Greetings to all blog readers and flower growers in particular.
The delicate and fragile beauty of the orchid and its variety of shades have long attracted attention. The first attempts to germinate the seeds of this amazing flower often failed. For more than half a century the complexity could not be resolved. Now propagating indoor orchids with high-quality seed material is available not only to breeders, but also to many flower growers. From the article you will learn how to plant orchid seeds from China.
Is it possible to cultivate like this?
If you are lucky enough to get real orchid seeds from a Chinese website, then theoretically you can grow an orchid from it. But, unfortunately, this is a very long and labor-intensive process. You will have to purchase the necessary equipment and materials, maintain sterility and the desired temperature. Some gardeners jokingly call all this a real laboratory. In addition, you will have to wait a long time for the result.
REFERENCE: a planted seed can turn into a full-fledged adult orchid flower in 4-6 years.
Rules for handling seeds
So, the order has been placed, the package has been safely received, and what’s more, you are lucky enough to become the owner of real orchid seeds. Joy knows no bounds, but this is only the beginning of the journey. Now you have to work some magic on your cherished purchase in order to get the desired plants. We remember that seeds are very vulnerable - they are easily affected by any infection. Therefore, when starting work, you need to maintain strict sterility - this applies to both the gardener and garden tools.
Peculiarities
When ordering seeds from China, you can often encounter unscrupulous sellers who pass off seeds of other plants and even lawn grass or weed seeds as orchid seeds.
In this case, many people feel sorry for the time and labor spent on trying to grow, and they become disillusioned with this idea. But, fortunately, they are inexpensive and if you have a strong desire to try growing them, you can order them again. After all, if you manage to grow a flower yourself, you will receive incomparable pleasure watching its growth, and then a beautiful adult blooming orchid.
How do they look?
Orchid seeds are very small and can easily be mistaken for dust. Their size is 15 thousand times smaller than the size of a wheat grain. In addition, they, unlike other seeds of most crops that have a reserve of nutrients or endosperm, have it in negligible quantities in the embryo.
How do such vulnerable seeds exist in nature and enable orchids to reproduce? It's a matter of their quantity. One orchid flower can produce from 3 to 5 million seeds and due to their small weight and size, they are easily carried by the wind, settling on the bark of trees. However, not all of them will be destined to turn into adult flowers; only a few of those attached to the tree will do this. Such is the harshness of natural selection.
Reviews
It is better to look for reviews of seeds on the review pages of the sellers you have chosen - there people share their results and complaints about the product. Here are some of them.
Allah. “The seeds arrived quickly. I was very pleased with the price. There were many contradictions when sowing; usually orchids are sown in a nutrient medium, but the seller recommends sowing in the ground. The size of the seeds shocked me a little, but due to inexperience I decided to sow them in the hope of some new or little-known variety.
There are few good reviews about seeds from Aliexpress.
Having sowed according to the seller’s recommendation, shoots were obtained by the end of the week and hope appeared. As they began to grow, it became clear that this was nothing like the Phalaenopsis that had been ordered. It’s not worth buying seeds on Ali from this seller.”
Georgy. “After ordering, the seeds took a very long time to arrive. After delivery, sowing was immediately done and very fast shoots were obtained. At first the leaves resembled grass, but were a little wider, and yet hope for an orchid remained for a long time. When the plant grew older, it became somewhat similar to the Cambria orchid, but was not one. After searching on the Internet, it was assumed that this is belamcanda chinesis, but to confirm it we need to wait for flowering. This species grows outdoors, but during cold winters it needs to be put in a pot.”
Natalia. “The seed order ended badly. Three purchases were made. The first parcel was simply lost, the second one took more than two months, and the third one did not arrive. The third parcel arrived earlier than the others and was the first to be sown using the technology proposed by the seller. For two months they were regularly sprayed and kept in a greenhouse, but they never sprouted.
When the second parcel arrived, there was complete disappointment and they simply did not sow them according to the rules. In the flowerpot in which they were sown, some weeds grew up and immediately disappeared. Divorce, in general."
