@@rjjr.1071 It is easiest for flasking to use a close to ripe, unspilt seed capsule. When you sterilize the intact capsule the seeds inside will be clean and those can be stored in the fridge for a while. When you use a dry split capsule, the seed need to be sterilized for flasking and that is usually more work and you have to use lower bleach levels. But, both have their benefits and problems: The dry seed from the dry seed capsule will store well but you need to sterilize the seed for each use. Seed from an unripened seed capsule is easier to sterilize but the seed may not store as well. Both should germinate at the same efficiency if the seed is good. Some plant seeds require drying to overcome dormancy and germinate - not sure if there are any orchids like this.
@@rjjr.1071 Please see this page for estimated ripening times: www.aos.org/orchids/additional-resources/harvesting-times-of-orchid-seed-capsules.aspx Please also see my video where I explain a little more about ripening time: ua-cam.com/video/McJlZowKTys/v-deo.html You use the estimated times from the chart but you also have to look at the capsules for clues to when it is ready....
Thanks for your comment - I am not sure what that audio issue was all about - it happened twice on the same day and has not been a problem since. I am glad that you found my video useful!
Hey there I just watched your video and I have recently tried more Cyrtopodium flask of different hybrids I made. Cyrt palmifrons did not give me very high germination with a dark treatment, but the light treatment gave average germination. (paniculatum x punctatum) gave me the same germination rate with both light and dark. I also tried Ansellia africana aurea with both a dark and light treatment and the dark period gave phenomenal results with just a blanket of protocorms so heavy I had to pull them apart with some force. The light-treated Ansellias gave me very poor germination. Same seed, same media, same temperatures. The dark treatment was for about 6 weeks and the protocorms formed chlorophyll as soon as I moved them to light. There's definitely something going on here with how light affects the germination of certain species, but I've not been able to answer why some seedlings of these Cymbidinae tribe act so funny with their light treatment.
I heard from another viewer that a dark treatment is used for some terrestrials, which I did not know. I have Eulophia alta, which I will try light vs dark, this week or next. I am relatively new to the orchid world but have been working with plant embryogenesis, seed development and germination of other plants for my whole career. Some seeds do have light and day length sensors - for most seeds, there is no dark requirement and a few even require light to germinate. It makes sense that terrestrials may have dark requirement but I do not know the mechanism. I am sending you a nice review article on Cypripedium seed germination - there are a lot of references to papers by Arditti, who I know and is very responsive to my e-mails. He is very good. It was interesting to see in the article that orchid seeds can have dormancy, like other seeds, and the methods for overcoming dormancy seem to be the same as other seeds. So, for your seed flasking, do you surface sterilize the capsule or the seeds? I have been sterilizing the seeds which may remove germination inhibitors. I do not know how dark would do the same thing??... I can always ask Arditti but I do not want to bother him too much.
Thanks for watching and for your comment! People often think that I add something special to my media formulations and that the response that I get is from a secret added ingredient but, I think that some of the old media formulations have too much "stuff" in them, which can interfere with development.....
@@plantpropagator - totally! I tend to opt for a media that is universal from germination to final replate so I don’t have to fuss with different recipes and flasks. So I have a bit of a “all the stuff media”, but I still am refining-Phrag kovachii, Paph tigrinum, and Mexipedium seem to have some special expectations compared to the more easygoing species I’ve grown. All part of the fun though - testing, tweaking, observing 🤓🌱🧪
@@zoxidxalilov853 I have been in the teaching, plant cloning, and biotechnology area for about 40 years but only started my channel 1.5 years ago. So, still learning....
Very informative video, one think I would say is when you point the containers close to the camera it's not focusing which makes it hard to see. I like to document growth stages so it is helpful to kinda know what to expect. Love the video though, great info!
Thanks for your comment - yeah - I was having a lot of problems that day. I do like to show a lot so, I sometimes do not have the patience to wait for my camera to focus before I move on. I will try to be more patient and move slower.....
