adventures in deflasking!

[tangers40]

oh man, did i win the mail lottery today or what?!



i had won 2 flasks off ebay, and they both showed up today.



oh no! scrambled plants! fortunately i had time tonight to repot everybody. the short fat flask is Den. antennatum, and the two taller ones (i only bought one, the seller threw the second in for free!) are L. aurea.

repotting actually wasn't as hard as i was fearing. the worst part was having to break the glass (laelia) flasks and picking thru pieces of glass to get the plants out. the dens were a piece of cake...and i can't believe how many plants i got out of that thing.



these are the dens after repotting. 8 pots full. 6 2.5" pots with between 2 and 4 plants (depending on size) and 2 3.5" pots with the smallest babies. but every single plant in this flask was ridiculously robust and healthy and ROOTY. goodness. massive roots on all of them. was very impressed.



and here's the laelias. didn't get nearly as many plants out of these since most were way too small to pot up. but there was one plant big enough for its own pot and a couple others that got put into small compots. mangled a few leaves on these when i broke the glass to get them out, but i'm hoping it won't bother them too much.

all in all, it wasn't half bad. we'll see how my growing skills are, however, and see how many of these babies survive. who knows, i may have killed them all by next week.

[Ron]

mangled a few leaves on these when i broke the glass to get them out, but i'm hoping it won't bother them too much

Looks like a nice buy, one point I would like to make for future refeerence is not to smash the bottles with the plants in them. the leaves often get broken or badly bruised.
Leading on too other problems.
If you are going to do any more, invest in a Stainless Steel rod about 12 inches long and about 1 quarter of an inch thick. sharpen one end to a rough point. cost maybe US2 or less
I insert this into the bottom corner of the bottles, hit the other end with a piece of wood and the bottom should break away, sometimes you may have to move the rod around to another spot and have another go, if it just punches a small hole in the bottom.
Then the plants gently fall out without any bruising.
I always Fungarid mine as a safety measure, other do not, up to you .
best of luck
Ron

[Brooke]

They look great!

Brooke

[rcb]

I agree they look great.

I saw those on ebay as well. Think you will love the aurea, it's a good one.

[orchids4me]

Oh Tangers!!!!
They look great!!!!!
Good job compoting too : )
Keep us updated on their progress
Thanks for sharing them
Emmaye

[orchidea]

Wow Tang, that's exiting!!!!!
They look great!
I am first in line to have one of your antennatums......as I lost mine...
My Paph appletonianum deflasked seedlings are doing OK still, so maybe we can trade.....
Best of luck with them!!!!!

[mayres]

Thanks for sharing. These shared experiences give others the nerve to adventure out into new horizons too! Good job.....

[Izzie]

Good luck! How exciting, I haven't had the means or the bravery to try from flask yet.
Are they Laelias L. rubescens var aurea, or their own species? I've found conflicting info on that.
Sounds like it's culture would lend itself really well to CO....... /wink wink
And fragrant to boot!


I bet you'll do great. That's wonderful that they were in such good condition.

[Izzie]

Thought I'd share a picture of what you can expect, this is a great example grown by Harry from H&R- [edit out -disallowed link-kat]
(You probably knew what they were going to look like, but maybe if you print this pic out, and post it near them, it'll give your little ones something to shoot for!)

[tangers40]

Originally Posted by Ron

Looks like a nice buy, one point I would like to make for future refeerence is not to smash the bottles with the plants in them. the leaves often get broken or badly bruised.
Leading on too other problems.
If you are going to do any more, invest in a Stainless Steel rod about 12 inches long and about 1 quarter of an inch thick. sharpen one end to a rough point. cost maybe US2 or less
I insert this into the bottom corner of the bottles, hit the other end with a piece of wood and the bottom should break away, sometimes you may have to move the rod around to another spot and have another go, if it just punches a small hole in the bottom.
Then the plants gently fall out without any bruising.
I always Fungarid mine as a safety measure, other do not, up to you .
best of luck
Ron

that's actually a very interesting idea. i know some people use a paper clip with a loop on the end to try to loop them up thru the top, but these were sorta strange flasks. they had a rubber stopper on the top, which i wasn't strong enough to pull off (i'm puny lol) and with it being such a narrow opening and a tall bottle, i was hard pressed to think of a way to get them out without breaking the bottle. BUT, being a n00b at deflasking, i will gladly take advice for next time i do plan on giving them a spray of antifungal today also.

Originally Posted by orchidea

I am first in line to have one of your antennatums......as I lost mine...
My Paph appletonianum deflasked seedlings are doing OK still, so maybe we can trade.

haha k, i'll see how these look around time for the next DOS show next spring. if they are of decent size, i'll bring you a pot of em.

