Phal Pod Opened! Yay!

[Manchua]

My Phal pod opened yesterday. It was 127 days old. Right on schedule. It is my first. I feel like handing out cigars.

I was beginning to wonder if the pod was a dud because it was very thin, not like the fat pods I've seen photos of in books. The green pod harvesting deadline came and went and I read somewhere that some pods do not turn yellow on one end before opening. Mine did not. I read that some pods just split with no warning. That's pretty much what mine did. Mine did fade slightly in color but I thought it was just an illusion. Now I realize it was fading in color. And of course, it split along the bottom, spilling seed all over the table, the floor, the orchid itself. Ugh. It could have been sitting like that for a day. Luckily, I still managed to salvage quite a bit of seed. I'm thinking about experimenting with the seed that I scooped up from the table because, after all, it's pretty dirty. I was thinking about seeing if it will grow on a piece of bark. I've heard of someone having marginal success with that. It's worth doing something with it. It sure beats trashing it.

I can't believe that the previous night, I had thought about tying a coffee filter around the pod in case it popped open. Luckily, I kind of suspected that might happen so I got a coffee filter and jar ready.

Now it's flasking service time. The guest speaker at the last orchid club meeting seemed very cynical about flasking services. He said that most of them will claim the seed is no good and then steal it for their own uses. Anyone else heard such stories about flasking services?

I took photographs of the pod throughout its life as well as once it opened. I'll post them as soon as possible.

[ATester]

In all of the photos for Phal pods I have seen, they are almost always slender (but in saying this, I have only seen five photos, so it is a broad generalization). Congratulations! , I am waiting for the last of my flasking stuff to show up before I get @$$ deep in this.

Good luck with the flasking!