Hello. Great video and thanks for teaching the Science behind growing those orchids from seeds. I was always curious about the contents of the dark stuff at the bottom of dish where you place the seeds, thanks for clarifying. I learned a lot. I've heard it takes about 5 years from seed to maturity?
Thanks for watching and for your comment. Before I answer your question, I have a question for you. Are you clairvoyant? I just recorded a video today where I talk about the time from seed to flower. I will post that in a little over a week after I do some editing. But, to answer your question and give you a little preview - everyone says that it takes 5 years from seed to flower for most orchids; a little less for Phalaenopsis orchids. Two days ago, I was so excited to find my first Cattleya flower from my first cross and made a video on it today. I keep pretty good records on this and I flasked those seeds on 10/10/19 - so, not quite 3 years, which was a surprise - it was my first flower and most of the other plants are not yet flowering. It was not a great flower but I was still excited!
Thanks for your comment - orchid seed germination is not trivial - I have made a lot of videos showing the different parts of the process. The seed are placed on a rich medium containing salts, sugars and vitamins. If the seed are not sterilized, they will be overcome with microbes that will grow well on the medium. Microbes have to be killed on the seed surface, while not killing the seeds. If you do not have any experience with making media and working under sterile conditions, you can see a video that I made on simple germination of orchid seed: ua-cam.com/video/McJlZowKTys/v-deo.html Remember that this method will not give too many seedlings. If you watch my videos and still have some questions, let me know.
Thanks so much for subscribing - I am so happy that you are #600. Yeah, it is awful for your seed capsules to go to waste. I have a colleague who takes the almost mature seed capsules (when they start to turn yellow) for butterfly orchids and rubs them on neighboring trees so that the seeds are distributed on the bark on the side of the tree - you have to push them hard to grind up the capsule against the bark. You will not get high frequency germination but she shared some images of her seedlings and it was impressive to me - there were hundreds. If you would like, I am happy to assist you by making some seedlings in flasks in my lab, but I only need 1-2 capsules - should be 6 months after flowering so in December or January. You can contact me at ThePlantPropagator@yahoo.com when you are ready! For putting them in a State Park in Florida, you do need permission and they have to be sourced within 25 miles of the park. Again, happy that you subbed.
Good video (again)a question: is there a certain amount of time that the seed must have germinate?, in my orchid propagation group, some members tells me that it can take up months before protocorms start growing. What is your comment on that? The “Dark treatment” that you where talking about is what we only do on earth growing orchids, never on epiphyte orchids. Thanks again
Oh - OK - that is where this treatment came from... The Cyrtopodium that I used in this video is considered to be a terrestrial orchid, although some also say that it can be epiphytic. There is still this scientific report that states that a dark treatment is necessary for Cyrtopodium punctatum and it clearly is not! I do have some seeds of Eulophia alta, which is another terrestrial, and I can easily do this comparison again. The Eulophia seeds formed protocorms but not at very high frequency in the light - thanks for your comment - I will set this up this week, and will know in a few months if the dark treatment is beneficial for this other terrestrial orchid. Some orchid seeds do take longer to form protocorms - the Eulophia did take a month before I could see much. I have also heard that protocorm formation can take up to 6 months but I have not yet seen this for myself.
I have watched a few of your videos and they are fascinating. I am going to cut one of my seed pod and tried to flask it tomorrow according to your instruction. Its gonna be fun and interesting.
After a month of sowing my phalenopsis seeds, the seeds are swollen and yellow. Only few are green. What do you think is the reason. The seeds get 16 hrs light and are on Viacin and went media.
Thanks for your comment - there are so many things that are causing this - very difficult to diagnose with your description. If you have some clearly green protocorms and most are yellow, it may be genetics. If they are different shades of yellow, you may have medium, environment or disinfestation issues. An image would help but Viacin and Went is an early orchid medium that is OK but not optimum for germination - it just may take a little longer for your protocorms to green up. I have never used this medium but it is a really old formulation.
Thanks...This is exactly where I started on this adventure...wanting to grow Cyrt. punctatum, and heard about the dark treatment, then hearing others doing well just germinating directly. I have found it seems universal to use coconut water in the mix, and now trying flasks with that and potato etc. Thanks for the vids...keep them coming! very helpful!
