rooting rootless Paphs in flask possible?

[smartie2000]

I'm just wondering if anyone has planted rootless paphs into an in-vitro agar flask? Some paphs just keep growing new leaves, rather than roots...and eventually just shrink in size.

I am unfamiliar with Paph flasking, and how well paph roots from agar adapt into paph medium once out?

I googled and did not find anything on the subject. But I think it might be a possibility if the entire plant can be steriled. But rot could still take over the plant?

I went on vacation last year, and a bunch of my paphs had rotted roots, so I am disappointed.

...I might consider re-flasking a plant if I find time. Last night I just set some flasks for Phal mericloning, and the agar set well. So I can do it for paphs too with coconut water, I just thought this idea this morning! I would have done it at the same time otherwise.

 

[Marc]

No idea about rootless plants in agar, but have you tried putting them in living spagnum? Have read that people have good experience with that.

 

[Kyle]

It would be very, very difficult to sterilize the plant. I want to say impossible, but I try to not say that things are ever not possible. Contamination is everywhere, even in the tissue.

However, if you were successful, I'm sure it would work. Especially with the addition of hormones.

There was a method published in the Orchid Digest about using sponge rock to start rootless paphs. Kinda like S/H with sponge rock. People in my club tried it and it worked really well. I gave some of my plants to someone to test and they all came back with a cm of root. Maybe someone could send you a scan of the article.

Kyle

 

[chrismende]

I've re-rooted lots of plants in normal medium, kept damp but not wet, with the pot inside a gallon size zip-lock bag with large drainage holes cut beside where the pot rests, and in the corners. It becomes a humidity chamber that breathes and drains. I adjust the closure on the top according to the needed level of humidity. It usually takes three months or so, and usually works if the top of the plant is fairly healthy. Even very dessicated leaved plants usually send up new growths as well as roots.

 

[TyroneGenade]

No idea about rootless plants in agar, but have you tried putting them in living spagnum? Have read that people have good experience with that.

This season I knocked over my newly imported Paph niveum and saw to my horror there were NO roots left. I wrapped the base of the plant in live sphagnum moss, put this over gravel in a small pot resting in a shallow cup of water and what do you know... There is now a lovely thick root coming from the base of the plant.

This season I also managed to snap off the new and only growth of my Paph parishii... Into sphagnum it went and I see little root buds at the base of the crown of the plant.

Sphagnum works.

Each morning I mist the plants, sometimes with some cinnamon extract to ward off fungus.

 

[cnycharles]

i've never had luck with the 'sphag and bag', but then again i've never tried it with living sphaghum. otherwise they all just rotted

 

[Marc]

i've never had luck with the 'sphag and bag', but then again i've never tried it with living sphaghum. otherwise they all just rotted

Most succesfull reports about this technique involved living spagnum.

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

I'm with Charles...never rescued a plant successfully with sphagnum. But then again, it wasn't living.

 

[SlipperFan]

Where does one get "living" sphagnum???

 

[cnycharles]

find a bog that's privately owned and ask the owner if you can grab a few handfuls. or go on vacation on one of the lakes up in the adirondack park, go canoeing and while paddling madly around the edge of the lake, 'accidentally' catch the oar into part of the floating mat and then clean your oars into a plastic bag. actually anything in a park you aren't supposed to take anything out (usually a very good idea); but if you are in a place like up north where there are probably millions of acres of bogs, then from these areas a few handfuls of moss probably wouldn't make much difference. just make sure there aren't any orchids or pitcher plants tucked into the moss!

also be careful as there is a certain fungus that inhabits sphagnum; you can get it in your skin (hence new warnings on the side of bags of dried moss to wear gloves) but someone else can't catch it from you, just from the moss

that said, there may be vendors who sell carnivorous plants who actually grow and sell living sphagnum so that you can use it with your bog plants. geese and ducks can transport sphagnum, allowing it to colonize standing water like the irrigation pond at the golf course where I used to work. I think I read somewhere that if you were to keep dried bagged sphagnum wet, it would turn green and start growing again. you would probably need to use pure water and no fertilizer if this were to work.

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

I've bought live sphagnum on Ebay, for my "bogs".

 

[Brian Monk]

There was a method published in the Orchid Digest about using sponge rock to start rootless paphs. Kinda like S/H with sponge rock. People in my club tried it and it worked really well. I gave some of my plants to someone to test and they all came back with a cm of root. Maybe someone could send you a scan of the article.

This is the method I tried successfully this year, with several small plants of Delrosi. It works VERY well. ANd it is perfect for those who can't paddle around on a lake in the Adirondacks, or slip down to the local bog for some live sphagnum.

 

[John M]

This is the method I tried successfully this year, with several small plants of Delrosi.

Brian, could you elaborate a bit, please? Can you describe the method you used? TIA

 

[Marc]

Brian, could you elaborate a bit, please? Can you describe the method you used? TIA

I'm curious as well. Please enlighten us, pictures would be even more awesome.

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

I tried that method, with no luck at all.

 

[Brian Monk]

It is really quite simple. PLant the plants FIRMLY in coarse (more liely medium) grade sponge rock, then grow the plant semi-hydro. I ue relatively deep pots, and place them in a shallow dish of water. Since I grow in a shade house, they are expoed to just about everything. Sometimes they don't get water for several days, but the media never gets completely dry. IN fact, the two smallest are growing so well that I haven't bothered to re-pot them.

 

[Marc]

It is really quite simple. PLant the plants FIRMLY in coarse (more liely medium) grade sponge rock, then grow the plant semi-hydro. I ue relatively deep pots, and place them in a shallow dish of water. Since I grow in a shade house, they are expoed to just about everything. Sometimes they don't get water for several days, but the media never gets completely dry. IN fact, the two smallest are growing so well that I haven't bothered to re-pot them.

If trying this technique I suppose that you are meant to use rainwater / RO water with a complete orchid fertilizer?

 

[SlipperFan]

I tried that method, with no luck at all.

Me, too. Maybe we missed a step?

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

Well, I think the problem here is the same problem with semi-hygro. You have to have roots growing for it to work..old roots, no roots, just won't work. My guess is that the successful plants with this technique had small root buds that were able to grow. Mine were simply rootless...and stayed that way.