The little orchids continue to grow. Today I decided to "replate" the protocorms. They originally started in a sealed jar containing a germinating medium. This medium has a fairly low level of nutrients, and the idea is to move the developing plants to something a little stronger when they are able to tolerate it.

Also, because the jar was sealed, eventually the air in the jar would become too unbalanced for the plants to survive. The new jars have a lid with an 1/8" hole. The hole is plugged with cotton, and the cotton is saturated with copper sulfate. This should be sufficiently germicidal to keep the interior of the jars sterile. We shall see.

One last reason to do the replate: as the protocorms grow, the jar becomes too crowded. Even though I thought I started with a reasonable amount of seed, I had way more seeds germinate than could continue to grow in a single jar.

So, I once again set up a fish tank on its side, sprayed calcium hypochlorite, and moved the protocorms to the new media. Even after spreading the protocorms over 5 jars, I had a bunch left over. So, here are a few photos of the protocorms. Sorry to say that they don't look like much at this stage.

However, they are photographed on a piece of tissue, so you can get an idea of how small they are by how magnified the tissue looks.

A few years ago, I started testing my orchids for viruses. One phal tested positive, so I decided to try setting seed, because I've read that viruses are not transmitted via mature seeds.

So now I have orchid seeds, and a bunch of chemicals to germinate them. And so, here are a few thousand of my new orchids.

This first photo shows some of the smallest orchid plants you will ever see. The round green ones are embryos that have just germinated. The white ones are seeds that did not, for one reason or another, survive.


These seeds are growing on a sterile agar medium. I mixed up the medium, and put it in a pressure cooker for 1/2 hour to sterilize. The seed surfaces also have to be sterilized, to remove fungus and bacteria on the exterior of the seeds, but without killing the seeds themselves.

This is done by soaking the seeds in calcium hypochlorite. The seeds then must be rinsed in sterile water. This is tricky, because they are much smaller and lighter than grains of sand.

The seeds are then added to the sterile agar, without re-contaminating anything. I did this in a fish-tank turned on its side, liberally sprayed with more of the calcium hypochlorite. My work bench was covered with industrial polyethylene - also liberally sprayed. And yes, the basement reeked of chlorine for a little while.

This next photo shows the mason jars containing the seeds and agar. You obviously cannot see the seeds at this scale. I did a total of four jars. Two grew something altogether unlike orchids. Maintaining perfect sterility is hard...


And lastly, this photo shows a few of the trendy new chemicals I bought to make up the agar. I've spared you pictures of the beakers, flasks, hypodermics, etc. used in the process.


After the embryos spend a month or two in these jars, they will become "protocorms". These must then be thinned out, and transferred to fresh sterile "replate medium".

Several months after that, they should have actual roots and leaves, and should be strong enough to be grown in regular pots, in the open. At least, that is the plan...

Practical microbiology. Fun, fun, fun.