# Green Maudiae type again -- growing from flask



## hardy (Sep 27, 2010)

It's the green Maudiae-type again, a big big weakness of mine  I'll share their progress in this new thread.

These two flasks arrived few days ago through mail-order from Ching Hua, looking good.






First, I soaked the seedlings in diluted fertilizer and Liquinox B1 Start.





Separated and washed clean.





Compotted in sphagnum.





The smallest of the lot.




I mark the same clones with numbers 

From the other flask:




It seems Ching Hua always puts 27 seedlings for the final replate! Spot on! :rollhappy:










Same as last time, I'm putting them in a fish tank, covered with cling wrap except for a small opening at the corner:





The lamp I am using:




I use the same lamp type as shown in this packaging (6500K compact fluorescent), but in the two-pronged 13-W model.





I am toying with the idea of carbon dioxide fertilization. Maybe a yeast culture in a small soda bottle put in the tank will work wonders? Anybody tried that before?

I will update how they're doing!


----------



## nikv (Sep 27, 2010)

Good luck! I have a particular weakness for green Maudiae types, too!


----------



## biothanasis (Sep 27, 2010)

Hardy, as you grow your paphs in sphagnum, do you keep them always wet, or you let the moss dry out a bit? TY


----------



## SlipperKing (Sep 27, 2010)

Most interesting...update often please.


----------



## Paphman910 (Sep 27, 2010)

Beautiful Seedlings! Hopefully you give them a bit of air circulation with a small computer fan.

Paphman910


----------



## Darin (Sep 27, 2010)

Thanks for the pictorial of your process. Those look great.


----------



## etex (Sep 27, 2010)

Ching Hua sent you 2 really nice flasks. The seedlings look great!! Thanks for showing us your set up!


----------



## SlipperFan (Sep 27, 2010)

They look very healthy -- you'll do well.


----------



## Justin (Sep 27, 2010)

huge flasklings! i agree you should add air ventilation.


----------



## KyushuCalanthe (Sep 27, 2010)

Nice, fat seedlings! Good luck with them.


----------



## NYEric (Sep 27, 2010)

THey look great. Good luck!


----------



## paphioboy (Sep 27, 2010)

Wow.. are you planning on starting a Maudiae cut flower farm soon..?  Great job...


----------



## JeanLux (Sep 28, 2010)

Interesting pics and good job so far  !!!! Jean


----------



## hardy (Sep 28, 2010)

Thank you all!

Maudiae cut flower farm... :drool::drool: Sounds good hehe 


To Biothanasis:

I water the moss until it's quite wet (about halfway to saturation), and then wait until it gets quite dry, i.e. just moist, until I water again. 
I find it OK for certain types of paphs but not so for others. Maudiae will do fine.


----------



## goldenrose (Sep 28, 2010)

Fantastic looking flasklings!!! They're in capable hands!


Paphman910 said:


> Beautiful Seedlings! Hopefully you give them a bit of air circulation with a small computer fan.
> Paphman910





Justin said:


> huge flasklings! i agree you should add air ventilation.


I'm in agreement, it helps to harden them off. Here's what's been working for me, there's a little 5" fan sitting about 2 ft away. I use the egg crate to allow circulation under the pots as well & keep water on the bottom for additional humidity.


----------



## Shiva (Sep 28, 2010)

Seems to me you're doing fine Hardy. Are you new to growing orchids ?


----------



## hardy (Sep 29, 2010)

Thank you for the suggestions about air circulation. Actually even though they 
are large seedlings, some are etiolated and the leaves somewhat thin, some 
even with transparent spots or pitting on them. That's why I'm giving them 
extra high humidity for the first few weeks. I'll see how they go from here. 

Rose, may I ask what media are you using for the compots and seedlings? Do 
you water them often? Bark and coconut husk chips are available here but I 
haven't tried either of them.

Hi Shiva, I've been growing orchids for several years now, but still quite new to 
growing paph from flask. :rollhappy:


----------



## goldenrose (Sep 29, 2010)

hardy said:


> ......Rose, may I ask what media are you using for the compots and seedlings? Do you water them often? Bark and coconut husk chips are available here but I
> haven't tried either of them.


Hi Hardy -
I use a fine seedling bark mix, it has a little perlite, charcoal & moss.
I water every 2-3 days. The aquarium is in a north window, I do supplement lighting, about 12-13 hours a day.


----------



## emydura (Sep 29, 2010)

> I am toying with the idea of carbon dioxide fertilization. Maybe a yeast culture in a small soda bottle put in the tank will work wonders? Anybody tried that before?
> 
> I will update how they're doing!



Nice setup Hardy. I use to use the yeast setup for acquatic plants.. It worked incredibly well. The plants would grow an inch or two every day. Each week I would have to prune a lot of the plants as they outgrew the tank.

