Mark this date for Basket culture.

[Ernie]

Maybe leaf elongation has proceeded way faster than the roots would have allowed for good nutrient uptake???

That's my guess.

Sounding pretty good!

 

[Rick]

Here's some pics.




The darker plant to the right is the mother plant, so its pretty wild that the division is bigger (albeit that the large new leaf is so discolored). Up until a month ago that leaf had NO green on it at all, so I have hit it with a cautious amount of Proteckt and xtra Mg, and its been greening up (in patches)


The purpuratum with the funky white patch on a new leaf (growth to left side of basket). But I noticed today that the older growth is going into spike.

 

[Rick]

I moved 3 mastersianum seedlings out of the compot into baskets, and you can see how they have grown much faster than their buddies left in the compot. I did find that most of the plants in the compot have developed second growths though.



The biggest mastersianum seedling next to the venustum seedling I moved into the basket in January.

 

[Rick]

Here's an update on a rothshchildianum. Back in 2002 I bought this plant as a seedling Noyo X Eureka. It's been up and down since then. It has always stayed small for leaf span, but did get up to 2 or 3 growths. When I went to stick the 2 surviving growths into the basket this winter, they broke in half. The one you see here had a new small growth. The other piece is also growing well, but hasn't produced any new basal growths. Leaf color is a good as ever.

As you can see, the oldest new growth is catching up to the parent growth, and there are 2 more new growths. Roots are really taking off on this plant.

 

[Rick]

Henryanum in bract. This is from a breeding in 2005 with pollen from Dusty Attic Stuff.

I still have 1/2 dozen seedlings from this cross, this one has the biggest leaf span, and added new growths since going into the basket.

These were the seedlings that refused to grow for a couple of years before hitting them with the mychorhizea inoculant a few years ago.

 

[Rick]

More new roots. The wallisii root that came out the bottom looks like its turning around to go back in. New roots and growths on a wardii, and roots going to town on a tonsum.

 

[paphioboy]

All are looking good... The mastersianum seedlings are particularly impressive...

 

[NYEric]

Thanx vm for the photos. I would like to try that w/ some paphs here.

 

[Rick]

Thanx vm for the photos. I would like to try that w/ some paphs here.

So far the only group not well represented is brachys. I have a niveum (that flowered recently), but that's it for my brachy's. Getting another bellatulum next week that will go straight into a basket.

As far as whole groups, I think you couldn't go wrong with any barbata type.

 

[Rick]

All are looking good... The mastersianum seedlings are particularly impressive...

Well all that I showed youoke:oke:

I think I've moved over 50 plants into this system. There's probably a few things that are just sitting there at this point, but the bulk have grown substantially.

 

[Jim Toomey]

Rick,
I see they are in wood baskets... fairly shallow in depth in comparison to net pots, are their any advantages of wood baskets over the deeper plastic net/pots/baskets?
More air, faster drying?
Thanks again, my plants thank you too!
Jim

 

[Rick]

One of the reasons I went to the system is to leave a lot of room for additional growths without having to repot so frequently. With standard closed pots I had to keep the amount of extra space to a minimum. You may have remembered posts of blooming stonei and supardii in 2" pots! Most attempts at moving them up into proportionally larger pots ended up with root loss.

I've had a few plants (mostly bulbos, but a phrag or two) in the plastic net pots. They did great, but when it finally came time to repot it was a total mess to cut up the pot and extract all the plastic pieces. I had a big Phrag wallisii that got really traumatized by one of these repoting messes.

I'm not so concerned about the depth to area of the wooden baskets, but they deteriorate better than plastic, and are easy to break apart (just cut the wire pin in the corners). When it comes time to go to a bigger basket, I plan on taking out the slats that come out easily and drop the whole mess into a bigger basket.

I know Big leaf had just about the opposite preference of plastic net vs wooden slat for almost the same reasons (he doesn't like the wooden deterioration), but he is working phals instead of paphs, so I can see where he is coming from since the phals tend to envelop the whole pot and its easier to get the plant off the plastic than rotting wood. We'll have to see when it comes to armeniacum and species that send stolons out the sides and bottom (which I'm not the only person doing that species in a basket too).

 

[chrismende]

I've taken to potting up any plant that seems rot-prone in a basket of some kind. All are plastic, though. Some are actually hydro pots with lots of slits. Just experimenting. My longest-in-basket is a complex hybrid from Orchid Zone via Dean Hung. White flowered. It's bloomed twice in the basket and has done really well over a couple years time. I'm excited to see how my micranthum and armeniacum and fanaticum do, as well as a 'Vanda Pearman' that is probably a mislabelled plant. My three Phrags are also in plastic baskets and are acclimating well after about three months in them. New growth and lots of roots "exploring."

 

[Rick]

I had to edit this pic to make it easier to see what's going in.

These are some of the sanderianum seedlings I got from Leo's sandie fire sale in Dec 2008. The biggest got put into a 6 inch basket in Jan 2011. Its in the group shot on page 2 of this thread. Front right plant. In this pic it's the plant on the far right. The red line is pointing to the leaf that was new (and only 9cm at the start in January). It is now 18 cm and there is a new leaf. The plant span is about 38 cm now. The other two got put into the baskets a month or so later, but have put down enough roots were I could pick up the plants by the leaves and not pull them out of the baskets.

 

[Jim Toomey]

Hi Rick,
That seems real fast for a sanderianum!

Usually when I unpot a plant that was in bark, the majority of the roots are around the edges of the pot, do you find the same thing with the sphagnum or do they grow down through the center as well?

On my plants in semi-hydroponics the roots grow throughout the media and when I repot, the roots comes out as one big single chunk of roots and primeagra. I just stick the whole chunk into a larger pot and fill it in with more primeagra.

 

[Heather]

So when is the Mexipedium going in a basket, Rick?

 

[Rick]

So when is the Mexipedium going in a basket, Rick?

I don't think basket culture would give this weed much more advantage.

This is a 10" pot. The bottom 1/2 is filled with styro peanuts and limestone gravel.

I hope it gets around to blooming soon.

 

[Rick]

Hi Rick,
That seems real fast for a sanderianum!

Usually when I unpot a plant that was in bark, the majority of the roots are around the edges of the pot, do you find the same thing with the sphagnum or do they grow down through the center as well?

On my plants in semi-hydroponics the roots grow throughout the media and when I repot, the roots comes out as one big single chunk of roots and primeagra. I just stick the whole chunk into a larger pot and fill it in with more primeagra.

I haven't torn any baskets apart to see if there is any trend in root growth direction. From poking around the top (as you can see in a couple of photos, it looks like most of the new roots are going down the middle, or run along near the surface for a little ways before ducking down into the moss. Probably not that different from what you are seeing in SH.

 

[paphioboy]

Hey, that's not a costus! I never expected mexis to be so 'weedy'... How long have you had that one?

 

[goods]

I have also moved all my paphs to baskets. They're potted in coco husk, orchid bark and minimal sphagnum. All are showing signs of growth. My delenatii has produced three new growths since being in a basket and one of the older unbloomed growths has started to grow leaves again after stopping for a while.