Originally Posted by Izzie

Are they Laelias L. rubescens var aurea, or their own species? I've found conflicting info on that.
Sounds like it's culture would lend itself really well to CO....... /wink wink
And fragrant to boot!

according to RHS, they're their own species now. i had heard they were rubescens also, but i did check before labelling and they are now officially L. aurea. what drew me to them mostly was that they stay small...ha! so then i go buy a flask of Den. antennatum which gets super tall. *shrug*

[rcb]

Originally Posted by tangers40

i had heard they were rubescens also, but i did check before labelling and they are now officially L. aurea. what drew me to them mostly was that they stay small...ha! so then i go buy a flask of Den. antennatum which gets super tall. *shrug*

Small? I'm not sure where you heard that, but they do get averagish Cattleya size. Definitely not huge, but not a mini catt either. A nice size. And the spikes are long. Here's a pic from my rubescens x aurea from last year. http://www.orchidgeeks.com/forum/gen...046-guess.html
And this year the spike is even longer.

[tangers40]

Originally Posted by rcb

Small? I'm not sure where you heard that, but they do get averagish Cattleya size. Definitely not huge, but not a mini catt either. A nice size. And the spikes are long. Here's a pic from my rubescens x aurea from last year. http://www.orchidgeeks.com/forum/gen...046-guess.html
And this year the spike is even longer.

haha well poo. i had read somewhere (and of course i can't remember where) that they stayed on the smaller side. oh well. i still think the flowers are pretty, so that makes up for the lack of smallness, right?

[tangers40]

only one day into my adventure and i may have to drastically redo things already. noticed already today that some of the babies (the dens, mostly) are shriveling on their leaf tips....too drastic of a humidity change for them, i'm thinking. i may have to pop them into one of my old empty fishtanks if they don't adjust soon (as in, by tomorrow). i'll take a look at them in the morning and decide. i have a glass fishtank with a clear glass lid waiting.

[orchidea]

Oh yes, I didn't uncover seedlings for few days after deflasking, maybe just for few hours during the day. The cover had some venting holes only.
Gradually I opened a little piece of a corner of a container where they were, then a little more every day untill they were ready to be introduced to our dry CO air.....
I wish I didn't cover them though when I took them outside to see some sun, that's what killed my den seedlings....

[BluPeaches]

They looks very healthy... good buy.

[rcb]

Originally Posted by tangers40

haha well poo. i had read somewhere (and of course i can't remember where) that they stayed on the smaller side. oh well. i still think the flowers are pretty, so that makes up for the lack of smallness, right?

Absolutely agree!

[Daethen]

When I deflasked the only ones I ever tried I put the pots in gallon baggies and blew them up then sealed them. I left them like that for a week or so then opened the bags but left them in there and gradually peeled the bag down.

[Izzie]

Originally Posted by tangers40

that's actually a very interesting idea. i know some people use a paper clip with a loop on the end to try to loop them up thru the top, but these were sorta strange flasks. they had a rubber stopper on the top, which i wasn't strong enough to pull off (i'm puny lol) and with it being such a narrow opening and a tall bottle, i was hard pressed to think of a way to get them out without breaking the bottle. BUT, being a n00b at deflasking, i will gladly take advice for next time i do plan on giving them a spray of antifungal today also.

You could open it like some super cool people open champagne bottles. with a machete, and just slice off the neck!!! kapow!!!!

[tangers40]

Originally Posted by Izzie

You could open it like some super cool people open champagne bottles. with a machete, and just slice off the neck!!! kapow!!!!

hehe, if i had a machete, that is.

[tangers40]

babies have been moved to the fishtank. it wasn't big enough to hold all of them (and i only had one with a clear lid) so a couple pots had to go underneath a clear plastic shoebox....temporary until i can get to the dollar store today and see what else i can put them in. we'll see if this perks them up a bit.

[Shannara]

I tried deflasking once and I am not proud to say that the plants didn't make it. I had a terrible growing area and picked a questionable potting medium which didn't help the situation. This next spring I might give it another try though since I have a much better grow area now. I want to wait for the risk of freezes to be over before the next attempt so they can grow outside on the porch.

Thanks for sharing your adventure!

Shann~

[Phalcycle]

They look wonderful!
It makes me exited to deflask again. Although I'm still intimidated by deflasking, when others do it, it seems like a peice of cake

[tangers40]

oh believe me, no piece of cake here. the poor things are looking awful. every single one has shriveled/dry leaf tips now, and some of the laelias are turning yellow. gahhhhhhhhhhh. humidity stays between 60 & 80% in the fishtank, but it's apparently not enough. i'm really afraid they're not gonna make it

[Brooke]

Your humidity is high enough at 60-80%.

