Breeding Catts: A Photo Journey

[Piper]

Well, after six months watching the seed pods mature, we can now settle back for another long wait.

Cattleyas will take 12-18 months in flask before they're ready to be potted in community pots aka compots as small seedlings. During this time they'll need to be replated once or twice aka reflasked to refresh the agar medium and give the seedlings a bit more elbow room. Each replating runs risk of contamination or the plants struggling to take hold in the new media if the seedlings lack sufficient roots. So there's a long haul before we have small seedling for all our forum buddies.

The first milestone we'll be watching for besides no comtamination is germination. Hopefully that will happen within a month, but I'm not sure about Cattleya germination times. Anyone know?

Well, that's the wrap up from here. Many thanks to the Dartmouth College Bio Department: particularly to Roger Sloboda who let Aaron and I muck about in his hood; to Lisa Palmer who aided and abetted, bought us a nice lunch and let us check out all her lovely blooms during our breaks; and especially to my partner in crime, the Minister of Silly Flasking himself takes on a whole new meaning once you've seen him with a blue glove on his head... Aaron!

McJulie

[Diane]

Thanks for taking us all along with you. Certainly educational, and amusing as well. As for seedlings, lets see, we'll give you a call in 2011 to see how they are doing....

[Piper]

Okay - I've gotcha on my calendar, Diane!

McJulie

[ATester]

Julie, you did a beautiful job explaining the experience that was working in the lab! (and the photo journal to ga along with)...and I didn't do the hard work, I had help My experience with these things, which is limited, but I keep learning more about it each day, little green dots, provided that everything went well, should follow in the next few weeks. I will keep an eye on things closely (not that I don't keep a close eye on what goes on in the growing area), and I will keep you (and everyone else) advised of what's going on.

Well, its that time to turn in. I plan on starting up a new thread here tomorrow that will give a comparison and contrast to the technique I have adopted for home flasking vs working with the hood for those who are interested.

[p 1]

And your unvarnished lust after my little plantoids!

McJulie

i was just interested and wanted to be included :o

all those pictures and info about the flasking were super interesting, too. my girlfriend wanted to flask kind of already, but now she is just out of control excited about it.

[Tmai]

Ehhh, it is the glasses that make me look so serious. I know, I know...Elvis Costello wants his glasses back

LOL!! I think you look great!!

Thanks, ya'll, for such an interesting thread. Keep us posted!

Tami

[Piper]

Yesterday evening, nearly one week after our flask-a-thon, the Minister of Silly Flasking reported that all five flasks are fuzz-free. This is important, because it confirms there was no contamination during the flasking.

Aaron thinks he sees some percolation in the flasking media that could be the start of protocorms, but it's too tiny to tell. We didn't sneak him a dissecting microscope out of the lab.

We'll want to see both the flasks from the cross and the back cross germinate. Even though it's the same cross in name, seed maturation times are determined by the pod or capsule parent. We won't know if the embryos we saw in the microscope are viable until we see both sets of flasks germinate.

Stay tuned, Catt fans!

McJulie

[KC C]

The suspense is KILLING me! Crack a whip over them! Threaten to make them sit in the corner! Do SOMETHING!

[Diane]

I'm glad to see someone else on this forum has the same level of patience that I do - zero!

[ATester]

I'm glad to see someone else on this forum has the same level of patience that I do - zero!

Ahhh, but grasshahppah...patience is a leaned virtue....

ok, enough references to "King Fu" and David Carradine.

Well, to report...at first it is always difficult to tell if the seeds are turning brown (not a good thing) or if the change in colour is the beginning of green (since they are pretty much nothing but a small collection of cells at this point). This morning was really the first time I can say "yeah,I am pretty sure that there is some green in there". The flasks that are pod parent Mildred Reeves are showing more signs of life than the pod parent gask...but again, pod parent would dictate germination and the other possibility...one that is not the best situation...is that when we sterilized the seed, we really did STERILIZE the seed. When I move the flak around, I can still see that there is material in there, so I am keeping my fingers crossed. We are now aproaching the two week mark, which is about the time to see some visible signs of activity. I'd try taking a pic, but even a macro lense wouldn't be able to pull the resolution for the pics to show much.

On a different flasking project though, the first flask I did of Laelia anceps var alba is ready to be replated...I held off for a while since I wanted to root development before I flasked them on. It may actually be worth putting these guys into a compot of damp sphag instead of a replate since they actually are getting sizeable.

If it is any consolation, I flasked Restrepia brachypus the day after the Catt. flasking project, and I haven't seen any activity in that flask either (and sterilization was done with H2O2 instead of C2H6O (ethanol).