David


----------



## paphioboy (Sep 30, 2010)

Carbon dioxide fertilization..? How does that work..? I mean what's the rationale? Aren't plants efficient enough at absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere without the need for an external source?


----------



## hardy (Sep 30, 2010)

Thank you for your info Rose, I should try granular mix for my seedlings next time. 

Most plants will benefit from added CO2, since their photosynthesis is CO2-limited. But up to a level, because too high CO2 concentration can do more harm than good. There's a paper reporting that cymbidium seedlings can take ultra-high CO2 concentration quite well. I'm not sure about paph?

Thanks David for your info. I made one for my fish tank too, long time ago  Perhaps I should just give it a try, with a small soda bottle, when the plants have hardened off a bit.


----------



## hardy (Oct 23, 2010)

There's been a lot going on but I was too lazy to update 



hardy said:


> ...Actually even though they are large seedlings, some are etiolated and the leaves somewhat thin, some even with transparent spots or pitting on them. That's why I'm giving them extra high humidity for the first few weeks. I'll see how they go from here....



I mentioned that some leaves had pitting and transparent spots when I 
deflasked. Well, this occurred in one of the flasks with heavy sukhakulii 
parentage (37.5%), and just a couple days later, I saw these coalescing into 
small water-soaked craters, and spread quite fast into healthy tissue, so I 
had to slice off numerous leaf tips with scalpel.







In the past I never had to use fungicides for my flaskling, but I had no 
choice this time. I sprayed them with Benlate/Mancozeb mixture at 1g+3g/L, 
and a little into the medium too.






By doing so I've wetted the moss too much. I placed the pots over tissue 
and some newspapers overnight to blot the excess moisture.






As the leaves dried overnight, I removed the cling wrap cover.






I guess the light was too much for the afflicted plants so I reduced it by 
putting a couple translucent folders on the glass pane.






Despite the ugly blotches of residue the fungicide controlled the spread of 
disease quickly. Over the next two weeks, I slowly increased air opening 
from the small corner opening to quite a large gap, this is how they look now, 
so far so good and I haven't lost a single plant yet.






Most of the cuts have healed nicely like this.






But some continue to spread albeit slowly. Here's one with recurring disease, 
and one with new disease developing.






New touble brewing; the one circled is a rot on lower leaf that has stopped and dried nicely.






I guess I'll have to recut and repeat the spray these few days. I plan to use 
propiconazole this time. Good thing I always keep all sorts of fungicides 
handy (for my roses), I have five different types of them!  The plants from 
the other flask was very healthy, and it was mostly from regular 
lawrenceanum/callosum parentage. Some have begun nice growth.









From my limited past experience with the maudiaes, I found them to be very 
forgiving of stagnant conditions but I guess I have to be more careful next 
time. I guess the rot found chance to spread, because one flask already had 
trouble brewing in it. Or, perhaps the sukhakulii parentage might be a factor 
too? (Maybe it hates stagnant condition? Someone can shed light on this?)

CO2 is out of the question now, I'll definitely try it but not until they make 
some strong growth. I'll sanitize/leach/fertilize in a few days and I'll post again about it. ^^


----------



## SlipperKing (Oct 23, 2010)

Your leaf tip spotting/rot occurs in the greenhouse too. Which is not stagnant.


----------



## hardy (Oct 23, 2010)

SlipperKing said:


> Your leaf tip spotting/rot occurs in the greenhouse too. Which is not stagnant.



Uh oh, I just thought of calcium deficiency problems. Some plants (letuce, lilies etc) experience dieback from the leaf tips when the air is too stagnant and transpiration is low. In such condition calcium cannot be transported properly and the extremities suffer first. I wonder if it might be this? 

A way to tell if its infection or physiological disease is to perform some simple culture/inoculation tests from the necrotic tissue extracts based on Koch's postulates, but unfortunately I'm no longer working in plant pathology lab now.


----------



## paphioboy (Oct 23, 2010)

> A way to tell if its infection or physiological disease is to perform some simple culture/inoculation tests from the necrotic tissue extracts based on Koch's postulates, but unfortunately I'm no longer working in plant pathology lab now.



No!!!! Not Koch's postulates... :sob: :sob: That means you have to purposely infect and kill some more seedlings...


----------



## hardy (Oct 23, 2010)

Not to kill them, but to infect them until they get sick then treat them to cure the disease  Well, yes, I know what you mean, they may just die after infection. My undergrad professor does tomato disease research. I wonder how many hundreds of tomato plants she has infected and killed


----------



## paphioboy (Oct 23, 2010)

EVIL... simply EVIL...!! :evil: :sob: I might have to do a similar thing next year on capsicums... I'm investigating biocontrol of Phytophthora and Pythium root rot as my Honours project...


----------



## hardy (Jul 4, 2011)

An update:

The seedlings on the day of deflasking 9 months ago...





...and today




Please pardon the blurred covering in the second pic, since I haven't 
changed the cling wrap covering of the fish tank. 

