Pollinating experiment

[wetfeet101b]

Sooner or later I will probably end up dabbling with crossing orchids and flasking.
But I will never get there unless I get a lot of experience with pollinating the orchids. I mean, I have to know how to properly pollinate first before proceeding to the more complicated tasks, right?

So I tried to pollinate my first orchid. This is a NOID dendrobium and I just pollinated it with itself.
I tried it on three flowers:
#1: Pollinated with its own pollen.
#2: Pollinated with pollen from #3
#3: Pollinated with pollen from #2

I'm not sure if it would make any difference between the three scenarios but its a worthwhile experiment for me.

After about a week, the flowers I pollinated began wilting while the rest of the non-pollinated flowers are still fresh and vibrant.
Its a good sign, right?

Here's a picture of flowers #1 and #2. They are noticeably wilting. The base also appears to be slightly swelling and getting a greenish tint.


Here's a picture of a non-pollinated flower for comparison:


Since this is just a NOID, I'm not going to spend any efforts or resources to actually flask the seeds (if any). Right now I am more interested in learning and improving my pollination methods.

But if anyone has some time on their hands and want to take a gamble with NOID seeds, let me know and I can send you the pods if they actually make it

Here's the entire plant for reference:



Another question:
If a NOID is self-pollinated and the offspring eventually blooms, is it eligible to be registered with the RHS even without the parentage history? or is it destined to be a NOID forever?
Just curious.

~John

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Another question:
If a NOID is self-pollinated and the offspring eventually blooms, is it eligible to be registered with the RHS even without the parentage history? or is it destined to be a NOID forever?
Just curious.

~John

It will remain a noid. I look forward to seeing how the pod turn out!

Cheers,
BD

[sadie]

It appears to be a pretty and "pregnant" noid -- congrats papa!

[mycologist]

In theory, the pollen from all the flowers should contain an equally random assortment of the chromosomes present in the parent. Each pollen grain has access to an equal number of incompatibility alleles during meiosis and the assortment is random. The carpels are all genetically identical except for the embryo sack itself, so the pollen tube should make it through the micropile with equal success if the flowers are all healthy. I guess pollinating multiple flowers is definitely worthwhile, but it should make no difference which flower the pollen comes from if it is from the same individual or a clone.

[wetfeet101b]

In theory, the pollen from all the flowers should contain an equally random assortment of the chromosomes present in the parent. Each pollen grain has access to an equal number of incompatibility alleles during meiosis and the assortment is random. The carpels are all genetically identical except for the embryo sack itself, so the pollen tube should make it through the micropile with equal success if the flowers are all healthy. I guess pollinating multiple flowers is definitely worthwhile, but it should make no difference which flower the pollen comes from if it is from the same individual or a clone.

The scary part is that I understood every single word of what mycologist said.
I still cant wash away the scent of "MIT Drop out"* from me even after all these years lol.

*Not Massachusetts... our Filipino friends will know that I mean

[Korxi]

Congratulations! It's looking promising, but remember that the plant can abort a maturing seed pod at almost any stage.. I was pollinating a lot last fall and got my hopes up many times but some pods just turned yellow and fell of - did get three to mature, and they are now being sown. As I'm writing now I have some home made medium in the pressure cooker

Have fun with your propagation! It's really worth it, especially if you love experimenting - and it just adds to the passion!

Christian

[Pete]

your capsules seem to be looking good!.. make sure to only use one of the 2, 4... etc pollinia that are in each anther cap.. there are usually spaces online where you can lookup greenpod maturity time for certain genera and species.. a dendro hybrid is probly around 3 monthes? as far as registering a no id offspring.. "no can" as we say here in hawaii.. you need to have both the parents to register a new cross.. otherwise there is no way for the RHS to know if it has been previously registered...

[wetfeet101b]

make sure to only use one of the 2, 4... etc pollinia that are in each anther cap

Uhm... that might be a problem lol. I used both pollinia in each flower. If this fails, I'll just have to try again hehehe.

[Pete]

it may not fail.. thats just how i was taught

[magooba]

hi wetfeet, I crossed my two noid phals almost two months ago. Most of the flowers appeared to have taken, then alas, they failed completely on one plant. Two flowers proceeded to devellop into pods. I am pretty delighted. I'm going to do the whole process of flasking, replating, compoting etc with the noid's te get a proper feel for it before I begin with the more expensive plants!! Good luck on your journey !! J