Pleurothallid-l mailing list

[Ederer Thomas <thomas.ederer@siemens.com>]

Title: Masd. seed flasking

Hi Ron

Thanks for your answer.

> I have enjoyed your flasking WP in the past and I have it
> bookmarked. Must check it out again soon.

I´m glad that you enjoyed it. The last 3 days I spent at a school located close to Salzburg (Austria). This school organizise frequently different courses for their students. One of this courses is our "orchid in vitro propagation course". It´s always great to see how motivated those kids are when they are working in vitro ;-)

Now, I have a little bit more time and I´m planing to create an update of our website.

> M. glandulosa seems to be a "flowering fool" and when crossed
> with M. strobelii makes that wonderful hybrid Confettii which
> covers itself with flowers! Try remaking it!  I must get a piece
> sometime.

Masd. Confetti is really a great cross. I´m planning to remake it as soon as my strobelii starts blooming. I hope that my glandulosa blooms at the same time (or earlier) to use it´s pollen to transfer it to the stigma of my strobelii. If the pollination is sucessfully I can send you some seeds.

> I usually fall back to 1/4 MS with charcoal which is pretty
> similar.  Needs to be pretty soft. Leave some rinsing water
> on top when you add the seed.  Masdevallias seem to like being
> replated often.

Thanks for sharing your recipes ;-)
I will try to replate my Masdevallias more often.

> Interesting that you like using coconut milk. I don't use
> it because it often caused lots of proliferation for me with
> various genera way back in the past.

I found out that our seedlings grow faster and look healthier when we add 10% coconut water to Sigma P6668 (contains charcoal).

> I presume you leave the charcoal out when using coconut milk?

No, I just add the coconut water to the charcoal containing P6668.

> Is this from green coconuts or ripe?

I have to buy the coconut water in small cans at the super market because the coconut trees do not grow here in Austria. Here is a photo of the cans I use:

http://www.orchideenvermehrung.at/pics/forum/coconut.jpg

This clear water is from green nuts.

A few months ago I started an experiment to find out if sphagnum moss can be used as a substitute for agar-agar. I cutted sphagnum moss into small pieces and soaked it with P6668 (without agar-agar). Next I sterilized it and replated some Masdevallia seedlings (germinated on solid P6668) to the P6668 soaked moss. After a few weeks I noticed that this seedlings were bigger than those replated to solid P6668.

> Just received some dry seed from a young guy who helped here over
> the holidays. You could use it to experiment with over there in
> Holland - or is it Germany, then throw most out before they
> flowered!

Thanks for your offer. I would be happy to flask them :-)
Normally it is no problem to ship dry seeds in a standard envelope to Austria.

Cheers

Thomas