I had another orchid seed sowing session today. I sowed the remaining Anacamptis pyramidalis seed in a flask of oats medium (I had to autoclave this twice due to leaving the parafilm on, hopefully this won't have damaged it). I reduced the bleach concentration to 5% (0.5% NaCl) in line with Svante Malmgren's recommendation, both for the A p and for the Himantoglossum hircinum which I sowed in an asymbiotic medium in two pflasks - the large seed allowed a lot of the excess water to be syringed off. I also sowed one flask of Ophrys sphegodes and five of O. apifera, again asymbiotically.
Thr best moment of the day came when I checked the asymbiotic flasks I had sown in early February. In contrast to the Dacts I sowed in 2011, these showed no signs of germinating quickly. This is generally the case when using the asymbiotic method but I was starting to worry that to had not sterilised the seed correctly (too much or too little bleach, for the wrong amount of time and/or not well enough rinsed). This may be the case but one of the Anacamptis laxifolia flasks appears to show signs of germination, which gives me hope for the others!
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