Deflasking - Interesting!

[Bolero]

Yesterday I potted up 3 more flasks, time consuming but worth the time and effort if they grow. This is one of the flasks, the plants were the largest I've got from a flask before:



The next picture is a close up, there are large plants in the jar but if you look closely it's as if all these tiny plants started growing as an afterthought, it's a shame as I had to throw them out. Any thoughts on what would cause them to start growing so late?



There were nearly 50 plants in the jar but only 44 were suitable for potting up. The others either had no roots or was just too small, don't tell my wife I had them on the kitchen bench when she wasn't home:



Finally this is how I grow them, in plastic storage boxes individually potted up in 2 inch pots. They grow in fine bark. There are 3 flasks here (with one flask going across two boxes) - two flasks of cattleya hybrids and one flask of paphs.



I just wish I could get the roots to stay like this, they grow well during summer but die back in winter but I guess that's supposed to happen:

[lambelkip]

great pictures. what species/hybrid is it?

the little plants are a result of something called "proliferation". most of the commercial labs producing flasks will use hormones to accelerate the growth of the plants. if the hormone concentration is too high in parts of the medium, the seedlings will put out new growths instead of growing larger. you end up with a bunch of connected, tiny plants in that part of the flask, many of them without roots.

[Bolero]

Originally Posted by lambelkip

great pictures. what species/hybrid is it?

the little plants are a result of something called "proliferation". most of the commercial labs producing flasks will use hormones to accelerate the growth of the plants. if the hormone concentration is too high in parts of the medium, the seedlings will put out new growths instead of growing larger. you end up with a bunch of connected, tiny plants in that part of the flask, many of them without roots.

Brilliant! Thanks for the information. That is interesting.

[Swamper]

Bolero, I tried zooming in to the tag but still couldn't tell what it was. Was that an Lc. in the bottom cross? That's as much as I could get.

[calvin_orchidL]

I've seen this happen too with protocorms that don't develop properly. Sometimes if a protocorm doesn't have enough of a certain nutrient, it seems to produce lots of little growths rather than one main one. Weird huh

[Bolero]

This one is:

Slc Angel Flare ‘Warren’ x Lc Mini Purple ‘No. 1’