Terrestrial Orchid Forum :: Last posts

Australian orchid growers frequently use pieces of terrestrial orchids to produce flasks for export and it should work fine with any type of growing plant material. I have tried it a couple of times and my experience has been that it is extremely difficult to get the plant material disinfected before flasking.

I have done this with seedlings that have particularly brittle or tangled roots and it seems to work just fine. There have been a few times when I am trying a new medium and it comes out a little soft that I have done this to give the seedlings a better support in the thin medium. It has worked very well in that situation also and apparently the additional water supports the growth longer before it becomes depleted.

Thanks for the identification Stephane. It was indeed beautiful to see thousands of these along the seashore.

Hi Lars, temperatures are fluctuating wildly this year, last 2 weeks we had day temps to +20c in the sun. Today is snowing, maybe 20cm on the ground and 2 days ago night temps were -10c! Keeping pleiones cool out of a fridge has been all but impossible so I have just let them do what they want. Not ideal, as I now have trays of pleiones on the dinning room floor because they can't go outside!!

The last -10c was unexpected and killed off a batch of unprotected Ophrys species in bulb frames, all in all this has been an 'annoying' winter. Last 2 years winter came, stayed for three months and went, this year it's been changing every 10 days!

Any of your Pleiones breaking dormancy?

Hi Dieter

Thanks. It seems to be very self-fertile too. All 8 flowers I pollinated have set pods.

I have a second plant and it looks 100% the same. Hopefully the seed can produce some variegated plants.

I have had no problems with any of the plants from the seller. They have all been good quality. I know some people take issue with buying from this seller due to some plants being wild sourced (which I dont want to get into again as it is such a complex issue). Many of the Cyms are clones though and the other cym clones I got last year are very good too. Sadly, I can not find pics of the peloric Cym ensifoliums I bought. I have one nice big pod on that from a selfing too.

Brett

from my own experience I cannot state they were growing that quickly.

my tubers were about 5 millimeters after first season.
then went dormant in the frige
and also after second season
the largest are not of flowering size Sad

there was no difference in development
between sowing on oats agar or "organic medium"

I don't remember for sure what isolate they used, but I think it was from
Liparis sp
. The isolate seemed to have promoted better growth than the one isolated from
Ponerorchis
(and
Cym. goeringii
?). I also think the author used the oat agar medium. So like I said, it all depends on fungal isolate, genotypes of species, etc.

A different sequencing attempt was made by Christian (user Ahriman on
Berthold's forum
) but failed due to PCR issues.

The details of this little endeavor are detailed
here
(the second part of that thread is in English)

Thanks for the link, Fred. (I've only just figured out how to register with Berthold's forum and translate the text)

I have seen that some of my ophrys have not produce the new tuber for next year Sad

(( and they have already consume its old tuber.
Has it happened to you at any time? What can it be the reason, mistake of nutrients?
Br
Dan

I always wondered why there was a stereotype of French people being arrogant...

hey,

I always mix in the INOQ since I sterilize the Neudohum.
so I cannot say what happens "without" Wink

FOR SURE it also works without the INOQ.

nevertheless I believe in a positive effect of the Glomus fungus
Smile

the difference between the Hobby and Hydro is the "basic" material.
Hobby is "peat" and Hydro is "vulca pebbles".

the fungus is the same.

and also is same "quantity" of fungus per box.

Price is about 10 Euros per literbox each kind, plus postage
but dont know about shipping outside Germany

see also here: http://www.poetschke.de/orbiz/DigiTrade/3b1bc3495f5061c316885940a13635f2/Mykorrhiza-Vitalnahrung-1-Liter--2886da137809.html?fromPage=1640
same price when ordering directly from INOQ.

hope, this helps
cheers
dieter

I ordered some plants from Asiatic Green last year and had no problems at all. The plants arrived in good condition and as promised. I have had occasions with some of the SE Asia dealers not responding to emails very quuickly. Many of them are going to shows in the summer and may not return emails for a week or two. Sometimes it takes a gentle reminder but Amos seems to be fairly diligent you might want to try again.

Calcium salts will precipitate with phosphate, sulfate, sulfide and carbonate. Over time there is enough carbon dioxide in the ambient air to cause precipitation of calcium ions. You will almost always see some form of "EDTA" in media containing calcium compounds. The EDTA is an orhanic compound that acts as a chelating agent and reduces the formation of precipitates. The EDTA also helps prevent ferrous/ferric ions from precipitating. Strangely, if you supersaturate a solution of calcium ions with carbon dioxide you will get the formation of calcium bicarbonate which is much more soluble than the carbonate.

