Meyer's Conservatory

I recently obtained some Laelia anceps seedlings--directly from flask, from Meyer's Conservatory (http://www.troymeyers.com). This is my second attempt at growing orchids directly from flask. The first cross is L. anceps var. alba 'Drew's Yellow Girl' x self. The second is L. anceps var. veitchiania 'Fort Caroline' x self.

The previously mentioned Cymbidium erythrostylum seedlings (earlier post) died within a week. I mentioned my failure to another orchid grower, and he suggested buying some clear dome/community pot chambers from Tindara (http://www.tindaraorchids.com/index.htm) because he'd been using these for years without problems to successfully acclimatize seedlings directly from flask. So, I followed his recommendations, bought some clear dome compots from Tindara, and transferred the L. anceps seedlings into the chambers.




























The other variable I changed was to grow the seedlings underneath my Agrosun light. According to my light meter, the seedlings (really the exterior of the cleardome compots) are receiving ~4500 lux/~450 footcandles of light, 16 hrs/day (the lights are on timers).

The seedlings from Meyer's Conservatory arrived in excellent(!) health. I need to mention here that over the last year, I had purchased a number of established seedlings of other orchid genera from Meyer's that also arrived in excellent health. With the Laelia anceps seedlings, I didn't have to extract them from the flask, as this task was already completed by the Conservatory. All I needed to do was transplant them into a sphagnum moss-type media. I counted between 31-35 seedlings per flask per cross, which is consistent with the number of plants they try to achieve in re-plate flasks.

So far, the seedlings continue to appear far healthier for the same amount of time in my hands than the Cym. erythrostylum seedlings I tried to grow.