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.