Are they getting any fresh air at all? Do you see any signs of fungus? Are you letting sun hit the aquarium and the temps get too high?

Brooke

[tangers40]

Originally Posted by Brooke

Your humidity is high enough at 60-80%.

Are they getting any fresh air at all? Do you see any signs of fungus? Are you letting sun hit the aquarium and the temps get too high?

Brooke

they are getting fresh air. the lid on the tank is cocked to one side and i have a fan blowing. not directly on them, but enough to circulate the air inside. i don't see any fungus (i did hit them with some antifungal the day after deflasking...they were already drying by that time). and they're under my lights, so temps while the lights are on are around 80, and around 70 when they're off.

can you offer any advice brooke?! i'm at a loss here.

[Brooke]

Are your lights regular fluoro tubes or the hotter running T5s? Inside the container even with the lid cocked would get much warmer if T5s.

Dry leaf tips and shriveled leaves is a sign of not enough moisture but your root system was good so I don't think you would have lost the roots already. It's not unusual to damage the tender leaves and get tiny tears or bruises when deflasking, is it all of them or isolated? Have you applied anything but the fungicide and which fungicide?

If all of them, I would start over or at least pull the worst ones and take a look. The plants looked great when planted so I would tweak my culture somehow. It is better than losing them. And if you can't tell, I am grasping at straws.

Brooke

[zaeem]

Tangers40,
CONGRATS! LOVELY!you have done a good job of potting.Thanks.

[Izzie]

Hope the little ones pull through!

[Ron]

oh believe me, no piece of cake here. the poor things are looking awful. every single one has shriveled/dry leaf tips now, and some of the laelias are turning yellow. gahhhhhhhhhhh. humidity stays between 60 & 80% in the fishtank, but it's apparently not enough. I am really afraid they're not gonna make it

Everything sound good, why they have dried and shriveling leaf tips is weird, I never have fans near my de-flasked baby. Humidly I like to keep up for about 4 or 5 days and then slowly take of the cover and introduce them to the real world, accosanially misting them during a warm day.
One thing I do hate with a passion is spagnum moss, I can not master it and it has caused death to many of my seedling until I dumped it.
It remains to wet and too cold for my liking, I know others have great success with it, not me!
Now using CoCo nuggets with great success.
Until you set down and get used to your de-flasking routine and enjoy your success it can be heartbreaking.
I love too put them all into community pots unless they are big seedling, they get more humidity together and seem for some reason too do much better.
Loss from deflasking should be no plants and at the worst on 1 out of every 10 and then only runts
Keep up you chin and hope all goes well for you
Ron

[rcb]

I just went through this whole thread again, and this is bothersome, cause they do look good in the first set of pics. The one L. aurea looks like it has 3 p'bulbs, it just seems like they should be doing better for you.

So couple questions. First do you have a pic of what they look like right now? Any chance they could be dampening off? It doesn't sound like it from your description, but it is a possibility.

Second, what fungicide and what strength did you use? A too strong concentration of some fungicides can hurt the seedlings.

[exasperatus2002]

Could be damping off.

[Ron]

Could be damping off.

If so, they would get a glassy look and go soft then mushy!
To avoid this problem the best way is to completely bleach all items used in the deflasking process.
keep potting medium in top condition and clean.
I always use a fungicide as insurance straight after re-potting them, I use this as a watering in as well.
With many hundreds of flasks behind me, it is a simple process in growing of orchids every grower should learn do do properly.
Great and interesting way of growing orchids and inexpensive to a certain degree

[tangers40]

i took another good look at everybody today, and i think the worst of the "drying leaf tips" is over. i may have one or two of the smaller dens that might not make it (the whole seedling seems to be drying/yellowing), but everyone else is at least holding steady at the moment. the big laelia got mangled in the glass-breaking incident, and its biggest leaf was practically torn in two, so it is dying from the break outwards. the rest of it looks ok.

brooke: i have T5s running, which i know run a bit hotter, but i have a therm/hygrometer inside the tank with the plants, and those readings are directly from that device. it doesn't get much higher than 80 in there. and the leaf tip damage (except on the laelias, i know what caused that) is on every single den plant, and those came out of the flask perfectly. no breaking or anything since they were in a deli cup. i used a small spray of diluted physan 20 on them...not a true antifungal i know but i was somewhat afraid to use anything stronger on such tender plants. and the drying/shriveling had already started before i sprayed the physan, so i know that didn't cause it.

