Terrestrial Orchids 2019

[Roma]

It must be 3 years since I last checked up on this colony of Goodyera repens, creeping ladies' tresses.  It is quite close to my house but the wood was thinned two years ago and lying branches, small logs and trenches from the heavy tree harvester made access a little difficult.  I made the effort a couple of days ago and was pleased to see there are a few patches of flowering plants.  The area they are growing in is close to the edge of the wood so they did not get run over and the pine trees they are under were not removed.  I was able to exit on to the road avoiding the deep ditch hiding in the long grass.







I also spotted this lone Dactylorhyza maculata

 

[Yann]

excellent to see this species so close to your house

[Gabriela]

Yes, nice indeed to have so many Goodyera close by. They are flowering early, by Canadian standards

One orchid from me; quite common in some areas and not a stranger to Europe as well, but to show it growing in alvars habitat - Spiranthes romanzoffiana.

[ebbie]

Spiranthes cernua, a late-blooming bog orchid.

[Anders]

Roma, nice G. repens colony. It was found the first time in Denmark in 1878, when there was almost no forest in Denmark. It has become more common since then in old pine plantations, but it is still rare. I germinated G. repens seeds about 10 years ago, they are very easy to propagate in vitro. They flowered once in the garden, and then the the slugs ate all of them. Thanks to Gabriela, I now have G. oblongifolia  in my flasks. I plan to keep some in the greenhouse, where the slugs can be controlled. S . cernua is also easy in vitro. I deflasked them four years ago, and they have flowered in the garden every year as the last orchids , I took the photo today.

[brianw]

Calanthe.
Like Gail earlier this year I was seduced by some garden center pots; especially as they were £20 reduced to £5 in the winter sale ;-) My plants (3) all have 4 or 5 side growths and passable but tired, green leaves. Almost all side growths have new shoots at soil level. Any recommendations in what to do when. Compost I can deal with but division or pot on, and when I am new to. They will be grown under glass, frost free or not, for the time being at least. Thank you.
Not often I have a GC till receipt that says £25 with £52 discount ;-)

[Gail]

Calanthe.
Like Gail earlier this year I was seduced by some garden center pots; especially as they were £20 reduced to £5 in the winter sale ;-) My plants (3) all have 4 or 5 side growths and passable but tired, green leaves. Almost all side growths have new shoots at soil level. Any recommendations in what to do when. Compost I can deal with but division or pot on, and when I am new to. They will be grown under glass, frost free or not, for the time being at least. Thank you.
Not often I have a GC till receipt that says £25 with £52 discount ;-)

Sounds a bargain!
The potful I showed earlier I wasn't sure what to do with so I took a knife to it and divided into 5 pieces, while in full flower...
Somewhat to my astonishment all survived and are still in leaf (as you say passable but tired, green leaves). One division was given to a neighbour, one planted in the bed I pictured and the others remain in pots and have new shoots. I hope they are winter hardy because it seems a very good plant!

[Jan Jeddeloh]

Anders,
Those are some impressive Goodyera orchids you have there.  What medium did you use?  I've been to your website http://www.invitroorchids.dk/en_index.html and looked at the media recipe you list.  Is this what's been successful for all your orchid seed sowing ventures?  Anything it's not successful on? I've also been growing orchids from seed but I've been using specialized media for some.

Here's what I've used:
Bletilla- 1/2 MS salts, 20 gr sugar
Dactylorhiza- Malmgren Modified Terrestrial Orchid media (Phytotech Labs), 20 gr sugar
Pleione-Orchid seed sowing media P668 (Phytotech Labs), 20 gr sugar
Gelzan 2-3 gr per liter
Ph adjusted to 5.6-6.2

Based on your results it looks like dacts should do fine on the 1/2  MS salts. I have some fresh pleione seed (Golden Gate x Tonogiro) that I'll try on the same media.  I'd like to avoid specialized media if I can.  Following the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principle is a good idea in most ventures. 

My most recent seed sowing ventures involved dry seed because I got lazy and didn't harvest the pods in time.  I must say I strongly prefer the green pod method.  It's a lot less work.

Have you ever considered building a simple transfer box so you don't have to work over a steaming kettle?  I have a homemade one I sterilize with alcohol before use and then use alcohol and an alcohol burner (Bunsen burner) to sterilize the tools.  I also do plant tissue culture on lilies and trillium and this set up works great so that too.  Considering we (my friend and I ) don't have a HEPA filter we really don't have much contamination. 

I'd love to hear more about all the orchids you've germinated.