There was some leaf dieback in the first few weeks after deflasking, which 
went under control after some fungicide spray. I'm glad to say all of the 
seedlings have survived. ^^

These maudiae-type seedlings grow very well in dried sphagnum, and they 
can tolerate stagnant atmosphere very well. I used the same method when I 
first deflasked my first batch of maudiae-type seedlings few years ago with 
similar good results. But the same cannot be said for Paph. sanderianum and 
thaianum seedlings, they just did not grow well compotted in sphagnum in a 
covered fish tank.

Some pics of healthy roots:










Here are the two groups of seedlings.

Paph. Dragon Knife 'Shapely' HCC/AOS X Hsinying Citron 'Ching Hua Giant' GM/TPS










I took a cutting from one of the seedlings, and potted it in straight CHC. It's 
growing a couple healthy roots several months into the CHC.










The top growth is not so satisfactory, but the plant has not been fertilized 
at all after potting in CHC.


The other group is Paph. Hsinying Citron X sib. ('C.H.#4' SM/TPS X 'Ching Hua Giant' GM/TPS)









I took top cuttings from 12 seedlings, and luckily both all the top and stump 
parts survived, so now I have 12 extra pieces in the group.  The pot in the 
front left contains all the stump, while the cut tops are grown in the two 
pots next to it.

The smallest of the lot of Hsinying Citron X sib....





...has caught up nicely 





The seedlings were hardly fertilized during these nine months, I think they 
would have grown better if I had been more diligent in feeding them. I'm also 
very interested in using straight CHC for my maudiaes now, since the 
maudiae roots seem to tolerate saturated/dry cycles while in CHC, whereas 
I find maudiaes grown in straight sphagnum must be watered very carefully, 
i.e. the roots can only tolerate half-saturated/dry cycles and will suffer and 
lose the growing tips if the sphagnum is allowed to become too wet.


----------



## biothanasis (Jul 4, 2011)

:clap: fascinating progress!!! Bravo Hardy.


----------



## SlipperFan (Jul 4, 2011)

It is interesting to see how you are working with these plants.


----------



## paphioboy (Jul 4, 2011)

Very nice update..  I agree also that sphagnum is difficult to use with regards to watering...


----------



## SlipperKing (Jul 6, 2011)

Nice updates!


----------



## Bolero (Jul 8, 2011)

So does your moss dry out at all? I am having trouble growing Phrag seedlings in moss let alone growing paph seedlings in it.

I don't doubt it will work for you but I hope it doesn't stay to wet for to long. They are sensational seedlings and some great possibilities there. I might give something like that a try next time I buy some flasks.

Thanks for sharing.


----------



## Ozpaph (Jul 9, 2011)

Hardy, what light source are you using over the fish tank? One of your pictures shows the reflection of 2 compact fluorescent tubes. Are they 12W each? What spectrum? Are they bulbs for aquarium use eg. 'plant growth' spectrum?
I've been using the same sort of setup with my de-flasks with a lot of success but wonder if I'm using too much light. My plants aren't as vigorous (though I'm growing most multiflorals).

Thanks


----------



## Marc (Jul 9, 2011)

Ozpaph said:


> Hardy, what light source are you using over the fish tank? One of your pictures shows the reflection of 2 compact fluorescent tubes. Are they 12W each? What spectrum? Are they bulbs for aquarium use eg. 'plant growth' spectrum?
> I've been using the same sort of setup with my de-flasks with a lot of success but wonder if I'm using too much light. My plants aren't as vigorous (though I'm growing most multiflorals).
> 
> Thanks



There is a picture of the lamp he's using in the first post of this topic. oke:


----------



## Ozpaph (Jul 9, 2011)

Marc said:


> There is a picture of the lamp he's using in the first post of this topic. oke:



The lamp on the box is not the same as the picture of the two reflected CF globes, unless the reflection is tricking me.


----------



## hardy (Jul 10, 2011)

To Bolero:

Yes, I let the moss become almost dry (turn completely pale but not bone dry) before watering again, and then I never let the moss become really wet when watering the plants.

To Ozpaph:

The photo of the packaging is of the 27W, 4-pronged compact fluorescent. I did not use that for the tank, the ones I'm using are the 13W, 2-pronged type. The specifications are all the same though, same brand, same spectrum (i.e. 6500K).


----------



## Ozpaph (Jul 10, 2011)

hardy said:


> To Ozpaph:
> 
> The photo of the packaging is of the 27W, 4-pronged compact fluorescent. I did not use that for the tank, the ones I'm using are the 13W, 2-pronged type. The specifications are all the same though, same brand, same spectrum (i.e. 6500K).



So, about 26W at about 20cm from the plants.
Don't suppose you have a lux meter? Could you take some readings at the level of the leaves?
I'm using 75W and the growth isn't as prodigious as yours. Wonder if I'm giving them too much light?


----------