Ron, i chose to use sphag for my babies simply to try to avoid what i think happened anyway: to keep them from drying out too much. it's ridiculously dry here and any other media would have REALLY dried them out for sure. i have two other plants in seedling bark mix that need watered every single day, even in the winter because it dries out so fast.

and regarding the damping off: i don't think that's it either. this definitely is not a glassy/mushy sort of anything. if i remember, i'll get some pics of them this weekend. thanks again to everybody for their help....this is precisely why i love this board so much

[orchidea]

Phew, good news, great!
I think they were shocked initially with the temps and dry air, and apparantly didn't like it very much..... But you were quick to fix that, so they should be fine...... Look for new growth in dens, that what mine started doing right away, even before they grew new roots.
Good luck with them!!!!

[tangers40]

Originally Posted by orchidea

Phew, good news, great!
I think they were shocked initially with the temps and dry air, and apparantly didn't like it very much..... But you were quick to fix that, so they should be fine...... Look for new growth in dens, that what mine started doing right away, even before they grew new roots.
Good luck with them!!!!

i'm still keeping a pot of them for you. they may not look like much when you get em, but hopefully they'll still be alive

[Ron]

Hi Terracota, welcome to the Geeks forum.
Where dreams do come true

[tangers40]

hmm...i smell spammer? random, off topic posts in old threads.

[tangers40]

but hey, while we're at it...i'm glad to report that i've only lost ONE of the babies i was so worried about in november! they're not really growing super big and tall yet, but they have all put out new growths with strong canes and leaves. the laelias are struggling a bit, but none have outright died. i need to get some new pics taken of them soon, however.

[exasperatus2002]

Any updated pics?

[tangers40]

actually, i DO need to get more pics taken, ty for reminding me. they're 6 months out of flask now and just today i moved a couple of the biggest ones to their own pots. i'll see if i can remember to get some pics taken tomorrow!

[tangers40]

ok, here's an updated pic for you!

i did some repotting yesterday (you can tell which ones are in nice fresh sphag lol) and i've given away 2 pots, so this is what i'm left with. these are the Den. antennatum babies only, no pics of the laelias since they honestly aren't doing very well at all and look horrible. but, as you can see, these guys are doing fairly well (i have no idea what the growth rate on these should be, so i don't know if they're big or small for their age).

you can still see some of the dried-out leaf tips on the original growths, but that aside, all of the originals have at least a couple new canes on them with nice leaves. ignore the little white flecks in the fresh repots...that's just small pieces of sphag that got all over everything, not bugs.

[Ron]

Hi, they are looking very good, well done

[Daethen]

Looking really good today.

[Brooke]

Your Dens look great! My experience with Catts is they stay fairly small, creep along until year three and then they finally start looking like a little Catt.

Brooke

[Livy2011]

I just recently got hit by the orchid bug and need to learn all things orchiddddddyyyyy. Took me a minute there to figure out what deflasking was. My question is, can I take cuttings from one of my orchids that are no longer blooming and start new plants? Is it more difficult than the deflasking process? Thanks for any tips to a beginner.

[tangers40]

Originally Posted by Brooke

Your Dens look great! My experience with Catts is they stay fairly small, creep along until year three and then they finally start looking like a little Catt.

Brooke

thank you! the laelias all have a small new growth, but i guess i tried comparing them to the new growths on the dens and figured they just weren't doing well. but if catts are slowwwwwwwwwwwwwww out of flask, then they're still ok

and i'm glad to hear experienced growers saying the dens look ok too! definitely puts my mind at ease. can't say i'm ready to deflask any more (ha!) but at least now i know i haven't totally screwed this batch up.

[tangers40]

Originally Posted by Livy2011

My question is, can I take cuttings from one of my orchids that are no longer blooming and start new plants?

it depends on what type(s) of orchid you have, but for the most part, no they can't be made into cuttings and grown like, say, a spider plant or a christmas cactus. can you tell us what kind of plant you have? that way we can tell you for sure.

[Livy2011]

I have three Phalaenopsis. I set up a fan for ventilation, a humidifier, and use distilled water. I water once a week, and fertilize every 2 weeks or so. so far they seem to be doing well, lasting a long time. One has lost it's last bloom, and hoped to get more going. Money is tight, so I always take the cheapy way if I can, LOL. Any tips, tricks, etc. from you all, would be greatly appreciated. I have always loved gardening, but just a few months back, got hooked on these. Thanks.

[tangers40]

ok, for phalaenopsis, they can't be propagated in the way i mentioned above. they will occasionally put out a "baby" plant (keiki) somewhere on their flower spikes, which can be cut off and grown separately when it develops roots of its own, but you can't take a bare spike and make new plants.

[Livy2011]

Thank you.