Seed advice please?

[Kevin]

Hi all,

I hope you had a great festive period and new year.

I have now sucessfully produced Pleione seed and managed to germinate the seed in petri dishes. As part of the plating of the seed I sealed the dishes with lab sealing film.
I have however found that the sealed petri dishes accumulate a large amount of condensation on the inside of the lids. Having only grown them at room temp unitl now I guessed that the difference in temperature was the culprate. I've since bought a thermostatically controlled propogator which I assumed would solve the problem of the fluctuation in temp.
This hasn't solved the issue.

Some advice would be of great help.
Regards,
Kevin

[Neil]

Kevin

Its nothing to worry about, all of my petri dishes do it to a certain extent.  There is only so much condensation that can form on the lid of the dish before it will drop back down onto the agar and be reabsorbed by it. 

One way to stop its is to turn the petri dish upside down so that the agar would be on the top, this only works if you have not got to much water floating on the agar when you put the seeds into the petri dish. 

[Kevin]

Hi Neil,

Thanks for your advice. I'll not worry too much about the moisture then. I'll try placing the next dishes in upside down as you suggest and see how that goes.

Regards, kevin

[Paul Cumbleton]

Hi Kevin,
I used honey jars for sowing and these often had condensation too. But it never seemed to bother the seedlings in any way. As the jars were sterile, the moisture didn't encourage fungal growth. I would just ignore it. Good luck with the growing-on.

Paul

[Kevin]

Thanks Paul.

I have my fingers crossed!

[François Lambert]

condensation happens with bottom heat because in this case the top is cooler than the bottom.  So, applying top heat can reduce or even stop this condensation.  However, as I read above it does not harm in any way to have this condensation.  The only positive aspect of avoiding this condensation is that light gets better through the top.

[karel_t]

As Paul I use the honey jars with transparent lids, however with micro-ventilation on the lid. Several years ago I didn't use micro-ventilation and sometime I had a problem with vitrifications. Condensation in jars with micro-ventilation doesn't cause any problems.
K.

[Kevin]

Thanks for all of the useful advice!

I'm trying some of the plates upside down for now- no condensation after 5 days! We'll see how the seeds do longer term.

Regards,
Kevin