First Orchid "Seeds"?

[mayres]

Back in the middle of August I had a paph flower fall off the stalk a little prematurely and was somewhat intrigued by the whole incident. I wondered if the resulting "pod" might have been self fertilized since all previous paphs have just slowly "died on the vine" so-to-speak over several days, instead of dropping like a green leaf onto the shelf? It stayed nice and green for over three months and then mid december slowly started turning slightly browner. Finally today I noticed it was starting to split open. I took the pod off the plant and looked at it under a magnifying glass and it appeared to be shooting out tiny (dare I say "seeds?") fragments. I cut it open all the way and thousands of teeny tiny specs poured out - almost too small to see individually if not spread onto white paper. Might these be indeed viable seeds? If so, would anyone who flasks seeds be interested in these? It would be a self (Paph Supersuk “Eureka” AM/AOS X paph Raisin Pie “Hsinying”) X SIB

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

I always thought sib was for sibling, which usually means brother or sister in humans, but I think it means another member of the species, but I am not sure.

[mayres]

Cynthia - that sounds reasonable. I was just indicating what the tag says - which was the sibling cross. With your reasoning I assume MY tag (seeds) would be ((Paph Supersuk “Eureka” AM/AOS X paph Raisin Pie “Hsinying”) X SIB) X Self) ??? mike

[janet_a]

look like seeds to me. don't sneeze.

or inhale.

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

Well, that sure does look like it is pretty close to a self of a self, even if that SIB means crossed with another member of the same seed pod/cross. I understand that the reason people use greenpod culture so much, is that there is little or no contamination of the seed from the environment. If you have ever seen an electron microscope view of orchid seed, you would under stand the problem with contamination. The covering around the seeds is like a net. Things can get into the net, and sometimes the strilizing liquid they use does not manage to penetrate all the seed coverings, and there is a higher than normal rate of contamination with dry seed. This is from my reading, not my experience.

[Ellen]

For orchids, "sib" (sibling) means exactly the same thing it does for humans - two offspring of the same parents, in this case the pod parent and the pollen parent. However, for orchids, these can be one and the same if the plant is self fertilized as yours probably was. So your designation for the offspring of your plant's spontaneous pollination would be correct, assuming that you had no other paphs blooming at the time. If you did, the pollen could have come from any of them via an insect pollinator, and the pollen parent would be unknown. It looks like you've got seed, so you could try the bark propagation method that's been discussed here in the forum. I'd be curious to know if anyone can get it to work.

[janet_a]

i always figured if i ever had a seed pod i'd just let it dehisc into a plastic baggie containing damp sphag (some of which was pulled from existing pots to hopefully get some of the mychoryzawhatsis fungus on it) and leave it in indirect light for a year and see if anything would happen.

i don't remember if i've told this story before, but al down in leesburg had a peristylis elata (sp?) dehisc in the greehouse in front of a fan; 18 mos later he had baby orchids growing out of everything: potted orchids, orchids in baskets, bark, sphag, the gravel walkways..... so it can't be that hard.

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

That sounds like a heck of a lot more fun than sending the pod out and having to deal with the post partum shock these babies have when they come out of the flask.

There was an article about some spilled seed onto moss covered benches, where the plantlets on the bench grew much more vigorously than the plantlets in flask from the same seed pod. Not only did the flask plants grow slower while in the flask, but they grew much more slow for the first 2 or 3 years out of the flask than the equivalently sized plants on the bench. Needless to say, the bench plants bloomed long before the flask plants. Wish I had moss growing on the wooden parts of my benches, but my humidity is too low in my GH to support it. Can't grow Spanish moss either.

[atcrosby]

It just goes to say that natural methods are usually best !!

[Orcacr]

Hi Mayres
I flask orchids and I would love to have the seeds and if anything somes of them I will be glad to send you plenty of plants--I have a complete lab and have 100 of orchids in flasks--give me a private message--Norm

[kmarch]

Cynthia you are correct sib means it was crossed with a sibling, a "brother" or "sister" from the same seed pod. These are called "sibling crosses"

Mayers, if your Paph did self polinate it would be Paph Whatever x self. These are called "selfings".

Both sibling crosses and selfings can be done with both species and hybrid orchids. In species orchids it is frequently done to improve the species for future hybridizing.

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by atcrosby

It just goes to say that natural methods are usually best !!

I think it depends on ones definition of "best." In nature an orchid pod pumps out a million or so seeds which will result in maybe 3-5 plants. In the lab, maybe 100 or so seeds will be flasked and you'll end up with probably 50-75 seedlings. So if we're talking numbers the natural method can't compare to the lab.

If "best" means vigor, that's maybe a different story. It does seem that the plants acclimate to perfect sterile conditions found in a flask and then struggle when they're removed with some dying off. In nature of course these weaker seedlings would never make it this far to begin with and would either fail to germinate or would die off very quickly. I am often told that when I deflask I should get the seedlings into conditions as near as possible to what they'd have as an adult (within reason of course given standard seedling care) to harden them off. This does seem to make a difference, at least with Paphs.

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by mayres

Cynthia - that sounds reasonable. I was just indicating what the tag says - which was the sibling cross. With your reasoning I assume MY tag (seeds) would be ((Paph Supersuk “Eureka” AM/AOS X paph Raisin Pie “Hsinying”) X SIB) X Self) ??? mike

Mike,

Capitan nomenclature to the rescue! Able to simplify complex names in a single bound!

Your cross has been registered and named. It is Paph Hsinying Alien. So, if you get any seedlings from your pod they will be Paph Hsinying Alien x self.

In hybridizing, a selfing of a hybrid is the same as the hybrid parent so you would also be correct in simply labeling all of the seedlings Paph Hsinying Alien. It depends on how particular you want to be.

Cheers!

[mayres]

Excellent! Nice to have someone on the forum who specializes in some of the important details! Thanks for the info......