one try, another try - but every one of them eventually died...
Maybe I was getting weak plants?
Now in flask with over 25 seedlings there should be at least one that is vigorous enough to grow nicely despite my care... That's my hope.



Flask came from Ching Hua orchid nursery.



Plantlets are on the slim side but have pretty long roots, that are much more flexible than brittle roots of paphs that I got used to. Agar was soft and came off very easy.



Deflasking cattleya for the first time I wasn't sure which mix and pots should I use for my araguaiensis seedlings. My old cattleyas grow in coconut husk chips, but seedlings probably require more moisture-retaining media. After much of debate with myself I decided to experiment with two mixes: sphagnum moss and mix of small coconut husk chips and sponge rock(perlite).



For sphagnum I used one net pot and one small shallow plastic tray with holes at the bottom(they work good for paph seedlings).
For coco mix - just plastic trays. Net pots are good for seedlings because they provide fast drying, but in the long run they pose the problem - roots tend to stick out in the holes and tangle within the net, so I don't really like compots in the net pots because you do need to repot compots eventually and will end up breaking those tangled roots... That's why I did only one net pot compot.

Here is the outcome : 4 pots with 6 seedlings in each.



They live in the smaller tank that is warm and humid.

Phal. Hannover Passion ‘CR’ X Yungho Gelb Canary ‘Chin Yo'

And one more phalaenopsis flask.
Phal. Hannover Passion ‘CR’ X Yungho Gelb Canary ‘Chin Yo'



I think there are 23 plants, they were really overcrowded and leaves are all twisted, but that is not a problem. New leaves will come out nice and straight...

Phal Gelblieber ‘Arianne’ X LD’s Bear King ‘YK #1’ deflasked

Another flask from Kingfisher Orchids - Phal Gelblieber ‘Arianne’ X LD’s Bear King ‘YK #1’.



There were only 10 plantlets, but they are huge. Hopefully they will be faster to bloom.

Phal. Yungho Gelb Canary ‘Chin Yo’ X DTE deflasking

Couldn't pass few novelty phal hybrid flasks from Kingfisher Orchids.
Phal. Yungho Gelb Canary ‘Chin Yo’ X Dragon Tree Eagle:



There are about 20 plants, all had nice roots on deflasking. Should be an awesome cross...

Paphiopedilum anitum flask update

After two months all anitums are still alive. They did loose some bottom leaves and have some damage from the unfortunate crash of phalaenopsis onto them.







It is hard to say if there was any growth, probably no...

Paph. Wössner Wolke flask

Another flask from Hung Sheng orchids that I got through Crystal Star - HS 8481 emersonii x hangianum 'Bear-7'. This flask was so overcrowded with seedlings that I couldn't even count them all. Although they seem too small and skinny, they do have some roots, so hopefully all survive.

Most of them are grown into several seedlings clumps that I decided to leave untouched, so to not break the roots.
Out of flask - big mess of seedlings, I think there is at least 50 of them, but cannot say exact number:



Potted up:

Paph. gigantifolium deflasked.

Finally I received the last batch of flasks for this spring. Now there will be a series of posts with pictures of them deflasked with measuring tape, so I could track their growth.
First is HS 9050 - Paph. gigantifolium 'Cheng' x self from Hung Sheng Orchids nursery in Taiwan.
HS flasks always come in glass bottles that need to be cracked and I actually mastered this process by now: wrap bottle into plastic bag, take hammer hold the top of the bottle and hit exactly on the side of the bottom. Round bottom comes off almost clean and puck with orchids sits on it nicely.
Agar was soft and plants separated easy, there was 21 plntlet in the flask:



Potted up:



Next update in 6 months...

Paph. superbiens deflasked

Paph superbiens x sib is the second flask that I got from Ching Hua. I really like the leaves on barbarta types and since my callosum deflasklings are doing ok, I figured this one should too.

Bathing in a bowl:



Look at those amazing roots! 22 plantlets were in the jar, all pretty uniform in size, no runts:



Potted up:

Deflasked Paph. anitum

Plantlets in anitum flask were overgrown, so I decided to deflask right away. The actual name of cross is Paph. anitum x sib ('特優' x '#100-1') and it came from Ching Hua Orchids.

