Saturday, July 6, 2013

Orchid Flask Review

Last week, fellow South African orchid blogger David Vaughan, who blogs at http://phalaenopsisspot.blogspot.com, offered to send me a flask of Dendrobium crystallinum to review. I did point out that I was quite inexperienced at deflasking, but he still insisted it was a good idea... Never one to say no to plants, I quickly agreed. David enjoys growing orchids from seed, a topic I am intrigued by, but have never gone through the effort of doing, due to the difficulties of creating the sterile growing conditions and meeting the other requirements (like space...!) for successful in vitro germination and propagation of orchids.

If you're not particularly familiar with the topic, orchid seeds are mostly almost microscopic and dust-like, with little if any "food" in them (compared to the larger seeds of other plants, which have the embryo and a parcel of "food" to give it a head start in life). Orchids take a slightly different strategy - they make millions, even billions of tiny seeds that are little more than embryos without any "food" stored away. So in nature, they have to be really lucky to grow up. What happens with most orchids is a few of the seeds happen to settle somewhere where the right kind of fungus (called an "orchid mycorrhiza") just happens to be growing, and the orchid baby then basically germinates and then steals nutrients from the fungus, which is where it gets the energy to grow big enough to start producing its own sugars from photosynthesis; in some cases the orchid may ultimately give something back to the fungi, but I believe most orchids are quite "selfish" in this relationship, and many seem to keep leaning on the fungus throughout life to supplement their food supply; a few orchids don't photosynthesize at all (so-called "achlorophyllous" orchids) and get all their nutrients from fungi [many plants have fungal partners (mycorrhizae), which they give sugars in return for micronutrients and water; some plants "root systems" end up being mostly fungi; many garden plants will benefit from such fungi and you can buy cultures of them]. Interestingly, the kinds of fungi orchids "team up" with are often pathogenic (cause disease) in other plants. Really young orchid "seedlings" are made up of strange "lumps" of cells called "protocorms" - they look quite unlike any seedling you've ever seen. A little later in their development, the "protocorms" differentiate and produce roots and shoots.

Obviously, growing orchids this way (using fungi) is mostly really hit or miss, so several decades ago, people came up with the idea of giving the orchid embryos everything they need to develop in a sterile "petri dish" (known as a "flask"). Of course, if you put something in a rich nutrient broth, other things are also going to take advantage (bacteria and fungi) so you have to ensure not a single one makes it into the flask with the orchid - which is perhaps the hardest part of the process (of course, getting the growth media right is an art and science in itself...).

Anyway, after that little diversion about orchid seeds, germination and fungi, on to the flask itself!

Review
I asked David to randomly select one of the flasks he'd prepared to send to me. As David asked me to independently "review" the flask, I'll split this up into a couple of sub-sections.

Packing/packaging
The flask was very well packed, nestled in bubble wrap and packing "peanuts" and arrived the day after he sent it. Once unpacked, the flask was nicely labelled with a picture of the flower of the adult plant, along with the name, and on the back, useful unflasking instructions and of course records of when the plants had sown and been put (replated) into the current flask on the lid. The lid is also well sealed with tape, which should help prevent too much inadvertent contamination, or horror-of-horrors the flask opening in transit. Perhaps it's no coincidence that as someone who cares for living things as a profession (when not mucking about with orchids, he's an aquarist specialising in fish health) David is evidently well versed in how to pack living things for travel!

I took a couple of quick shots when I unpacked on Friday (28 June) last week:
Well packed!
Under the "peanuts" was a nifty construction of bubblewrap
that suspended the flask in transit
Helpful labelling.
Name of plant and picture of flower of this species, Dendrobium crystallinum.
Why, postman, why?
Of course, the post office completely ignored the "this way up at all times" stickers, and the box was handed over to me on its side. I suspect the flask spent some of its journey in the wrong orientation, as the "plug" of medium in which the seedlings are growing was lying at about 45 degrees across the container (it still is as I haven't really had the heart to slam the flask hard enough to dislodge it back into place). The plants seemed unscathed, and the agar wasn't too shaken up. Of course, there is little the sender can do to prevent this sort of thing in transit; I've seen parcels make it through the South African post and even deliveries by courier companies looking like a herd of elephants has used the packaging as a trampoline, so this was relatively pristine! Pictures below are immediately after unpacking.