Jan Jeddeloh, Portland, Oregon, USA  More or less zone 8

[Anders]

Hi Jan

Yes, I use the simple liquid fertiliser medium for all  terrestrial orchids, but slightly more concentrated (3 mL/L) than described on the homepage. Yes, I know, I haven't updated my homepage for years, but this spring....(hopefully). My medium is as simple as possible and only have ingredients that you can buy at any supermarket or from Amazon. I started out with a more complex recipe, but have gradually made it more simple as there seems to be little or no effect of compounds such as myo-inositol, adenine, peptone, and pure lab-grade mineral nutrients vs. a general liquid fertiliser for pot plants. If the protocorms show browning on the fertiliser medium, I sometimes also use a glycine medium with inorganic nitrogen inspired by Malmgren's media. I think that any general plant tissue medium could be used as long as it is not too concentrated, 1/2 MS is probably in the upper end, I would suggest 1/3 MS or less. Agar quality is important, I use the brand SpecialIngredients obtained from amazon.co.uk. Food agar from Asian shops is sometimes low-quality and toxic for the protocorms. If you use professional agar substitutes such as Gelzan (gellan gum), you don't have to worry about quality, but Gelzan requires a rather high concentration of magnesium and/or calcium to solidify and probably wouldn't work with my recipes unless you add 4-5 g/L.

And yes, I have a sterile transfer box, actually, I haven't used the steaming frying pan method for more than 15 years. I have written a short instruction on how to build a very cheap HEPA-filter transfer box (sterile cabinet) based on the same principles as the professional version.
http://invitroorchids.dk/pdf/7sterilecabinet.pdf

At the moment, I have flasks with various Cypripedium, Pleione, Dactylorhiza, Bletilla, Anacamptis, Serapias Goodyera and Thelymitras (thanks to Steve G for many of the seeds). I have only had limited success with American Plantanthera, but that is probably mostly a question of using the green pod method instead of mature seeds, the problem is that I don't have a source of green pods or fresh seeds. Epipactis is also impossible from mature seeds, and only a few seeds have germinated from green pods. And then there is Dactylorhiza sambucina. They germinate well, but then turn brown and die. I have tried many different seed batches with the same poor result.

Do you have a homepage about your orchids, lilies and trillium?

Anders

Fertlizer medium, per litre:
Liquid mineral fertilizer for indoor plants    3 ml
Potato                                                    25 g
Fresh orange juice                                  25 ml
Sucrose (table sugar)                              12 g
Agar                                                        6 g
pH                                                          6.8sorry, should be  5.8

Glycine medium, per litre:
CaCl2 - 2H20                50 mg
K2HPO4                      100 mg
MgSO4 - 7H2O              50 mg
FeSO4 - 7H2O               20 mg
MnSO4 - 1H2O              10 mg
Glycine                       700 mg
Potato (blended)           25 g
Fresh orange juice        25 ml
Sucrose (table sugar)   12 g
Agar                             6 g
pH                               6.8

[Anders]

Oh no! Wrong pH - should have been 5.8, NOT 6.8. Sorry.

Anders

[Jan Jeddeloh]

That's a pretty fancy transfer box you have there Anders.  How do you sterilize your tools?  I don't see a Bunsen burner in your equipment.  I'd like to get away from using one but the bead sterilizers are really expensive.  Like you I'm into cheap and easy.

Have you ever tried sowing seeds on media that did not contain potato and orange juice?  I wonder if they're absolutely necessary.  Again looking for the simplest way possible. 

I was going thru my seed stash last night and I have all kind of dactylorhize and bletilla seed to try.  The weather is cold and nasty outside so this will give me something to do inside.  Some of my seed is quite old but it's been stored in the fridge so could still be viable.  I also have some plantathera and epipactis seed.  Sounds like I might as well pitch the epipactis seed based on your experience. 

No I don't have a website.  I've thought about starting one but it seems like it's a lot of work to keep one up.

Jan

[Neil]

Jan I sterilise all my tools in a pressure cooker 15psi for 20 minutes, before transferring them to the clean area.

[Anders]

Jan, I sterilise my tools by dipping in ethanol and the setting them om fire with a lighter. Very simple and standard procedure in microbiology labs. I do this every time I open a new flask to avoid crosscontamination. I flame them inside my transfer box, but you might also do it outside the box right before use. You can see the ethanol beaker to the right in the transfer box (actually a slender olive jar placed in a jam jar so it doesn't tip over - you don't want burning ethanol all over the transfer box!!).

Potato and orange juice is a simple way of adding hormones, vitamins, trace elements and buffer capacity. I am sure you could germinate many species on a purely inorganic medium like 1/2MS or Knudson C. I haven't tried myself, but there are many examples in the scientific literature. 

Anders