Propagating Orchid 2-Pollinating orchids

The important factor for pollinating orchids is healthy pollinating parent, healthy pod parent and time. The appropriate time to pollinating orchids is 3-5 days after the pod parent’s flowers are bloom (Depend on each kind)
Use the toothpick discard the pollen cap of pod parent to prevent it pollinating itself.
Use the toothpick( new one) touch sticky water in the stigma( sticky water will help you to move pollinia easier) Then use the toothpick touch the pollinia.
Put the pollinia into the stigma.
Write pod parent, pollinating parent and the date of pollinating on paper. Hang it behind the ovaries. Note: Normally, we write the name of pod parent before the name of pollinating parent.
After pollinating process, You shouldn’t allow the flower wet. So you should watering only leave and root to prevent damage from fungi. After 1-3 days petals are start to shrivel. After 1 week petals are shrivel. In this time, you have to take care this orchid because it is quit week. You should give it some light, some water and fertilize. Fertilize one time a week

Propagating Orchid By Seed part 1-Removing and keeping orchids pollinia

Pollinating orchids is a delicate process but it is very important because when you are pollinating the orchid flower you will receive unique flower that different from mericloning orchids especially when you cross-pollination of two orchids, you will create a new unique individuals flowers that never occur before.
To make it easy to understand I will write it in 2 parts
1. Removing and keeping pollinia
2. Pollinating orchids

1.Removing and keeping orchids pollinia

If we want beautiful orchids, we have to choose strong, healthy and high quality to be our pollinating parent and pod parent. Many times we realize that our good pollinating parent and pod parent that we choose did not have flowers in the same time. So keeping orchid pollinia is the important process especially if you want to make an Hybrid Orchids because orchid in each kind always have flowers in a different time.

The appropriate time to keep the pollinia is 2-4 days after the flowers are bloom because if we keep they too early they will too young and if we keep they too late, they will too old.

1. Use the toothpick take off the pollen cap. In this process you should take off the pollen cap on to a sheet of clean paper or tissue to prevent it falling on the ground because it is easy to infection from fungi and bacteria.

2. put the pollen cap on to a paper. Then make it up side down and you can see the pollinia.

3. Use the toothpick to expose the pollinia on to a tissue. Choose only the strong pollinia. It shouldn’t have any black spot or brown spot because the pollinia that have black spot is damage by fungi and you can’t use it to pollinate.

4. Fold a tissue to make a neat and appropriate size then put it in a small envelope and write orchid’s name and the date of keeping on the envelope.

5. The most important things about keeping orchid pollinia is keep it far away from humidity because fungi can grown well in the place that have high humidity. The silica gel pack is useful in this process because it can help you reduce the humidity to prevent the damage cause by fungi.

6. Put the envelope and the silica gel pack in the box. Then close the box and keep it in the refrigerator. In this way you can keep the pollinia more than 1 year. However it depend on other factors.

The most important thing that I suggest is you should use the pollinia as fresh as you can.

Please follow the 2nd part. I will write it soon.

Planting Vanda orchid

Vanda orchid seedling in 1.5″ pot.

The plant have good root & fresh green leaf growth.

Preparing 5" square plastic basket ,4 strand Wire hangers ,small wire or fuse

Carefully remove the plant from the pot.

Clean all sphagnum moss from the root.

This picture show a bad root.

Cut all bad roots off.

Put the plant into the center of the basket.

Preparing fuse or small wire.

Tie the root with fuse or small wire.

This is an important thing because it help the root attach the basket easier.

Hang the basket in your green house.

Charcoal vs Coconut husk : Which one do you prefer?

Many people ask that which medium is appropiate for plant cattleya.Nomally each garden use different mediums.Nobody can’t tell which one is the best.
But we have an idea for choose your own appropiate medium.This is a comparison between charcoal and coconut husk.This is my experience in Thailand.

These 2 pictures show the orchids that plant in different medium. I give it the same factors, except medium.

The first picture show the orchid that plant with charcoal.
The pseudobulbs are wrinked and not healthy.

This picture show the orchid that plant with coconut husk.
The pseudobulb are nice and plump.

Summarize

The coconut husk can keep the moisture more than the charcoal.
So the medium that appropiate for plant cattleya should have a good quality about keep the moisture. (However planting orchid is depend on many factors)

Terrestrial orchids

The most orchids that we usually know is epiphytic orchid but in nature we have another kind of orchid, It is terrestrial orchid. Someone told me that this kind of orchid is unattractive because they have small flowers but for me they have something fascinating and mysterious. I think if you know more about them you will love it.

Phaius tankervilleae

About terrestrial orchids

In the wild we can easily group orchids in two groups. First is epiphytic orchid, this group is generally grow on tree but sometime they can grow on rock or cliff too.

Second is terrestrial orchid, this group is generally grow in soil.

Most of terrestrial orchids have a growing season followed by a resting period. Some kind has pseudobulb or rhizome but the most kind that I know has bulb.

