THE METHOD (continued...)

Cut away as much of the dead plant parts if possible. This is to reduce any chances of fungal or bacterial growth on the dead plant parts.

Try not to pull off the dead parts as you may rip the delicate seedling apart - use a clean sterilized pair of scissors instead.


I prefer to take precautionary measures when growing seedlings, for this reason, I recommend soaking the seedlings in a systemic pesticide for about 15 minutes to deter possible attacks by insects.

Unless there is heavy pre-unflasking contamination involved, I find soaking the seedlings in a disinfectant, e.g. Chlorox, unnecessary.


While soaking the seedlings, prepare the pots by first adding your crocking material. It is no good to fill the pots entirely with the potting medium as some plants are particularly fussy about having their roots or root junctions too wet.

You may want to fill up to half the height of the pot with crocking material although I usually filled them up to about 1/3.


Fill potting mix to about ½ of the pot or to a height that would accommodate the root lengths of the seedlings

Drain the seedlings and nestle them on top of the potting mix.

In the case of thumb pots, if the seedlings are small, you may wish to lump 2 together within the same pot.


Top up with potting mix and press down slightly to compact the potting mix. This is to allow new roots to anchor firmly. If the potting mix is too loose, the plants may come out of the pot during watering. On the other hand, if the potting mix is too compact, the mix will not drain freely.

Top: Paphiopedilum godefroyae seedling that was unflasked 1 year ago

Bottom: Paphiopedilum niveum var semi-alba seedling that was unflasked 6 months ago. The leaves of this plant is peculiar as it is a lot lighter than the leaves than the normal Paph. niveum.

I am lazy to repot these plants but they look so cute in small solo cups.


Look at the root development of the roots of the Paph. godefroyae.

This is the plus point of using clear cups. But if your fertilizer or potting mix is particularly high in nitrogen, you may get algae forming on the surface instead.

 


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Orchideenjaeger is one of our dedicated moderators of the Green Culture Singapore (GCS) Forum. He is currently doing his undergraduate studies majoring in Pharmacy at the National University of Singapore. Orchideenjaeger is a member of numerous world-reowned discussion forums for orchids, including the Orchid Source Forum and Orchideen-forum.de. His keen interest in plants started since young and now he focuses on the growing of Cattleya orchids. He can be contacted by sending him an email via this link, or private messages through the GCS forum.


 
 

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