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Old 03-02-2007, 12:10 PM
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Ellen Ellen is offline
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Go to Troy Meyers' website (http://www.troymeyers.com/) and read his instructions on deflasking orchids. I don't know how long you've been growing those flasks, but it looks like some of the plants are deteriorating and a few are dominating. The flask on the left of the photo looks particularly bad. You will probably lose quite a few plants (the small, weak and dying) when you deflask, so be ready for some attrition. Since the plants are in flasks, If you are able to remove the lids or stoppers, do so a day or two before you remove the plants from the flask to allow the plants to acclimate a little bit to the outside air. If you can't get the lids off and have to break the glass, just wrap the whole thing in plenty of newspapers and smash it with a hammer. Then you can put the baby plants in a container and wash them with lukewarm water to remove the agar and little pieces of broken glass. Before you start the compotting process a la Troy Meyers, make sure you have everything ready, and a clean surface to work on (newspapers work well). Troy suggests adding fertilizer to the potting medium, but I don't do that. I think it promotes mold growth. Once you have prepared the compots, put them in a plastic tub or other container that you can cover with plastic wrap. Keep them in a fairly warm place with intermediate light, mostly covered, for a week or so, removing the plastic wrap for a little longer each day until they are weaned from the high humidity environment. Keep the compots together in the tub and monitor them closely until you see new roots growing, then they can go to wherever you keep your other orchids.
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