# Trying my hand at sowing Bletilla



## Ryan Young (Nov 23, 2014)

This was the striata alba x soryu. I prepared flasks Friday night. And am ready to sow some seed, pod is 5 months old. 

- I'm trying modified greenpod my mentor told me (hydrogen peroxide in syringe straight into the pod and suck up seeds and peroxide) and shoot into flask jar. 

He normally waits for pod to split and does the peroxide in syringe + tween + seed and shakes it for 10 mins then into flask jar. 

Doing some experiment with different media mixes :

1) Half strength P668

2) Half strength P668 + coconut water and potato 

3) And just making a final batch of Half strength P668 + coconut water and potato + humic acid, gibberellic acid, triacontanol. 

Will monitor results. 

Sent from my oneplus one


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## NYEric (Nov 24, 2014)

Good luck. i'd take a flask/compot for sure.


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## John M (Nov 24, 2014)

Cool. I'll be watching your progress. Thanks for posting this.

BTW: Can you elaborate on this please;
_"He normally waits for pod to split and does the peroxide in syringe + tween + seed and shakes it for 10 mins then into flask jar."_

What is "tween"?


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## Ryan Young (Nov 24, 2014)

John M said:


> Cool. I'll be watching your progress. Thanks for posting this.
> 
> BTW: Can you elaborate on this please;
> _"He normally waits for pod to split and does the peroxide in syringe + tween + seed and shakes it for 10 mins then into flask jar."_
> ...



Hi John,

He normally does dry seed/ split pod.

Place a small amount of seed in syringe cylinder,
tip the plunger with a dab of tween (polysorbate 20) and push to close,
take assembled syringe and draw in a few cc's of hydrogen peroxide through needle tip, and the same amount of air,
shake vigorously for 10 mins, expel excess air until liquid drips out, 
insert into flask (through the cotton batting stuffed elastic tubing) and expel seeds and hydrogen peroxide mix onto agar media .


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## naoki (Nov 24, 2014)

John M said:


> What is "tween"?



Tween-20 is frequently used as soap (detergent, surfactant) in biology labs. I think Triton X-100 is not same, but it also has the similar functionality.

I don't think that it has any disinfecting capacity, so I'm guessing that regular dish soap might work as well for Ryan's application.


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## PaphMadMan (Nov 24, 2014)

Tween disrupts cell membranes rather thoroughly, and it is chemically and biologically stable probably still there and active weeks to months later. I'm surprised it doesn't have some deleterious effect on germinating orchid seed, but if your application is well tested and you measure carefully I assume it must be safe for the purpose. I wouldn't recommend substituting anything else without a careful trial run with expendable seed, and even then every brand and formulation of 'dish soap' could be different, and probably harsher than Tween. 

If I wanted a surfactant for this type of application I would lean toward using a true soap, salt of a fatty acid, rather than a detergent or non-ionic surfactant - and certainly the lowest level that was reliably effective.


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## polyantha (Nov 24, 2014)

Wow cool. I started sowing orchids with Bletilla striata on P6668 when I was 16 years old. The stuff was growing like weed. I mean really! The best species for a newbie, that's for sure. You can expect awesome germination results in no time.


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## Paphman910 (Nov 24, 2014)

Ryan Young said:


> This was the striata alba x soryu. I prepared flasks Friday night. And am ready to sow some seed, pod is 5 months old.
> 
> - I'm trying modified greenpod my mentor told me (hydrogen peroxide in syringe straight into the pod and suck up seeds and peroxide) and shoot into flask jar.
> 
> ...


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## John M (Nov 24, 2014)

Thanks everybody. So, the Tween is used as a wetting agent....makes sense. Is the peroxide the normal 3% that is available everywhere in pharmacies?

Another question, please. Since you're using peroxide to sterilize the seed surface (and I presume the flasks and contents are all prepped and sterilized too), why the Javex bottle in the photo?


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## Ryan Young (Nov 25, 2014)

Paphman910 said:


> Ryan Young said:
> 
> 
> > This was the striata alba x soryu. I prepared flasks Friday night. And am ready to sow some seed, pod is 5 months old.
> ...


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## Ryan Young (Nov 25, 2014)

John M said:


> Thanks everybody. So, the Tween is used as a wetting agent....makes sense. Is the peroxide the normal 3% that is available everywhere in pharmacies?
> 
> Another question, please. Since you're using peroxide to sterilize the seed surface (and I presume the flasks and contents are all prepped and sterilized too), why the Javex bottle in the photo?


Hi yes it's the 3% solution. I was cleaning some surfaces and experimentally spot cleaning a contaminated flask.


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## John M (Nov 25, 2014)

Thanks Ryan!


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## Ryan Young (Nov 25, 2014)

polyantha said:


> Wow cool. I started sowing orchids with Bletilla striata on P6668 when I was 16 years old. The stuff was growing like weed. I mean really! The best species for a newbie, that's for sure. You can expect awesome germination results in no time.


That's why I wanted to start on an easy seed pod first and get my feet wet. 

I also spread a very generous amount of seed in a take out tray fill with ground coir over a layer of Orchid bark and wetter well and put the lid on, (non sterilized) and now we wait..


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## John M (Nov 25, 2014)

Ryan, what guage needle do you use? 'Must be pretty big, not like those very thin ones used for insulin injections. Where can I get the right sized syringe? Thanks.


