bleach or peroxide...

[margo]

mnoor, they are not going to break if you put something on the bottom. I used little kitchen towel. Good luck

[Gin]

I put mine in the pressure cooker , never had one break even if one did the lid is on tight and is not opened until the pressure is released .. Gin

[John D.]

If used correctly the pressure cooker is not a problem. The flasks should not touch the bottom, usually there is a rack of some type in the one designed for canning food. If yours is a small one designed for cooking use a towel as sugessted above. The water level in the canner should be almost equal to the level of the medium in the flasks, the flasks will almost float. This helps to ensure that as the temperature rises in the cooker it is equal inside the flasks as well so there is no problem. Be carefull not to release the pressure before the temp has lowered to just below boiling 212F or 100C (0 on the pressure gauge). If you do the pressure inside the flasks that are sealed will be higher than the outside and this is when the lids may pop off.

[mnoor]

margo, gin and John D, thk u so much for the info.

[monstera]

Hello,
I tried bleach and peroxide for the seeds and have better results with bleach. As you already said in this post, the pressure cooker works perfect if the jars are not touching the bottom and the lids are not totally closed.
Regards

[jeffrey6115]

I use a 10% bleach solution for flasking processes. I only use green pod to avoid having to sterilize seed. I use a fish tank with plastic to seal the open end for a glove box. My mother taught me to use a pressure cooker so I have little trouble there. The only time I had a jar break was when the lid was too tight going in.

[dudleyleroux]

Not to confuse the issue even further. I use Calcium hypochlorite (HTH) to sterilize my seeds and green pods. I find it works better for me than either h202 or sodium hypochlorite (bleach). My contamination of dry seed flasks is around 2% and I've never had a green pod contamination yet. I've flasked about 40 green pods.

[monstera]

Well, I preffer green pods, but I don't have them often, so I have to deal with dry seeds. Contaminations is not a problem for me, for me the hard thing is to get the right quantity of minuts I've to beach each specie (for dry seeds). For epiphytics is relatively easy, not so much for terrestrials.
I use comercial bleach as I have it really handy, even I know probably Calcium hypochlorite is better.
Nice for me to find a group to talk about flasking

[PhilsDC]

Orchid seeds culture...

Is it safe to plant an fully opened and matured pod?

Should we need to sterilize the orchid seeds (I know its already contaminated) through sodium hypochlorite (Clorox)?

I have already collected orchid seeds from Vanda luzonica (The flowers of this plant that I have collected from the seed pods have much larger blooms and it has wide flat flowers, more speckles on its petals and sepals, flower stalks and lip are dark purple, and very fragrant), and I have kept it in a tight paper for 5 months, would these seeds sprout or not? I'm trying if the seeds will grow because their parents are from the wild. I asked my friend if I can have the orchid seed pod then they gave it to me. The seed pods were already in color black, wet and broken and the seeds were not affected and I left it air dried in a sheet of paper and stored in cool dark place.

I'd like to hear some opinions from those experts in flasking orchid seeds that I can manage to sow seeds at lower costs, just homemade.

Does anybody knows any simple orchid media for flasking orchid seeds?

I heard from somebody that we can make any simple basic homemade orchid media mix (Agar (raw gelatin), alpha-Naphthalene Acetic Acid (ANAA), White Sugar and water or coconut water)?

Please help me, I am trying to sow a seed in an empty jar.

I'm hoping this plant will germinate...


Thanks,

DC