I do not use coconut water or potato in any of my media. I do use banana in my replate medium and am trying to figure out what component of the banana is contributing to better orchid growth.
That is a good question and I am glad that you asked. Don't get them on eBay, unless you know of a very reputable seller. You can join the Facebook group on orchid flasking and ask someone for seed. You can attend a meeting of your local orchid society and ask if anyone from that group has orchid seeds that they are willing to give you. But, the easiest thing to do is what I do: learn how to fertilize a flower and make seeds yourself. If you even only have one orchid, you can self the flower and recover a seed capsule in 3-9 months. Depending on the orchid, the seed capsule can have 100,000 to a million seeds!
Thanks for your comment. I am sorry but I only flask for myself and a few local orchid growing friends. Even with my limited flasking for close friends, I have found that I receive a lot of capsules that are problematic, due to immature embryos, contamination, or lack of embryo viability. It has ended up being a lot of work with really variable outcomes so I decided to not flask commercially. I am sorry but I thank you for watching. Happy propagating!
Thanks for you're reply, i do appreciate the vids. very informative. God bless. Steve.🙂
"try it in your own way"
Im doing it right now ...
Thanks much sir.....
Thanks for your comment. Good luck and let me know if you have any issues that I can assist with.
@@plantpropagator I have a question sir,
What's the best: to use a dry Phalaenopsis seed pod or unripened seed pod?
@@rjjr.1071 It is easiest for flasking to use a close to ripe, unspilt seed capsule. When you sterilize the intact capsule the seeds inside will be clean and those can be stored in the fridge for a while. When you use a dry split capsule, the seed need to be sterilized for flasking and that is usually more work and you have to use lower bleach levels. But, both have their benefits and problems:
The dry seed from the dry seed capsule will store well but you need to sterilize the seed for each use.
Seed from an unripened seed capsule is easier to sterilize but the seed may not store as well.
Both should germinate at the same efficiency if the seed is good.
Some plant seeds require drying to overcome dormancy and germinate - not sure if there are any orchids like this.
@@plantpropagator great information sir,
How to determine if the seed pod is already close to ripening?
@@rjjr.1071 Please see this page for estimated ripening times:
www.aos.org/orchids/additional-resources/harvesting-times-of-orchid-seed-capsules.aspx
Please also see my video where I explain a little more about ripening time:
ua-cam.com/video/McJlZowKTys/v-deo.html
You use the estimated times from the chart but you also have to look at the capsules for clues to when it is ready....
thanks for captioning the rough patches of the audio, that helped a lot!
Thanks for your comment - I am not sure what that audio issue was all about - it happened twice on the same day and has not been a problem since. I am glad that you found my video useful!
Hey there I just watched your video and I have recently tried more Cyrtopodium flask of different hybrids I made. Cyrt palmifrons did not give me very high germination with a dark treatment, but the light treatment gave average germination. (paniculatum x punctatum) gave me the same germination rate with both light and dark. I also tried Ansellia africana aurea with both a dark and light treatment and the dark period gave phenomenal results with just a blanket of protocorms so heavy I had to pull them apart with some force. The light-treated Ansellias gave me very poor germination. Same seed, same media, same temperatures. The dark treatment was for about 6 weeks and the protocorms formed chlorophyll as soon as I moved them to light. There's definitely something going on here with how light affects the germination of certain species, but I've not been able to answer why some seedlings of these Cymbidinae tribe act so funny with their light treatment.
I heard from another viewer that a dark treatment is used for some terrestrials, which I did not know. I have Eulophia alta, which I will try light vs dark, this week or next. I am relatively new to the orchid world but have been working with plant embryogenesis, seed development and germination of other plants for my whole career. Some seeds do have light and day length sensors - for most seeds, there is no dark requirement and a few even require light to germinate. It makes sense that terrestrials may have dark requirement but I do not know the mechanism. I am sending you a nice review article on Cypripedium seed germination - there are a lot of references to papers by Arditti, who I know and is very responsive to my e-mails. He is very good. It was interesting to see in the article that orchid seeds can have dormancy, like other seeds, and the methods for overcoming dormancy seem to be the same as other seeds. So, for your seed flasking, do you surface sterilize the capsule or the seeds? I have been sterilizing the seeds which may remove germination inhibitors. I do not know how dark would do the same thing??... I can always ask Arditti but I do not want to bother him too much.
