First attempt at flasking

[LJA]

I tried doing it, years ago, when a Cattleya became anonymously pollinated. I mixed up some crazy concoction involving bananas, Knox Unflavored Gelatin, and some other stuff, boiled it, and poured it into jars to cool. After washing the seed pod in bleach water, I broke it open and scattered the stuff into the jars before sealing them.

In about a week, I ended up with a royal, stinking mess. I never got around to trying again.

Anyone else ever try?

Anyone ever succeed without a vent hood or glove box?

[Jmoney]

I was briefly interested in flasking years back. I read that, in a pinch, one could boil water over the stove and attempt some flasking in that semi-sterile (but hard to control) environment. I used a laminar flow hood once to flask a paph pod (Toni Semple x roths), and got protocorms, but I think I replated them too late and none of them grew. Since then I've been too busy and lazy to flask...

[LJA]

Has no one else really tried this? LOL! It's a great way to make a big old mess in the kitchen!

Seriously though, I'd be interested to hear what kinds of "home made" agar mixes worked for people, if anyone on here has done any flasking.

[Heather]

Don't you have a university in Clarksville? The physics lab should have a hood. Maybe you can borrow it or rent it for an afternoon or something?
Just a thought. Obviously I have no clue about this, but I knew some physicists in college who were always smoking under the vent hoods in the lab!

[Jmoney]

The million dollar question is what they were smoking in the lab...

[LJA]

The physics lab should have a hood...

They do; the Chem labs do too, but nothing that filters the incoming air. I wonder what Sue and the other Evil Geniuses are using, or what happened when they first started

The million dollar question is what they were smoking in the lab...

:lemmetell

Oregano?

[Heather]

I'm sure not telling!

[Sue]

I'm sorry I haven't gotten in a reply on this yet. I will do so tomorrow. Possibly with pictures. Ummm . . . with relevant pictures, that is.

Been busy cleaning all day. We're having people over tonight to watch Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and eat cookie-dough egg rolls.

[Heather]

LOL! That sounds like an interesting evening, Sue!

[Sue]

So, last night went well. We had a good time, and I managed to give away 3 Ludisia discolor!

BTW, if anybody wants one, let me know. Mine got too big (11 spikes this winter), so I cut it into about 15-20 pieces. Free to anybody who shows up in St. Louis. Oh! – that reminds me! I should invite you all to my bacchanalia next week! I'll start a thread about that in the General Discussion area.

My first attempt at flasking was not long ago. I made a glove box, and flasked using Knudsen C medium with agar and charcoal added. Nothing took, except molds. I think I know what I need to do with the pressure cooker to keep it sterile next time, and I think we overbleached the seed.

Sometime soon, hopefully next week, I'll be doing a second round. I'll try to take pictures, and hopefully will put together a little pictorial. I'm hoping Alex will be putting something together for this site as well – I know he's giving a presentation on home flasking soon.