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## Ryan Young (Nov 26, 2014)

John M said:


> Ryan, what guage needle do you use? 'Must be pretty big, not like those very thin ones used for insulin injections. Where can I get the right sized syringe? Thanks.


Hi John i believe it is #18 needle, I'm not sure about sourcing them, eBay may have it, my girlfriend works at a chem lab and got me one.


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## John M (Nov 26, 2014)

Okay. Thanks Ryan. Maybe I can get one from my Dr., or my Vet.


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## cnycharles (Nov 27, 2014)

When I was in Virginia I was able to get pet/farm animal meds and syringes at local farm supply store (rural area)


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## Trithor (Nov 27, 2014)

This is very interesting. I have never considered injecting liquid into an intact pod and then aspirating seed and the liquid.
I have preferred dried seed as it gives me the flexibility of attending to flasking when I have free time as well as multiple chances should I not succeed the first time.

John, I posted a flasking method some months ago that would work in the most basic of environments. I personally prefer chlorine as the sterilizing agent as it has a dual function, sterilizing as well as bleaching at the same time.


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## John M (Nov 27, 2014)

Good idea, Charles. Thanks.

Thanks Gary. I'll go back and read your thread too. Why do you care about bleaching the seeds?


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## Trithor (Nov 28, 2014)

Not really a problem with all genera, but some paphs seem to refuse to germinate if you don't bleach them. I assume it has something to do with seed coat/testa permeability. Added to that, bleach gives great results and is universally available.


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## John M (Nov 28, 2014)

Okay. Thanks for the info.


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## Bjorn (Nov 28, 2014)

Having a background in chemistry, this topic attracts me immensly; But so far I have decided not to enter into the seed sowing business. Primarily because I have nowhere to dispose a potentially sucessful propagation. The market for these things here is next to nothing and since Norway is not a member of EU, well everything getys difficult and expensive.
Nevertheless, use of chlorine (guess you use Chlorox-type Gary) probably breaks down some of the compounds that inhibit germination. Xavier have written about those in his treatise on propagation, see the second link below.
http://eurobodalla.org.au/fileadmin...012/Paphiopedilum_culture_and_propagation.pdf
http://eurobodalla.org.au/fileadmin...012/In-Vitro_Cultivation_of_Paphiopedilum.pdf
http://eurobodalla.org.au/fileadmin...d/Perth_2012/Orchid_growing_substrates_01.pdf
Here Xavier suggest to use liquidnutrient solution for the germination and to remove the inhibitor by changing solution when it gets tainted. The danger with chlorine is of course that you overdo it and kill it, but perhaps a combination of a mild chlorine treatment together with Xaviers method could yield some interesting results for difficult species? 
Just a suggestion.
B


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## Ryan Young (Nov 28, 2014)

One of the chemicals I'm trying on 1/3 of the flasks (GA3) is also seed germination inducer so far these seeds look the most progressively swollen in the few days they are growing.


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## NYEric (Nov 28, 2014)

Bjorn said:


> But so far I have decided not to enter into the seed sowing business. Primarily because I have nowhere to dispose a potentially sucessful propagation. The market for these things here is next to nothing and since Norway is not a member of EU, well everything gets difficult and expensive.
> B



You're kidding, right? If you can get seeds/flasks from your Paphs I will tell you how to get them to me easily. 



NYEric said:


> Good luck. i'd take a flask/compot for sure.


Still the most relevant response to Ryan's initial post.


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## Bjorn (Nov 28, 2014)

Eric, perhaps I should start to make seeds then? Any particular you have in mind? What would you do with it?
B


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## NYEric (Nov 28, 2014)

Hmmmm, x album sounds like a good place to start!! Our friend PaphMania is selling flasklets of 5 plants for $150!


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## Bjorn (Nov 30, 2014)

Helenae, right? Well that train went earlier this fall, but the plants look vigourous so next year......of course formosa and micranthum should be interesting as well, but that takes some years. The micranthums, eh, the four left seem to enjoy life, but not growing too vigourously so I have almost given up flowers this winter. The formosa, welll just two of them look great, but they sem to have stalled growt after potting.
So helenae should be the choice right? Adiitional to the various varieties of vietnamense, that big one carries seeds. A remarkable plant by the way, throws three shoots now but I expect that only two of them will make it. But it is pregnant now, so in eight months time we will have seeds of it.


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## Ryan Young (May 31, 2015)

A quick update, the coconut & potatoes addition faired the best, the added chemicals batch made stringy thin grows, and the plain media aren't as vigorous as the coconut ones. (coconut potato mix in p668 media pictured). The could probably be replated but I don't have a clean box to do the replate. So I might just transfer to a seedling tray with a cover.





Some of the flasks ended up contaminated so I cleaned and moved the seedlings to a small container that I spread some seed unsterilized in, they are still growing as well.


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## Ryan Young (May 31, 2015)

NYEric said:


> You're kidding, right? If you can get seeds/flasks from your Paphs I will tell you how to get them to me easily.
> 
> 
> Still the most relevant response to Ryan's initial post.


I wanted to make sure I have some success before promising anything! There should be some available down the road sometime, I want to make sure they are travel size ready.


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## KyushuCalanthe (May 31, 2015)

Looks like success to me. Can you downsize your photo though...


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## Ryan Young (May 31, 2015)

KyushuCalanthe said:


> Looks like success to me. Can you downsize your photo though...


Oops, fixed keep forgetting on mobile everything scales down to fit nicely, no matter what size.


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