help mom of 7 PLEASE

[maOF7]

Can anyone tell me how to plant babies. Separating them, and planting them for the first time. I have two trays with over 200 orchids that seem to be choking eachother out. Please help Mom of 7 trying a new venture.

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

If you are new to orchids, why are you starting with 200 baby orchids? What family are they and how big are they? I can only guess that 2.5" pots would be right. Also, be sure to use dispoable gloves to tease the plants apart, as you will want to do the least damage to the roots as possible when you separate them and you don't want to transfer virus from your hands from handling other plants along the way. Separating the roots will cause open wounds for sure, and that is when any orchid is vulnerable to virus. Cynthia, Prescott, AZ

[jerrymeola]

It brings back memories. I assume you bought a couple of plug trays with the hope of growing them to make a profit. I started that way, but quickly learned it was harder than it looked.

I assume you bought 98 plug trays. These should yield you 170-180 good plants. You will find some dead plants mixed in the center.

I would guess you bought dendrobiums since very few growers use trays this small for cattelyas. (I do not know anyone who grows anything other than dens and cats in plug trays for resale) Also from the discription of chocking each other, it sounds like a standard overgrown dendrobium tray.

Cynthia's advice is ok for a hobbist with a few plants but will bankrupt you with work if you are trying to do it commercially.

It may not look like it but the plants can live in those trays for a long time. The grower has thousands of more trays and he is not about to repot them.

I bought some this time last year and repurchased more this year. They were the same seed batch unsold for a year and still in the same small trays. The plants were 8-10 inches tall in one inch plugs. Last year they were 4-5 inches tall.

I got mine (800) four weeks ago and many are still not potted. Some have been removed from the trays and have been in a water hormone bath since that time (for all those who are afraid of rooting rots from too much water). I recommend that you soak all young plants for at least 24-48 hours in rooting hormone, I like Super Thrive. I know growers that keep them in trays unpotted for months at a time. I keep a percentage that way for up to three months, taking them to shows in the trays.

Removing the plants from the trays is brut force pulling them out. It will rip many roots, actually I throw away more roots than I keep. You can rip the plastic tray from top to bottom to remove some with less stress, but the roots growing around the outside of the tray can not be saved. Even if you could unravel them, roots should not be any longer than 2/3 the depth of the pot and some of mine were 30 inches. If some are that long, then cut them shorter. Twisted and burried in a pot they will rot.

You see I am not concerned about sterile conditions or cut and broken roots. It is just not economical in quantity.

Pot size if you have the space can be a 3 1/2 or 4 inch pot. Most plug trays are grown to finish in this pot size. Potting medium is whatever you like. I have used bark and hydroponic rock and both worked equally well.

You obviously have to use plastic for cost reasons. You will have a hard time finding less than a full case of 1000-1400. You will also need carrying trays to hold them and prevent tipping over.

Plan on holding them one year before they will flower. Under ideal conditions dendrobiums can be grown from seed to flower in 18 months. Removing them from a plug tray when they are overgrown will set flowering back about 6 months, putting you into winter and no flowers. Mine from last year are just starting to flower this month. Although this years plants are just as big as last years that are blooming, I do not really expect fowers this year. Several are in bloom in the trays but once removed they do not flower again for at least 6-8 months.

For some commercial advice you will quickly learn that customers like a big selection from which to chose. I take on average 20 different species of cattleyas this size - 6-10 dendrobiums - and another 10 species of larger 2 1/2 inch pots to every sale I attend, even weekly farmer's markets. I find I also need two tables of full size orchids in bloom to attract attention. Less then this people just walk on by. If you are comparing prices to those you see on the internet expect to get less than half that amount. You will find the prices to be much more competative then you might think. To get a full markup you have to be giving the customer addition value in information, variety etc.

They want to know exactly how the plant will look, preferably in bloom or ar least from a photo, how large are the flowers, do they have fragrance, how often a year do they bloom, and all the general advice - what growing medium, how often to water, what fertilizer, how to keep them from falling over and a hundred more questions. It gets tireing to give the same answers 50 times a day.

