Breeding Catts: A Photo Journey
Reply With QuoteOn the second attempt, the pollinated flowers on both plants lost their fragrance within 12 hours. This was a good sign, since why should they attract pollinators if they'd been pollinated?
Within a few days both flowers began to fade. Both flowers faded together on the gask, but the pollinated one continued to have a healthy green stem, as you can see in the first pic. This is where the seed pod will form. (The stem on the left).
It's now 29 days post sex and seed pods are evident on both plants. The first pic is MR, and is more pronounced. I'm impressed she's still blooming - the first flowers opened on 3/1! The second pic is the gask's seed pod. Less pronounced, but still obvious.
There are two methods for harvesting seeds: green pod and dry seed. Green pod means the seeds are flasked from the seed pod before it fully matures and splits open (as it would in nature.) A huge advantage to this method is that the pod needs to be sterilized before it's opened, but that the seeds inside are still sterile.
Dry pod means the pod has matured and split on its own. Now everything inside must be sterilized (big pain!) Plus studies show that germination success is much higher with seeds still in the green pod stage.
Green pod is the route I'll go. Here are some estimated times for seed pod development you might find interesting:
http://www.orchidworks.com/ozone/greenpod.htm
Oh yes - Aaron (aka ATester) is the designated flasker for this project! Aaron, brush up on you Catt skills! I figure we'll be ready in Sept. I can get you use of a hood at Dartmouth, if you really want to play!
Stay tuned, Catt fans!
Julie