Dislodged plants and medium - not too bad!
Dislodged plants and medium, other side
Impressions
I've had the flask in my possession for a week now, and everything still looks great; the flask has been sitting on a seed germination/propagation "heat mat"/germinator (supposedly should keep them at 19) as it is midwinter here, and David suggested they'd prefer being kept more around 18 degrees or above than suffering through the 10 degrees or so the balcony is currently experiencing at night.

The seedlings all look very healthy to me; they seem large enough to make it through the "deflasking" process, and the leaves and roots seem well formed. They'll still be happy in the medium for a little while; I'd like to only deflask when I get to try out a product (AgriSil) I cover below under "tips".

Some shots from today (Saturday 6 July):
Good roots.
Strong, healthy shoots
Healthy baby orchids
It is quite hard to take good macros through slightly cloudy plastic which is all fogged up!

A few of the plants around the edges were looking a little "ragged" - this is either from transport damage or from where they ended up sitting in a "puddle" of water - I've since tipped the flask at an angle to stop this from happening; the damage is quite minor however - and no fault of David's. 

Some tips from David
I discussed the difficulties I'd had with deflasking, most notably with fungi, and David recommended trying a supplement rich in silica to help "harden off" the fragile seedlings; this is a fairly unusual supplement that doesn't seem to have yet made its way into the general gardening realm in South Africa, so is only really availble from agricultural suppliers, who tend to sell it in large volumes. It's not particularly expensive, but the courier costs I was quoted for delivery were outrageous (in the region of 5 times the cost of 5 litres of the product), so I have yet to acquire any. The supplement is called AgriSil K50, manufactured by Plant Health Products, and distributed in South Africa by Madumbi. They also do some very interesting looking "bioweapons" for plant health! The product he mentioned, AgriSil, is basically a solution of Potassium Silicate. Plants use silica to build stronger cell walls - essentially out of glass - and that helps keep out invaders like bacteria and fungi. The dose he recommends is 2.5ml of AgriSil per litre of water adjusted down to pH 6.5 (AgriSil starts at pH 11!); the rinsed seedlings (roots only) are then soaked in this for 12 hours before being potted up in a community pot ("compot").

I'm quite keen to try out this approach, as it makes sense to me. Armour coating an orchid in glass from the inside? I'm in! 

He also noted he'd experienced more success deflasking into (small!) bark chips than any other medium, as he'd also found media that retain a lot of water (like sphagnum) tend to encourage problems with fungi and bacteria. My previous deflasking trials lead to the complete loss of all the cattleyas in pure moss, and I only got 4 out of the one which was mixed moss/bark (bacteria and fungi). Later on some scale moved in and started wreaking some havoc...It's possible I also was too cautious in maintaining high humidity for too long - I left the propagator lids on the plants for many weeks; typical "hardening off" times are apparently more like a fortnight.

David currently has flasks of Dendrobium crystallinum available for sale (presumably only within South Africa due to shipping complications with orchids across international borders), with several other species and hybrids close to being ready. He keeps a list of what is available on his blog at http://phalaenopsisspot.blogspot.com/p/the-availability-list.html. Each flask is about R175 plus postage, and contains roughly 30 plants. It will probably take several years before you see your baby orchid flower, but it's quite rewarding, and if you want lots of one plant (or maybe some spares to share/sell) it's a good way of getting plants, and often a great way of getting unusual plants.Given the sample of this species I've received, I can't say I have any hesitation whatsoever in saying that if he has something you're interested in acquiring, you should get hold of him! It's also often quite interested to raise a bunch of the "same" plant up and notice how much variation there can be in a species or especially a single hybrid cross, particularly in the flowers.

