How long to germination?

[grubea]

Hi I'm new here, this my first post! I had my first successful flasking with no contamination about two weeks ago. They are some bulbo.'s and stanhopeas. How long does it take to tell if the seeds have germinated or not. They sometimes look like they may be getting larger but that could also be my over active imagination. Also how long before I have to replate them provided they do germinate?

[muddhb]

From my experience, orchid seeds do not germinate like your typical seed, instead the start getting larger very slowly and turn green. Eventually when they are big enough to handle with forescepts or a very small spatula, you will see the beginnings of the first leaves. They will look like little points, and it will still be a long time until you see the first real roots developing. Personally I have lost some flasks from waiting too long to replate, so I have been replating when I start to see those first leaves start to grow.

Of coarse, I have not been growing many different species so your results may vary. You could always replate some and wait a while longer to replate the rest and see if it makes a difference.

Keep us up to date.

Ryan

[grubea]

Thanks for the info. I got to this point and really didn't know where to go next.

[ccdisce]

I use a media that does not have any agar or charcoal as my germinating media to which I add 1 cc of fungicide.
From what I have seen Cats and Phalenopsis seem to germinate quickly . After about 2 weeks little green dots can be seen becoming protocorms around 1/10 in dia in about 6 weeks. I usually replate at this stage into a media that has charcoal and agar.
Phaius is proving to be difficult for me to germinate tho tried it around 3 times in different media.... no luck.

[muddhb]

So is that a liquid media then...? I am still new at this and have not tried any media without agar.

[ccdisce]

Its Phytotechlab's P793 orchid multiplication medium. The powder disolves easily to form a pale yellow liquid. A NOID Phalenopsis and Cattleya guatemalensis germinated quickly, Phaius has problems. I am going to try it at 1/2 strength next for the Phaius tankervilliae seed I just harvested.
winston.

[muddhb]

Do you keep the flasks on a stirrer or do you leave them standing? And, how do you remove the protocorms from the liquid, pipette?

Thanks
Ryan

[ccdisce]

No stirers or spin bars available here to get O2 to the bottom of the bottles/flasks. They are in baby-food like bottles with plastic tops taped off with Parafilm. Every few days I pick them up and gently swish them around. I do not have a pipette to pick them up, I use a corm scoop when time comes for replating. The scoop looks like a heavy duty wire loop, some versions have a solid bottom that looks like a minature scoop.
winston.