That's some great results in such short period of time!
I'm pretty happy with these results but, I am still optimizing the media and treatments. Thanks for your comment!
Yeah!!!! “Be your own scientist!!” Love the comparison of light vs no light germinated plants.
Thanks for watching and for your comment! People often think that I add something special to my media formulations and that the response that I get is from a secret added ingredient but, I think that some of the old media formulations have too much "stuff" in them, which can interfere with development.....
@@plantpropagator - totally! I tend to opt for a media that is universal from germination to final replate so I don’t have to fuss with different recipes and flasks. So I have a bit of a “all the stuff media”, but I still am refining-Phrag kovachii, Paph tigrinum, and Mexipedium seem to have some special expectations compared to the more easygoing species I’ve grown. All part of the fun though - testing, tweaking, observing 🤓🌱🧪
Thanks for your hard work my friend
Thanks - it is more fun than hard work. And, as long as they are fun, I will keep on making these videos!
How long have you been doing this
@@zoxidxalilov853 I have been in the teaching, plant cloning, and biotechnology area for about 40 years but only started my channel 1.5 years ago. So, still learning....
Very informative video, one think I would say is when you point the containers close to the camera it's not focusing which makes it hard to see. I like to document growth stages so it is helpful to kinda know what to expect. Love the video though, great info!
Thanks for your comment - yeah - I was having a lot of problems that day. I do like to show a lot so, I sometimes do not have the patience to wait for my camera to focus before I move on. I will try to be more patient and move slower.....
Hello. Great video and thanks for teaching the Science behind growing those orchids from seeds. I was always curious about the contents of the dark stuff at the bottom of dish where you place the seeds, thanks for clarifying. I learned a lot. I've heard it takes about 5 years from seed to maturity?
Thanks for watching and for your comment. Before I answer your question, I have a question for you. Are you clairvoyant? I just recorded a video today where I talk about the time from seed to flower. I will post that in a little over a week after I do some editing. But, to answer your question and give you a little preview - everyone says that it takes 5 years from seed to flower for most orchids; a little less for Phalaenopsis orchids. Two days ago, I was so excited to find my first Cattleya flower from my first cross and made a video on it today. I keep pretty good records on this and I flasked those seeds on 10/10/19 - so, not quite 3 years, which was a surprise - it was my first flower and most of the other plants are not yet flowering. It was not a great flower but I was still excited!
@@plantpropagator 🤣🤣🤣thanks so much. I appreciate the explanation.
That was very interesting and informative. Question is, please. Do I put the seeds on the medium and wet them. Dont know how to start. Thanks.
Thanks for your comment - orchid seed germination is not trivial - I have made a lot of videos showing the different parts of the process.
The seed are placed on a rich medium containing salts, sugars and vitamins. If the seed are not sterilized, they will be overcome with microbes that will grow well on the medium. Microbes have to be killed on the seed surface, while not killing the seeds. If you do not have any experience with making media and working under sterile conditions, you can see a video that I made on simple germination of orchid seed:
ua-cam.com/video/McJlZowKTys/v-deo.html
Remember that this method will not give too many seedlings.
If you watch my videos and still have some questions, let me know.
I subscribed I'm number 600. I get over 50 seed pods off mine I've contacted so many places and my seeds go to waste. It's terrible. Tampa orchid
Thanks so much for subscribing - I am so happy that you are #600. Yeah, it is awful for your seed capsules to go to waste. I have a colleague who takes the almost mature seed capsules (when they start to turn yellow) for butterfly orchids and rubs them on neighboring trees so that the seeds are distributed on the bark on the side of the tree - you have to push them hard to grind up the capsule against the bark. You will not get high frequency germination but she shared some images of her seedlings and it was impressive to me - there were hundreds. If you would like, I am happy to assist you by making some seedlings in flasks in my lab, but I only need 1-2 capsules - should be 6 months after flowering so in December or January. You can contact me at ThePlantPropagator@yahoo.com when you are ready! For putting them in a State Park in Florida, you do need permission and they have to be sourced within 25 miles of the park. Again, happy that you subbed.