How to check the authenticity of a purchase?
After receiving the seeds, open the package and study the received material before properly planting the seeds at home. Remember that real seeds should:
- be very small, resembling dust (their sizes range from 0.35-3.30 mm in length and 0.08-0.30 mm in width);
- cream, beige or light brown;
- have a narrow, elongated shape.
IMPORTANT! If, after unpacking the seeds received from China, you find grains similar to buckwheat or any other shape, size, color other than those described above, alas, they sold you a fake and an orchid will definitely not grow from them.
Also, when looking at them through a microscope or a very powerful magnifying glass, you can see that these are seeds that resemble wheat grains in shape and size, but many times smaller.
Often, buyers who are excited about the idea of growing a flower from seeds make a purchase after reading rave reviews from other buyers and paying attention to the seller’s high rating. However, most often, this delight is associated with the speed of delivery or the quality of packaging of the material. It is extremely rare for buyers to attach a photo of what has grown from seeds, and even more so of a finished flower, because, as you know, it takes years to grow it.
Some flower lovers cherish the hope that the resulting seeds are a seed capsule, open it, and, most often, do not find small seeds in it. It should be remembered that the seed capsule of orchids is narrow and about 3 cm long, green in color . In nature, it opens itself precisely at the moment when the seeds are ripe and ready for planting. Therefore, you are unlikely to get a closed seed pod.
Expert advice on caring for orchid seedlings
In order for seedlings obtained from seeds to take root well in cups and not die after being removed from the jar, you need to take some precautions:
“As soon as a young orchid leaves the greenhouse and sterile conditions into an aggressive external environment, it receives serious stress. The percentage of lunges at this stage is quite high. Treatment with Fitosporin-M and weekly spraying with Epin-Extra helps to reduce it. Seedlings should not be over-watered, but it is also not advisable to dry them. After rooting, it is useful to fertilize with potassium fertilizers, or even better, complete mineral complexes with microelements.”
A. Davydovskaya, owner of the greenhouse
Step-by-step instructions on how to plant
Since orchid seeds are very capricious, when planting them yourself, it is very important to properly prepare the equipment, nutrient medium, sow and care for the seedlings. Even under ideal conditions, only a small percentage of seeds can turn into real flowers. Therefore, if you neglect at least one of the points, you risk not growing a single plant at all.
Equipment and its sterilization
For planting, you need to prepare glass laboratory test tubes 15 cm long and 1.5 cm wide, a tripod, and cotton-gauze stoppers for the test tubes. If you do not have test tubes or they are difficult or expensive to purchase, you can use glass baby food jars with screw caps. Remember that the entire process of planting seeds must take place almost in laboratory conditions, so test tubes or jars along with lids must be sterilized in an autoclave, pressure cooker or medical sterilizer at a temperature of 120 degrees for 30 minutes.
Preparation of the nutrient medium
For planting, you can use either a purchased nutrient medium or one you make yourself. Let's take a closer look at the second option. You can prepare the nutrient medium as follows:
- Boil 0.5 liters of distilled water.
- Add 10 g fructose.
- 10 g glucose.
- 8 g agar-agar. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the agar-agar has completely dissolved.
Heat another 0.5 liters of water in another container.- As soon as it boils, remove it, add 5 drops of root-forming phytostimulant, 1.5 g of complex nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium fertilizers, 1 g of activated carbon.
- Mix well and combine both solutions.
- We bring the acidity to the desired level.
- To lower the pH, you can use a solution of potash, to increase it - orthophosphoric acid. Orchid seeds require acidity in the range of 4.8-5.2 pH.
- Pour 30 mg of hot nutrient substance into sterilized flasks.
- We close the flasks with stoppers and sterilize the nutrient medium for half an hour.
- We monitor the flasks with the medium for 4-5 days. If mold has appeared in them during this time, they are not suitable for planting seeds.
Watch a video on how to prepare a nutrient medium for growing seeds.