I am not being discouraging since I did the same thing and stayed with it. but there are no shortcuts and a lot of work.

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

Hi Jerry. Well, perhaps this explains why I am getting so many virused plants from big name growers. It's very discouraging. I was at Home Depot yesterday and was on the borderline of buying a Miltoniopsis with a great waterfall pattern. But, after having carried the plant in my basket for a half hour, I finally put it back. The tilting cause was that the last orchid I bought from them, grown by the same nursery, came back with a positive virus result. The previous experience was only a minor influence, but enough to tip the balance in this case. Most vendors don't want to admit that their plants could have been virused, so they look for other excuses. Since I am not a pushy person, I let it ride, but it does effect how I will buy from them in the future. The one vendor that instantly made good on his product has inspired me to give the plant another more thorough test on the next virus testing go round. Cynthia

[marco5011]

Do viruses become a true issue when you get above a rather large number of plants or are they as dangerous owning, lets say, some 20-30 orchids of different species? From a statistical point of view I mean.
I imagine that,no matter what, if you are unlucky you might own just a single plant that is virused.

[Orchid_lady]

Who can test your orchid to see if they have a virus? Is it expensive? How does the procedure go?

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

I get my testing done at Critter Creek Labs. http://crittercreeklab.s5.com/ It runs around $5 and their web site describes the steps to follow in preparing the samples. I have a very old collection that has had some wrong things done to it years ago. I am getting a positive rate of about 25%, with the oldest plants running at over 50%. What is disturbing is that many of the mature plants I have bought recently have been virused, maybe 5 to 10%? its hard to say because I have not tested all plants purchased recently. I was concentrating on the older and more suspect plants. I also have many plants that are seedlings, or bareroot and just getting established, and there isn't enough leaf area available for testing yet. But, always treat your plants as tho they are virused when repotting and doing any cutting. Carelessness here can spread virus from one infected plant to the many originally clean plants. But, remember that it takes an open wound in the receiving plant to allow infection, so the chance of transfering virus from plant to plant isn't all that high if you are carefull about sterilizing your cutting tools, watch the finger nail stabs, and keep your bare hands out of the roots when repotting. Cynthia, Prescott, AZ

[maOF7]

MAHALO NUI LOA! (Thank you) Your responses are all greatly appreciated!

[jerrymeola]

One reason for the increase in virus transmittal is from the wide spread use of cloning. A cloned plant will transfer the virus to every offspring.

Evolution is a wonderful thing. Two virus parents can reproduce by seed and the seed offspring will be virus free. Something over the ages has allowed a genetic feature that filters out the virus.

maOF7 you will probably see that your plants are labeled 'something x something' which shows that it is a seed crossing rather than a mericlone. Since it is seed it is virus free from breeding. Viruses can also be spread after breeding through handling.

The alternative is that when you buy a plant by name it should indicate a mericlone rather than a seed crossing. This is not done consistently thought. An awarded plant should only use the designation when it is a clone since the award went to the original plant not some future crossing of the same seed crossing, but different parent plants.

If the virus is serius resulting in deformed fowers or plants, they are destroyed because they are unsellable. If the plant is beautiful the virus is unimportant and not something I am concerned about.

If I was mericloning plants I would worry about it before spending 10s of thousands of dollars and 6-8 years growing a cattleya only to have to send them all to the compose pile because they were deformed.

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

As I understand it, there really is a problem with seed grown plants. Virus is not transmitted when the seed pod is allowed to mature and start to open. Then the virus free seed separates itself from the virused tissue of the pod. BUT, it appears that the MOST common way people are using the pod is to remove it from the plant a little early, before it splits. Then the lab only has to steriize the outside of the pod, and the seeds are removed from the pod as a paste which incorporates a lot of the virused tissue from the pod. This is called 'green pod culture' and I don't know what the percentage of infection is in such a case, but I assume it is high, as this is never used for known virused pod parents. There are even tables for each plant family and some individual species for how long to leave the pod on the parent for green pod culture. Now, this is my understanding, but someone can correct me if I have a few bits of this not exactly right. Cynthia, Prescott, AZ