Puck swimming in a bowl:



I liked how soft agar was, no problems washing it off. Plantlets separated relatively easy, but couple pairs didn't want to untangle -I left them as is. Counted 16 plants, not 20 as advertised:



Brown leaves at the bottom didn't look healthy so I peeled them off. Leaves are long and tangled, hope they will straighten up. Potted:



I created natural shade from large phalaenopsis in the corner of small tank. Anitum lives there now:

Paphiopedilum nursery

I decided to reorganize my tanks. It started when I moved sanderianum seedlings from larger to smaller and warmer tank that always hosted phalaenopsis. The results were visible - sandies really took off. Smaller tank holds higher humidity and temps, these conditions fit small seedlings just right. So, I moved all paphio seelings there. As a result - lots of phals had to move out to larger tank. I only left large ones on the middle shelf to create shade for seelings and phal seedlings that I deflasked earlier (they are more like adolescents now).



Now seedlings don't have to be watered as often and they surely enjoy 23C temps during the day.

Paph. hangianum seedlings update

I deflasked them in March 2014. Here I found a picture of a tray with larger seedlings from May 2014:



Since then seedlings from tray were moved to pots. I know that it would be better to let them be in that tray for as long as possible, but about a month ago I discovered a scale on one of the seedlings in the tray. I freaked out and splitted them into pairs to control the infestation better. I was checking them every day and wiping the leaves with alcohol every three days for a month. Now it seems that scale might be gone, but plants probably got a major setback with transferring into pots and stressing the leaves with alcohol.
Here they are now:



Interesting, that I have four flasks of other paphiopedilum types seedlings in the same tank but none of those were affected. It's like stupid bugs knew to attack the most expensive ones!

Paph. callosum deflasking update

Callosum seedlings are out of flask for almost 5 months now:

Tray 1



Tray 2



I didn't loose any of them yet. Yellow leaves at the bottom came from flask, I was hoping they would fall off, but they still didn't.

Paphiopedilum malipoense deflasked

I got flask in a package today from Orchid Inn USA.
Paphiopedilum malipoense:



Seedlings looked pretty crowded there and I could see yellow bottom leaves on some of them.



So I decided to deflask right away. As always, the most difficult part was to untangle the roots from the puck of black jelly.



There were about 30 plantlets in the flask. They filled two trays full:

Paphiopedilum Paul Parks repotted

Paphiopedilum Paul Parks seedlings became a bit crowded in their tray:



I decided to graduate them to pots. As a result I got seven pots with three seedlings in each and two pots with four seedlings in each. I didn't expect such a good survival rate up to now:



I will probably leave myself 4 pots and make others available for trade or sale...

Paphiopedilum callosum deflasked

Maudae type species that is supposed to be easy to grow and bloom. Paphiopedilum callosum x sib.



I counted 35 plantlets. Some of them have yellowing leaves at the bottom. Since they are bottom leaves - I will not worry about it for now.

Paphiopedilum Paul Parks deflasked

Sanderianum primary hybrid - Paphiopedilum Paul Parks. Hopefully more vigorous than my sanderianum seedlings.
Cross is sanderianum 'Lady in Red' x adductum var. anitum 'Ace' AM/AOS.



There are about 26 seedlings, all pretty uniform in size. I didn't bother with small protocorm-sized plantlets, just threw them away.

Paphiopedilum Harold Koopowitz deflasked

Another parvi hybrid that came yesterday in flask.
Paphiopedilum Harold Koopowitz - rothschildianum 'Gigantic Dorsal' x malipoense 'Sam's Choice' FCC/AOS.



About 30 seedlings. One was large enough to go to the individual pot, I think. Hope it will be ok...

Paphiopedilum Carolyn Butcher deflasked

Sometime in winter I pre-ordered bunch of paphiopedilum flasks from Orchid Inn USA. Received them yesterday.
Here is the first one I deflasked- Paphiopedilum Carolyn Butcher:



The cross is Fanaticum 'SVO Chunky Monkey' AM/AOS x delenatii 'SVO VII' AM/AOS. There are 27 seedlings in total, couple were clearly bullies with large roots, so I potted them separately. Bottom right pot has two plantlets that are actually connected by long runner.

Paphiopedilum hangianum deflasking

I got this flask of Paphiopedilum hangianum from Hung Sheng Nursery in Taiwan. Plantlets looked nice and healthy. They came in a glass bottle, I had to deal with it for the first time because all my other previous flasks were just plastic containers that didn't require breaking.
After reading few suggestions on the web I wrapped bottle into plastic bag in hit with a hammer on the side near the botom. It worked, bottle crashed but bottom was left with plantlets in agar like a puck.

Here they are taking a bath in warm water:



And here they are all potted up:



There were more than 20 babies in the bottle, roots were all tangled and pretty long. Left top pot has 4 plants stuck together, I couldn't separate them and left them as is. Hope it is ok. Let's see how many will survive...