I also heard some shipment has been delivered to Germany. And I suspect some members here also have bought from him, but I am not going to point fingers. Mum the word.

I am ordering from them. I will let you know what they are like.

The species I am keen to get is D. graminifolia, but it seems really hard to find. I emailed a few Disa forums, and SA clubs, but never got an email back.

Brett

Another one I am going to try is a specimen container. I just got a whole box. The ones I got are auctoclavable, but presterilized. It can hold up to 8 oz of medium.

One significant reason why commercial growers do not grow terrestrials is simply that it is so hard to find seed or propagative material to use to produce marketable plants.

That's what I keep saying. You really need to know someone who has plants and work with him/her. Also, there is a group of people who propagate endangered species, but again, you need to be in their circle.

I have tried posting requests for seed on Orchid Mall and the Orchid Digest but have had almost no response. As far as US terrestrials go I have had no responses. If you can direct me to sources of seed I will do what I can to try to establish commercial quantities of plants.

I posted a message at the Orchid Mall a while ago (~10 years ago?), and did not get a single response from somebody who had stuff. There was, however, a message from a lady who sent me a message asking if I found any because she was looking for
same or something similar
. I was like, "WTF???"

Pleione
seems to grow (much?) faster in liquid medium. They are slow to germinate in liquid medium, though.

It was not difficult to germinate. And it does not seem difficult. But it seems they are slowish, and because how they root, "seedlings" are sticking out of the medium. I have done
Cyrt. punctatum
twice, and they do the same. I need to replate them again, I guess.

Fred,

No offense taken. Whatever you decide is fine with me. Thanks for taking care of this, though.

Most fungi are unable to penetrate the coat of the embryo but some are. I call them "germinators".
There is a very sensitive equilibrium of the germinator between penetrating the carapace, supporting the embryo and killing the embryo.
That depends on the actual activity of the germinator.

The optimal fungus activity You get with a concentration of oat flakes in the medium of about 2.5 g/l medium. With 10g/l You find a much lower germination rate because the fungus is to active and kills the embryo.

But if You start the germination process with 2.5g/l You can refeed the fungus with about 20g/l or even more after about 8 weeks when the protocorms are stronger and the developing process of the protocorms proceeds normally regardless of the very hight activity of the fungus. Therefore I thing there must be a much stronger fending of the protocorm against the fungus.

The mentioned numbers are for a special orchid (Dactylorhiza species and Orchis palustris group) and a special germinator we call B1.

Thanks for the suggestions on my agar problems. Next time I order from Phytotech I'll add agar to the shopping list.

A bit of background, I worked for an orchid grower in High school and did all of his flasking. I'm now a horticulturist for a local lawn and landscape care company. The tropicals were mostly very easy when I flasked for the grower, but I find that terrestrials (which are my passion) are much more of a challange. I'm really an overgrown hobbiest that dabbles in the Kitchen with media and don't have any elaborate equipment. My laboratory is a cleaned up coal bin in my 90 year old house. This being said I'm very happy with any positive results I get.

lol
yes! as contradictary as it can sound, it is so cold outside that I have to provide them temperatures which are to warm for them at this time of the year...

It's funny that you posted that! That photograph was taken at the same population that I photographed. In fact, I was photographing plants in a different part of the population when that very photo was taken. These were all taken before P. shriveri was described.

Whatever the species is, great pics Smile

This is a nice plant. I had a pitcher plant once in my room. It grew big leaves but no pitchers at all, probably because of the low humidity (average 40%). As soon as I'll have a greenhouse for my orchids I will surely start collecting some pitchers as well. Hopefully they will eat all bugs in the greenhouse. Smile

We've just posted the illustrated article Suspect Salep on our site, in honor of Valentine's Day and our upcoming travel April adventure in the wilds of SW Turkey with a Turkish taxonomist and Sarasota orchidologist Stig Dalstrom.

See "Orchid Aphrodisiac" on http://hollychase.com/orchid-aphrodisiac/
We include a recipe that spares the orchids!

There is a lot more to the story of the orchid tubers and their restorative reputation! Come with us to see Orchis mascula and other Turkish terrestrials this spring... the outline of our program is on the website.