Good video (again)a question: is there a certain amount of time that the seed must have germinate?, in my orchid propagation group, some members tells me that it can take up months before protocorms start growing. What is your comment on that?
The “Dark treatment” that you where talking about is what we only do on earth growing orchids, never on epiphyte orchids.
Thanks again
Oh - OK - that is where this treatment came from... The Cyrtopodium that I used in this video is considered to be a terrestrial orchid, although some also say that it can be epiphytic. There is still this scientific report that states that a dark treatment is necessary for Cyrtopodium punctatum and it clearly is not! I do have some seeds of Eulophia alta, which is another terrestrial, and I can easily do this comparison again. The Eulophia seeds formed protocorms but not at very high frequency in the light - thanks for your comment - I will set this up this week, and will know in a few months if the dark treatment is beneficial for this other terrestrial orchid. Some orchid seeds do take longer to form protocorms - the Eulophia did take a month before I could see much. I have also heard that protocorm formation can take up to 6 months but I have not yet seen this for myself.
I have watched a few of your videos and they are fascinating. I am going to cut one of my seed pod and tried to flask it tomorrow according to your instruction. Its gonna be fun and interesting.
Good luck with your seed capsule flasking! Thanks of your comment and for watching my channel.
Thanks for sharing
I am happy to share - I hope that it was useful and interesting for you. Thanks for watching!
After a month of sowing my phalenopsis seeds, the seeds are swollen and yellow. Only few are green. What do you think is the reason. The seeds get 16 hrs light and are on Viacin and went media.
Thanks for your comment - there are so many things that are causing this - very difficult to diagnose with your description. If you have some clearly green protocorms and most are yellow, it may be genetics. If they are different shades of yellow, you may have medium, environment or disinfestation issues. An image would help but Viacin and Went is an early orchid medium that is OK but not optimum for germination - it just may take a little longer for your protocorms to green up. I have never used this medium but it is a really old formulation.
Thanks...This is exactly where I started on this adventure...wanting to grow Cyrt. punctatum, and heard about the dark treatment, then hearing others doing well just germinating directly. I have found it seems universal to use coconut water in the mix, and now trying flasks with that and potato etc. Thanks for the vids...keep them coming! very helpful!
I do not use coconut water or potato in any of my media. I do use banana in my replate medium and am trying to figure out what component of the banana is contributing to better orchid growth.
Hey! Any recommendations on where to get seeds?
That is a good question and I am glad that you asked. Don't get them on eBay, unless you know of a very reputable seller. You can join the Facebook group on orchid flasking and ask someone for seed. You can attend a meeting of your local orchid society and ask if anyone from that group has orchid seeds that they are willing to give you. But, the easiest thing to do is what I do: learn how to fertilize a flower and make seeds yourself. If you even only have one orchid, you can self the flower and recover a seed capsule in 3-9 months. Depending on the orchid, the seed capsule can have 100,000 to a million seeds!
Would you flask my orchid seeds for me? I have 2 varieties that gave me seed pods. I don't have time to do them. Let me know what you think.
Thanks for your comment. I am sorry but I only flask for myself and a few local orchid growing friends. Even with my limited flasking for close friends, I have found that I receive a lot of capsules that are problematic, due to immature embryos, contamination, or lack of embryo viability. It has ended up being a lot of work with really variable outcomes so I decided to not flask commercially. I am sorry but I thank you for watching. Happy propagating!
@@plantpropagator thank you for the information.
is shaking the newly sprouted seed part of the procedure ? only joking🥺
Thanks for your comment. Yeah - I talk with my hands a lot. I guess that it is inherited from my mom.....