Dear OGD Readers, I have recently (in the last 7 months) begun to live my dream of being a full time orchid flasker. Having dallied in the past with home-brew equipment, I have built my own lab and with professional grade equipment and am pleased with my success thus far. My best success story is saving a batch of besseae flavum from sure death in flasks I received from another lab in the hopes of bringing them back for my customer who has been waiting for flasks of this species to offer his customers for nearly a decade. I took a chance and transferred them to some media from the UK. Within just 3 weeks, I could see a difference. Instead of the yellowing and browning they were in the process of doing, they greened up and even started to grow. Some began proliferating (a good thing in my book) and others started producing beautiful white-tipped, fuzzy roots. They have since been replated onto more of this magic formula and are on their way towards becoming beautiful, healthy, individual plants.
I have also received mother flasks needing work that are (were) full of loose protocorms. The media underneath (which only the bottom layer had any contact with) was shrinking and nearly dry. The protocorms were still green but have not "jumped to life" after replating as other protocorms have done. Conversely, I have replated freshly germinated protocorms that literally did just that, "jump to life." I later replated protocorms from the same mother flask and have not seen the same vigor. They are still growing, but just not as fast. I am beginning to wonder if there isn't a magic sweet spot in the life cycle of a protocorm when it is perfect for replating for total optimum growth and that to let them go beyond that means slower growth later on. An analogy I suppose would be similar to the timing of orchid repotting. You would refrain from general repotting in the winter, opting instead for the accelerated growth in the spring to jumpstart the plants into establishing themselves in new media all summer before decelerated growth in the fall and winter. I know some of you who are more enlightened than I can shed some of that light on this subject. I would be interested in the theoretical as well as practical analysis of this phenomenon. Thank You. Barbara Always Orchids Lab [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) orchids@orchidguide.com http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
