orchid propagation - flasking media

Just curious about orchid flasking so did some search in the net and came out with a modified version of what i had found

ingredients:

1. 400ml of coconut water

2. 400 ml of water

3. 1 teaspoon sugar/brown sugar

4. one banana (skin left intact)

5. three medium size potato

6. 1/4 teaspoon fertilizer 20:20:20

7. 1/2 teaspoon Azomite

8. 10 gm agar powder

9. 1/4 lemon (check pH if possible, was told to get around 5.5)

I put ingredient 1 to 5 into high speed blender till smooth broth consistency is achieved, cooked the broth for about 20 minutes (keep stirring) then add in the fertilizer and Azomite towards the end part of the cooking and finally add in the agar and stir till all agar melted (please do not use agar strips, difficult to melt. i used high grade agar powder, for ease of mixing in the agar powder, mix with warm water to dissolved it before mixing into the media. if you add the powder directly into the boiling media, most likely you will get agar clumps. pre mixing agar powder with hot water allow homogeneous mixing) pour into sterilized glass bottle.

after that i double boiled the these agar bottle for 1/2 hour by seating them in a pot of water (you can used a pressure cooker/autoclave if you have one) - these ingredients and methods of preparation edited again on 2/12/2011

THIS IS ONLY AN EXPERIMENT I CARRIED OUT BY MY OWN, FIRST TIMER IN ORCHID FLASKING MYSELF, but will keep update from time to time on the progress.

will start sowing the orchid seeds tomorrow once the media had cool off.

28/1/2011

almost three weeks from first day of flasking, so far no fungal contamination but no activity of any germination yet. been told that some germination might take a month or two, some orchid hobbyist practice keeping the flask up to 4 months before discarding them.

25/11/2011

second attempt at flasking, everything is the same except this time i din sterilize the seed. only soaked the entire seed pot in diluted bleach solution, dry it and then scrape the seed directly into a medium. a rather "primitive and barbaric" way but i suspect in the first attempt, one of the factor might be due to "over-sterilization of the seed". this time i tested the ph ranges from about 5-5.5 without any citrus lime juice. so keeping my finger cross for the next few weeks to come.

2/12/11

third attempt to sow the catasetum seed pods, tip of the pod is turning yellow. but the pod is only 6 months plus, i am afraid might be premature dropping of the seed due to fungal infection. had one happened 3 months ago. was told catasetum seed pods might takes 7-8 months to mature. well, here goes nothing..................