If you'd like to follow these seeds from their "birth", check out these two posts from his blog:
http://phalaenopsisspot.blogspot.com/2013/04/dendrobium-crystallinum-babies.html
http://phalaenopsisspot.blogspot.com/2013/05/may-babies.html

Deflasking seedlings is an interesting additional "angle" to growing orchids; it's not quite as easy as growing many "normal" plants from seed, but most of the hard work is out of the way when you get a flask of seedlings that are ready to be de-flasked and potted up. Give it a go!

Friday, June 28, 2013

Orchids on a Balcony featured on Orchids Made Easy

The team that runs the website Orchids Made Easy featured my blog on a guest post at their website today, complete with an interview (and, shock horror, a picture of me from our wedding taken by Adrian Frost) of yours truly. Have a look at here to see the full article. Orchids Made Easy offers a newsletter with regular tips, as well as selling an orchid care (in print and/or electronic format) book.

Orchids on a Balcony featured at Orchids Made Easy
Any new visitors from Orchids Made Easy, welcome to Orchids on a Balcony, I hope you'll find some interesting reading here, and don't hesitate to ask questions in the comments below the posts!
 
Several other fairly prominent orchid blogs have been recently featured there, including:

Brooklyn Orchids
Florida Native Orchids
Backbulb Blog
Maria’s Orchids
and now us!

Click on the links above to read more about them at Orchids Made Easy. You'll also find more interesting Orchid-related reading in the sidebar at the right - the top has a list of (mostly) orchid-related blogs I think are well worth following; it lists them based on the most recent post made by that blog. 

Thursday, June 13, 2013

EPOS Annual May Display - and the Misadventures of Orchid Photography

We managed to get to Port Elizabeth after all on the last weekend in May, when our "local" orchid society, EPOS, was having its Annual Display (see previous post). Sadly, although we had a few things in bloom (some paphiopedilums, a dendrobium and some cymbidiums), none of the OOAB menagerie made it down to be on display (they need to be dropped off during the week, and Port Elizabeth is a not inconsiderable distance away from OOAB HQ, about a 280km round trip; this doesn't mesh well with having a day job!).

Christo did a great job of displaying the plants members had brought in. There was a very tempting section of plant sales too, but we (somehow...) managed to resist the temptation, although a Paphiopedilum insigne very nearly persuaded us (it looks like Senior Management might have a weak spot for paphs, possibly because we can get them to bloom reliably and they aren't massive plants. Also, they're Paphs, and you can't argue with that).

Talking of Senior Management, she's decided the Big Camera is kind of fun to use, so the pictures below may be taken by either of us; pictures with an fine artistic sensibility are likely hers, or art directed by her, pictures that are of single flowers, boringly framed, are likely mine. It is great to have a partner that's also interested in photography (as Ron at Orchids in Bloom will attest); it makes hanging about taking endless photographs of things less awkward, and it's nice to have someone to share the results with too!

When pulling some camera gear out of my bag, someone asked me if I was "from the Newspaper" - I guess that's one of the perils of carting around a large DSLR with a big flash and fairly large looking lenses!

So, on to some photographs! As a "display" rather than a "show", there was no judging, and all the plants were integrated into displays.

First, some general pictures of the display (this doesn't capture everything on display - there were tons of plants in there!):








Yours Truly cunningly times blink to coincide with flash firing
The lighting was a bit tricky; a mix of natural sunlight and fluorescent and quite dim. Small apertures, dim lighting and no tripod are not a great recipe for photographic success... I'm also not a huge fan of flash photography of large areas, nor high ISO settings, which generally compounds the challenge.

Next, we had some fun getting a little more up close and personal with the plants (being mindful not to damage anything with dangling camera straps, wayward toes, bags and flash cords etc). Not all the orchids are named as I couldn't always see or easily reach a label and I didn't want to unduly disturb all Christo's hard work or risk damaging anything; and of course some plants are inevitably NOIDs! I have also not looked any of them up to check if their names have changed in the Taxonomy Wars, so some of the names might not be up-to-the-minute.