Eulophia quineensis

I can group terrestrial orchid in 2 groups (I group them by myself to make it easy to understand and take care)

1. Group of terrestrial orchid that lose their leaves and have only bulb resting in soil in the winter. They grow and create a new bulb again in the summer and you can see it spouting in the early rainy season. After spouting, if they are healthy and having appropriate factors, they will give you beautiful flowers. So this kind of orchid prefer to grow during the early rainy season.

2. Group of terrestrial orchid that do not lose their leaves in winter but slow their rate of growth during the winter period.

Spathoglottis eburnea

Growing terrestrial orchids

From my experience, the most important part of terrestrial orchid is a bulb.

So when you buy terrestrial orchid you should choose healthy-looking bulb or healthy-looking plants with signs of new growth.

I think terrestrial orchid is easy to grow you can plant them in ground or in a pot but the thing that you should know is appropriate light for most terrestrial orchid is about 60-70 percent shading and they need some water like other orchids.

Medium

You can plant them with well-drained soil or you can plant them with coconut husk chips or you can mix soil and coconut husk chips together with a little bit organic fertilizer .

Note: I try to plant them with sphagnum moss and I found that they can grow well in sphagnum moss but you have strict about watering and fertilizing and if they big enough you have to change the medium to soil or and coconut husk chips.

Clone your phalaenopsis by keiki paste

Keiki pronounced “kay-key”) is the Hawaiian word for “baby” or “child”, literally meaning “the little one”. In horticulture, it refers to a plant produced asexually by an orchid plant, usually used when referring to Dendrobium, Epidendrum (sensu latu), and Phalaenopsis orchids. The baby plant is an exact clone of the mother plant, sometimes flowering while still attached to the mother plant.

On a Phalaenopsis, a keiki is a small plant growing from one node along the flower stem. On a Dendrobium, the keiki is typically found sprouting along the length of the cane or from the end of the cane. This is induced by the accumulation of growth hormones at that point, either naturally, or by the application of keiki paste.

Hormone paste

Keiki paste is a cytokinin hormone which induces growth in the node of a Phalaenopsis inflorescence. It should not be confused with paste or powder containing auxins, which are used to force the production of roots.

Nodes on Phalaenopsis spikes will form either vegetative growth (keiki) or floral growth (a branch with flower buds). If the node tissue is already differentiated so that it will become a floral branch, there is no way to change the result. The trick is to get the paste onto the node before it is differentiated. However, there is no way to predict if an undifferentiated node will become a keiki or a floral branch.

Removing Keikis

If a new plant is desired, the keiki should be left on the mother plant until it develops a healthy root system and have two or three leaves(for a Phalaenopsis) or canes (Dendrobium). At this point, it can be carefully removed with a sharp knife and planted in its own pot.

Keikis are cut below and above the stem, leaving a small piece of stem on the baby plant.
A separated keiki can be expected to flower in approximately the same amount of time it would take for the cross or species to flower from a seedling. Some species orchids like Phal pulchra keiki frequently and flower while still attached to the mother plant.
If a new plant is not desired, the keiki can be removed at any time. Removing the entire inflorescence after flowering is complete can prevent the production of keikis and result in a “tidier” appearance for the plant.

Planting Cattleya orchid

Step 1

Cattlya seedling in 1.5″ pot.

Step 2

Preparing
- Larger pot ( 3″ is the best for the first repotting from 1.5″)
- Mediums (Coconut husk chips or bark)
- Foam chips (if you have)

Step 3

Carefully remove the seedling from the pot. The roots have been winding around the pot and there is very little room for the roots of the next growth season. The mediums is not particularly broken down but this orchid needs a larger pot or the new pseudobulbs will grow outside the pot. We will repot with fresh mediums because we do not reuse old mediums.

Step 4

Put the foam chips to the base of the pot.

Step 5

Put the seedling into the pot with the coconut husk chips or bark ,make sure to compact is very well to hold the plant in position once you let go and that all the roots are in the compost.

Meristem or Tissue culture

Meristem culture is done under laboratory conditions as extreme cleanliness and sterility are required otherwise all attempts will fail. This is a highly skilful and scientific method of propagation where the very growing centre of a new growth bud is taken and grown on by agitating constantly in a special nutrient rich liquid until the cell mass is large enough to be split in to small sections these are then either grown on in to plants or the process is repeated to produce even more tissue for growing on.

This method is often used to mass produce a specific hybrid for commercial purposes. Meristem tissue culture is not really suitable for attempting at home as the sterility usually can’t be achieved, you can of course buy flasks of the finished tissue cultures for growing on but this process will take between 3 and 5 years to get a flowering size plant.

Seed

Again this is a technique better suited to laboratory conditions as absolute sterility is needed for success. Orchid seed is almost like dust and unlike ordinary seed which has a starchy food within it to sustain the growing seedling, orchid seed has none and so special techniques are required to sustain it during the formative early stages of its development.

Keiki

Some species, as some Phalaenopsis , Dendrobium and Vanda , produce offshoots or plantlets formed from one of the nodes along the stem , through the accumulation of growth hormones at that point. These shoots are known as keiki, a keiki is a small plant that grows on a node along the flower spike where under normal circumstances a new branch would develop.

Remove a keiki when it has total of at least 4 inches of root showing. Break it off or cut carefully with a sterile blade, spray with Physan and pot it normally.