Immature Seed Pods

Another one of this year's experiments is to try flasking cymbidium seeds, germinating them, and growing the seedlings to blooming stage. The major information source to guide me is "Asymbiotic Technique of Orchid Seed Germination" by Aaron J. Hicks of The Orchid Seedbank Project (http://members.cox.net/ahicks51/osp/Our_Book/our_book.html). Occasionally, Aaron offers some orchid species seedlings on eBay. I recently purchased seedlings from a flask of Cym. erythrostylum. We'll see if they survive and grow up...














I have two Cymbidium species with pods (fruits) maturing. The first is a selfing of Cymbidium insigne var. album, the plant being purchased from Santa Barbara Orchid Estates. Here's a pic of a flower shortly after pollination, where you can see the column having flattened/broadening out in response to the pollination.














One of the two pods from Cym. insigne fell off prematurely because the inflorescence was beginning to dry up. Advice from Cymbidium colleagues suggest that the seeds of this pod would be too immature for flasking, so I went ahead and dissected the pod for educational purposes. I didn't know what to expect.











































The second is a cross between Cym. sinense 'Geyserland' (pod parent) x Cym. sinense 'Oak Hill' (pollen parent).














Pod parent: Cym. sinense 'Geyserland'















Pollen parent: Cym. sinense 'Oak Hill'

Here is a pic of the maturing fruits.














The fruits are still doing well. According to the calendar, they may be ready for flasking as early as December 10, 2008 (nine months, earliest).

I'm curious to see what anthocyanic nuclear genome influence from the pollen parent 'Oak Hill' has on the non-anthocyanic 'alba' pod parent 'Geyserland', assuming the only contribution of the pollen parent to the offspring will be nuclear genome, and not any plastid genome, e.g. mitochondria or chloroplast. I'm not a botanist, so my understanding of plant genetics may be lacking. (Though, I'll make up a good story upon insistance.) Perhaps the pollen does, in fact, contribute plastids to the progeny. I need to look into that... I'm also thinking to have some seed sent off to Gallup & Stribling for treatment with Oryzalin to promote the conversion of diploids into tetraploids.

Present/forcasted weather for this week: mid 80's during the day, mid 60's during the night, a nice 20 degree differential. With Fall approaching, I'm getting ready to shift the orchids from "growing" fertilizer to "blooming" fertilizer.

Shade Frame

For this Summer's growing season, I decided to set up a shade frame for the orchids. Last Summer, I put the plants underneath the canopy line of one of our trees. But, I could tell that the plants were not getting enough light because the leaves remained a green to dark green color.

I acquired the shade frame materials from Grower's Supply via web/mail order, choosing 40% aluminet as the cloth. The aluminet is reputed to be cooler than standard black shadecloth, (www.igcusa.com/greenhouse-shade-cloth-aluminet.html) which is important for those orchids that are not heat-tolerant, but rather cool-growing.

The orchids are sitting on single palets to raise them off the ground. We've saved palets from other home projects, and I've also scavanged some from neighbors who set out theirs for trash. If you don't have access to palets, check out Casa de Las Orchuideas's website for helpful tips (www.orquideas.com/growing/benches/benches.html).

George Hatfield of Hatfield Orchids, visiting at the time as a guest speaker for NCOS, suggested that I raise the plants higher off the ground so that more air can circulate around the roots, keeping the roots cooler. The higher elevation should also provide additional challenges to pests such as ants and slugs. I'll follow this advice for next Summer's season.

Each orchid is placed in its own tray. The idea is that the plants will suck up the remaining water, keeping moisture around the roots, as necessary. In dry spells, such as last Summer's drought, this was especially important. Whereas some plants last year produced accordian-shaped leaves (an indicator of less-than-optimal watering) on new growths, I haven't seen any accordian leaves this year. I do make a point of draining the trays each week to keep the mosquito population down, and I've never seen any larvae in the trays.

All in all, I'm pleased with the shade frame. Some plants got a little sunburnt moving them from my basement lights to the outdoors, so next year I'll add another layer of shade cloth for the first week or two to help the plants acclimate. I also place those species and hybrids that can take more sun in the places that get the most sun exposure. Presently, the leaves are a nice light green color. Of course, an important benchmark will be the yield and quality of flowering orchids come late Fall through early Spring. Stay tuned...

Right. This is a new venture for me, so we'll see how it goes.

Why "Primarily Cymbidiums"? Well, when I first moved to San Francisco many years ago, some friends of mine gave me a division of one their cymbidiums in return for helping them divide their plants.

The conversation went something like this:
Me: "What's a cymbidium?"
Them: "It's an orchid."
Me: "Really. I don't know anything about orchids. How do you take care of it?"
Them: "It's EASY, especially where you live. Just place it on your porch, give it part sun/part shade, and water it every week or so."
Me: hook, line and sinker...., or more appropriately for this hobby: "one cym, more cyms, and orchids, orchids, orchids".

Well, I've now moved from SF to the DC area. The climate is much different, so I've had to learn better ways of caring for my orchids. I've also joined the National Capitol Orchid Society, whose interests are in a very broad genera of orchids (hence, "Primarily Cymbidiums"), as opposed to the Cymbidium Society of America, for which I'm also a member.

My intent of this blog is to share with you those things I've learned to improve my orchid husbandry skills, as well as general observations and attempts to grow different orchids.