Orchids

Dactylorhiza tubers

Got up early this morning to try to pot up the remaining Dacts I had sowed last year. Their root tubers were well developed, on the whole about 25 - 35mm long with some 50 - 70mm and some tiny ones which don't seem to have grown at all. I potted them up in the sylvamix - seramis - grit mix, and added rootgrow to some (mainly because I ran out, but it will allow some comparison at least).

Asymbiotic seed sowing failures

I will be having a big seed sowing session next week and prior to this i thought I should check flasks I had sowed earlier in the year which had not germinated yet, and the batch of medium I had made ahead of the next sowing. Both had been in the fridges at home and at work for a couple of weeks. 

One of the pots at work had some mould growing inside, which surprised me since i had sowed it in March and it had not shown any signs. I was worried that maybe all of them woudl be, and that rechilling woudl release a plague of spores on my poorly sterilised flasks. It turned out that this was not the case and only one of my recent pre sowing flasks was similarly affected, so 2 jars out about 20, or 10%, which I think is reasonable although not great...so far. More may emerge later. I am still surprised by this long incubation period. 

The little while flecks are patches of mould. The flask on the left is an Anacamptis laxiflora sowing from March. The other is a blank flask from a couple of weeks ago. 

I was even more surprised when two other jars from the back of the fridge were pulled out partially frozen. They had been touching the back wall which may explain it but I am now worried that that fridge is just far too cold. I'm going to have to get some thermometers.

Ice crystals in the flasks. The one on the right is an Ophrys apifera flask the other is just medium. I will try the O apifera and see what happens, the other i will dispose of and start again, along with the two infected flasks. 

At the same time I examined the cardboard seed sowing method experiment - no sign of any development there either. 

Thank god I have a load of Dacts to sow - they'll keep me entertained over winter!