Journal July 28, 2018 - Phalaenopsis - seed starting success!!

Several of the more vigorous protocorms have been placed in individual vessels, while others remain grouped common vessels.  As I have experience in deflasking orchid seedlings I am now certain that this project will be a success.

The parent plant is back in full bloom and is magnificent.  To think that I purchased this plant last year at Aldi's for about eight dollars still boggles my mind.

The large Phalaenopsis has been crossed with a small Phalaenopsis that is almost purple, and already I can see the flower stem getting thicker which indicated pollination has taken place.
 

Journal July 15, 2018 - Phalaenopsis protocorms starting to look like plants.

Real progress is being made now, the protocorms are developing into plants.

Journal July 9, 2018 - Phalaenopsis orchid from seed in a test tube.

No matter what happens going forward I am going to call this a success!

There is definitely a new orchid growing from this protocorm.

What a fun project!

Journal July 8, 2018 - Phalaenopsis protocorm developeing leaves.

The process is so complicated I really did not expect to pull it off, but I wanted to learn something by trying.

I made a lot of mistakes, like putting way too many seeds in the media. They germinated but used up all of the nutrients in the media in a short period of time. I did not replate soon enough, so many of the protocorms ran out of nutrients. Still, I have a few dozen corms that appear to be forming into plants. This time when I replated the corms I only put a few in each vessel, and isolated a few to a single vessel or test tube.

Since I replated and isolated them the corms have begun to develop rapidly. In just one day the one in the photo went from just a bump on top to what appears to be a tiny leaf. 

 
Actually, I am looking forward to crossing a full size plant with a miniture in the near future and repeating the process.

It was that much fun!

Journal June 10, 2018 - Lighting change

I look forward to checking on the progress of this project each day, it is kind of like watching an old Saturday serial movie; things are happening, but happening slowly. 

Thinking that the major contributing factor to plant growth is light, I decided to change the quality and quantity of the lighting, drastically.

Today the lighting was changed from a small compact fluorescent to a small LED grow light tuned to both vegetative and flowering spectra. The intensity has changed by a factor of 10, from 50 footcandles to 500 footcandles.

Journal June 2, 2018

 
Today I "replated" almost all of the seedlings, selecting the largest darkest green seedlings for replating. Replating is literally scooping them out of the vessel and placing them on a plate then transferring them to vessels with fresh media. 

They were replated because I noticed the growth slowing down, almost to a halt. Hopefully, I have carried out the replating in time. This is the step that has the most chance of introducing contamination, so I used several vessels to lower the odds.

The slope in the media is deliberate so that the condensation runs to the low side and does not puddle and drown the seedlings.

Journal June 1, 2018 - Growing hydroponically cheap, really cheap.

My wife brought home hydroponic basil from the supermarket recently.  It was bare root in a horticube, two stalks for about six dollars.  In just a day or so it turned black and was tossed into the garbage, kiss six bucks good-bye.

To prevent any further episodes of buying hydroponic basil I told her I would grow all the basil she wanted.  Basil is about the easiest thing to grow hydroponically, so I simply rescued a suitable container from the recycle bin and set to work.

The basil is supported by expanded clay pellets and grown in a 3" netpot.  The netpot is suspended in nutrients to a level just below the rim.  Any water soluable nutrients will work, but keep the nutrients on the weak side, about quarter strength.