Sowing
ATTENTION! Seeds also need to be sterilized. To do this, prepare the 10th solution of bleach, shake, filter, hold the seeds there for 10 minutes and plant immediately.
For sowing, a device is used that additionally sterilizes the seeds. Sowing occurs like this:
- Place a wire rack on the container with water, and the substrate in the flask on it.
- After sterilization, draw the seeds out of the solution with a pipette and place them on the surface of the substrate.
- Next, cover the flasks or jars with cotton swabs or lids and set them for germination.
- You should monitor the temperature at all times: it should be 18-23 degrees Celsius, the duration of daylight should be on average 12-14 hours.
Nutrient medium
If you don’t want to purchase a ready-made mixture for planting, you can prepare it yourself at home. Typically used for orchids is “Knudson’s medium,” developed by American biologist Lewis Knudson to improve seed germination. This mixture is excellent for the development and further growth of the embryo (seedling) from the seed.
To prepare the medium, use distilled water - 200 ml, calcium nitrate - 1.0 g/l, ammonium sulfate - 0.5 g/l, potassium phosphate - 0.25 g/l, magnesium sulfate - 0.25 g/l, iron sulfate - 0.025 g/l, manganese sulfate - 0.0075 g/l, agar-agar - 15.0 g/l, sucrose - 20.0 g/l.
Sometimes a modified composition of the nutrient medium is used according to the method of Cherevchenko T.M.: distilled water - 200 ml, calcium nitrate 1 g/l, potassium phosphate 0.25 g/l, magnesium sulfate 0.25 g/l, iron chelate 0.05 g/l, ammonium sulfate 0.5 g/l, sodium humate 0.05 g/l, activated carbon 1.0 g/l, sucrose 20.0 g/l, agar-agar 6.0-10.0 g /l. In mixtures of this preparation, subject to sterility and temperature conditions, mass shoots of orchid seeds appear.
Cooking process. Agar-agar is filled with distilled water for several hours until it swells. Then the container with this mixture is placed in a water bath and constant stirring is performed until the agar-agar is completely dissolved. Next, the necessary ingredients are added according to the recipe order. After preparation, the nutrient medium will be neutral at about 6.5-7 pH, so it is necessary to acidify it with a solution of hydrochloric or nitric acid to 5.2 pH, since this is the most suitable medium for orchid growth. Measurements of the state of the environment are made using litmus paper.
Photo
Next, you can see a photo of what the seeds look like and what grew from them:
Care
After a few weeks or months, changes begin to occur in the crops. Green balls appear on them, then the first leaves. After two or three leaves appear, roots begin to appear. Only after a year can the seedlings be transplanted into a pot. To fill the pot, a suitable substrate of moss, fern roots and pine bark is suitable.
The soil should be as fine as possible. The sprouts are removed from the flask as carefully as possible with tongs, washed in water and transplanted into a substrate, which is first poured with boiling water for 30 minutes. Plants need light and high humidity all the time.
Problems and difficulties
Problems when growing orchids from seeds can occur at any stage. However, the most common reason for low germination is poor-quality seeds, the slightest flaws in sterility , and failure to comply with temperature and humidity conditions. The result is the death of seeds or seedlings and the absence of a result in the form of a beautiful flower. When starting this process, it is worth analyzing your conditions, availability of time and money, as well as a lot of patience, so as not to be disappointed by difficulties.
Orchid lovers should know that these plants can be grown from a bulb, from a baby, in water or in a closed system, but the article about the Thai orchid may also be interesting.
Current questions about growing orchids from seeds
Question No. 1. Where can I buy a ready-made flask with orchid seedlings and how much does it cost?
Indeed, orchids in jars are much easier to buy than seeds. Most often they are sold on orchid farms, mainly in Asia. Many tourists bring them from Thailand as souvenirs. If you want to buy seedlings in a flask, you can place a collective order on forums for orchid lovers or in groups on social networks. It is also possible to order them through online stores. The cost of flasks is very different and depends on many factors: the variety of orchids, the size and material of the container, the number of seedlings. The price can range from 700 to 4500 rubles.
