Pollination

[Celcat]

I am a bit bored at home lately. Out of the 20 chids at home, only 4 are in flowers. All the ones who needed repotting, have been repotted. I have done some cuttings too, they look alright. I want to experiment something I have never done before: pollination

I have tried to pollinate one of my orchid pansy... I took some pictures
The 1st pic shows a flower not pollinated and the 2d pic show the attempt pollinated flower... I can see clearly a difference between the 2. I was wondering do you think I will be able to get some seeds and how long will I wait before I can collect the seeds?

Thank you for your help

[Bolero]

I have done the same thing two days ago but I haven't noticed any change in the plant yet. How long until the change happens? And how long until a seed pod starts to form?

I did it out of boredom, not sure if the cross will be worth having or not.

[Celcat]

Good day Bolero,

Well, I think it took 3 or 4 days. I did it too because I was bored. I tried to cross a phal with an orchid pansy! It was maybe a bit too audicious... but if you don't try you don't get.
Something definitively happened, but then all the untouched flowers started to die off except the one which was pollinated. But eventually, after two weeks, even this one died.
I think worth it to try, at least just for the experience. Next time, I will pollinated the flower when it is only 2 or 3 days old. I am not sure where I did read it, but it seems that you get better result that way.

Good growing

[Ellen]

You cannot cross a phal with a Miltoniopsis, even if the flowers are 2-3 days old. Some genera can be crossed, but they need to be at least distantly related. To relieve the boredom, I suggest googling "orchid pollination", "orchid hybridizing", and other relevant key phrases and reading about how to do it before you try more futile experiments and add frustration to the boredom.