For Sale Tissue culture media

[krisk]

I’ve been asked a lot over the years about the tissue culture media I use for slippers and indeed other challenging terrestrial orchids. Kevin Western is now selling W9 and it’s variants that I helped develop in other currencies on his web site. There is nothing we haven’t been able to germinate, including Paph canhii dry seed and Cypripedium species. I’ve included a few photos of recent flasks. You can find the web store here:

https://westernorchids.com.au/product-tag/media/

Photos in order:
Paph tigrinum
Paph wilhelminae
Paph leucochilum
Paph micranthum

 

[NYEric]

Cool. Thanks for sharing.

 

[krisk]

No worries. I had always assumed people were doing ok with MS media, but I’ve talked to quite a few people that have had issues. Kevin doesn’t really promote his media, so I thought people might find it useful if they are having trouble with certain genera or species. Of course there is a lot more to it than just the media. I’d normally recommend coconut water as an addition for germination. For lime stone species, I’d use a calcium carbonate powder in the media as a buffer, but also pH adjusted to around 8-8.5 with NaOH.

 

[krisk]

In addition to the above, Kevin has put up some info on tissue culture media, with a little bit of history that people might not know. I was unaware how long ago some of these media were developed. Spoiler, 1922!!!

https://westernorchids.com.au/why-western-orchids-media/