Senior Management was quite taken with a little Phalaenopsis equestris tucked in next to masses of Laelia anceps:
Senior Management with Gryffindor-themed scarf
(her most recently completed crochet project),
Laelia anceps, Phal. equestris and a mini-catt
Senior Management gets dangerously close to a flock of wild Paphs. 
Senior Management notes that mini-catts
are better than big catts.
 I happen to agree.
This is what happens when you accidentally put the camera into timer mode and hand it to a neophyte photographer:
Underexposed Rock
Blurry Leaf
Almost an Orchid
"Why is this camera so slow and hard to use?" quoth Senior Management. That said, this would have happened to me too if I was taking handheld macros with the timer turned on... Indeed, it's entirely possible one or more of those happened to me, because I distinctly remember going "hmm" and working it out quite fast after getting the camera back from a somewhat miffed Senior Management. After The Timer Incident, things went better... As always, feel free to click on an image to see a much bigger version of it (orchids usually repay a view of a larger version of the picture!).
A Dendrobium [I think...] (no label) 
The so-distinctive-I-don't-need-a-label
Prosthechea cochleata
Psychopsis papilio
Psychopsis papilio, detail
Zygopetalum Violetta von Holm
Zygopetalum Violetta van Holm
Phalaenopsis (probably manii)
Quite different from the hybrids most people are used to seeing in shops everywhere!
Phalaenopsis equestris
a charming miniature species
Vanda tricolor 'suavis' x Vanda coerulea
detail of lip
Vanda tricolor 'suavis' x Vanda coerulea"get the whole flower in", says Senior Management
Vanda tricolor 'suavis' x Vanda coerulea"No, the other way around" 
Vanda tricolor 'suavis' x Vanda coerulea"Can't you get the background less dark"? 
Vanda tricolor 'suavis' x Vanda coerulea"He looks really cool from the back!" 
If you look carefully at the stem above, you'll see it's twisted, showing that this is a resupinate flower, like many orchids. Resupinate flowers twist through 180º as they develop; in effect, the orchid flowers you're used to mostly grow "upside down" (if the lip is at the bottom, it's resupinate). If you think that's crazy, gastropod mollusks (snails) undergo torsion which is (to me) even crazier.

Oncidium alliance
Odcdm. Tiger Crow 'Golden Girl'
Odcdm. Tiger Crow 'Golden Girl
"Get the detail in the flower"
Odcdm. Tiger Crow 'Golden Girl'
"No, from the side".
Odcdm. Tiger Crow 'Golden Girl'
"And stop taking a picture of just one flower". 
? some kind of Cattleya alliance? quite small. 
Coelogyne fimbriata Thanks Silje!
I posted a thread about this plant on OrchidBoard requesting an ID
Coelogyne fimbriata, zoomed out a bit. 
Phragmipedium (not sure which one, couldn't find a label)
Pretty sure it's got some besseae in there!
I suspect this is the same flower pictured in the flyer for the Display!
?Oncidium alliance? 
Unknown vinicolor Paph. 
Paphiopedilums
probably Paphiopedilum spicerianum (rear two) and insigne (front)
Not sure now if this is a parvisepalum Paphiopedilum or a Phragmipedium!
Dendrobium ???
Masdevallia Mary Stahl
Paphiopedilum supardii x Paph. Alma Gavaert
Cattleya alliance of some kind
Very shiny!
Slc. Tangerine Jewel 'Southern Cross' x Bright Angel
Mini-catts are perfect for very bright windowsills!
Ett. (Eplc.) Volcano Trick 'Orange Fire'
Ett. (Eplc.) Volcano Trick 'Orange Fire'
Lc Mari's [< not 100% sure of this, label hard to read] Song 'CTM217' x Sc Beaufort  'Luna Rousse' 4N
Pot. Little Toshie 'Golden Fantasy'
(Blc Toshie Aoki x Sc Beaufort)
Gigantic Cymbidium dominating the center of the display area
Detail of Cymbidium spike. 
We hope you've enjoyed this brief visit (or re-visit if you made it to the display that day!) of the EPOS May Display 2013; I'm sure most of my readers are from even further away than I am, so I doubt many of you will have seen these first hand!