Cross breeding

[tom499]

I was bored last weekend, so i thought i'd have a go at this fertilisation lark

i took two of my phals, both in flower, and by following diagrams on the net used some tweezers to remove the pollen and place it on the other plant where the stigma (or something hehe)is meant to be. The purple flower has shown little change, but the yellow phal, which flowered quite recently is changing, the flowers are starting to close up.

im therefore hoping its been fertilised and i will get some seeds? i think.

I'll post pictures of the phals i used.





oh and this is my miltonia which im over the moon about

[kmarch]

Have you lined up a flasker for when the seed pods are mature enough? Usually they take the pod while it is still a bit (but i dont' know exactly how much) green and remove and flask the seeds. The pods can mature quite fast sometimes. I pollinated two Phrags once and was stunned by how fast the pods matured. Before I was prepared, they popped and I had seed-dust all over....and obtained no offspring from the cross.

[tom499]

ermm flask? i have no real orchid equipment, i was banking on throwing them in a clear plastic bag with some damp moss and maybe bit of fertilised and sugary solution. i may have a month though till i need to do anything, any cheap basic equipment i could get?

[fred]

tom
the pics are awesome
its nice to see that you are trying somthing new with orchid growing.
I hope thar all the members help you out with this.
I get a friend of mine to do all that sort of stuff.
Please keep us updated.

[tom499]

thanks for your support fred

i need to find out the species of the two flowers i used also

but i think i can get links from that other site you gave me IF i manage to get seeds, and IF i can get them to grow into plants and IF i can get them to flower, will i have created a new hyrbrid? or will it be an already known one? I'm quite interetested in the scientific genetics side of plants, something i would like to study at university.

[fred]

I think that you may have your own Hyrbird there tom.
That is very interesting now tom as getting your hyrbird plant recognized is another chalange.
It would be nice if you could get one of your hyrbirds to flower and have that plant awarded.
i will also see what I can find out about the for other two Pally,s.

[fred]

that just may be your yellow tom

http://www.orchidsonline.com.au/interactive/node/4332


Another link with heaps of pics tom

http://www.phals.net/Species.html

[tom499]

i never realised how many different species and varities there could be
truly more than a life times work to collect the species of just one type

[jerrymeola]

Tom

Not to discourage you but seeds from an orchid need to be grown in a sterile environment. Flasks with an agar mixture is used and the seeds need to be removed in a sterile condition when putting them into the flasks.

You can buy flasks and agar, and even build a homemade sterile box, but realize that the plants will remain in the flasks for as much as 18 months just to get to over a half inch. Phals grow faster than most but figure on 4 years to flower. Hybridizing is not a fast business. Cattleya take 5-7 years, Paphs 8-9 years.

What Kmarch was suggesting is that most people try to find someone geared to flasking to do it for you. There are some people on the INTERNET that will do it for a percentage of the seeds, but I doubt they would be interested in Phal hybrids, there are just too hybrid Phals