Vanda seedlings saved...I hope!

[dgenovese1]

Hey Folks,

The other day I went to visit my friendly neighborhood flasker, and was given a contaminated re-plated flask of one of my Vanda crosses to do with as I might (he has another re-plate and the original seed flask to make a replacement for the contaminated one, so all is not lost). In any event, here is a photo journal of what I did in hopes of saving at least a few.

1. The set up! I got all of my stuff together, including my pot of sphag, the flask, Dithane and RD20, tongs, my propane torch for sterilizing the tongs, gloves and a dish.
2. Here’s a shot of the contaminated flask.
3. Here’s another shot of the contaminated flask showing that some of the little guys actually have roots.
4. I gently pulled the seedlings out of the flask with my sterile tongs and rinsed them in a dish of RD20.
5. After the rinse, I put some fresh RD20 into the dish and let the seedlings decontaminate for about 5 minutes.
6. Here are the decontaminated seedlings ready for placement in the pot-o-sphag.
7. And here are the seedlings spread across the sphag, and soaked with a wash of Dithane M-45 mixed at a rate of about 3 tablespoons per gallon or water (now that should stop just about anything ugly from getting to them as they develop).
8. This last shot is of the parents I used to make the cross. Both are very fragrant, so I'm hoping for beauties tthat smell nice. (I’m withholding the parent names on purpose).

The trick will be to keep them moist enough to prevent dehydration while they are so small, yet not too wet to prevent rotting of their tiny roots.