Jeez Bob, what were you doing in a head shop? LOL. Just kidding, I couldn't resist. I live in Boulder, I have no room to joke. Your plan seems awful lofty. Someone else will have to direct you to more info, but I say what is the harm in trying something out. I think you would need to fashion a dome of sorts with a bit of air let in. I know their are books on the matter. Good luck!

It is always worth a try! Also sprinkle a few seeds in both parent pots. I have seen that work with other catts! Good luck.

Micorrhyza are not all the same so you may find that commercial fungal preps not designed for orchids may not work. There also seem to be a fine line between symbiosis and pathogenesis with orchid fungi so not getting the balance of microflora correct could cause problems. When symbiotically germinating orchids in flask if the conditions or fungi aren't right the fungi you do more harm to the seedlings than good.

There are a few symbiotic germination methods floating around which supposedly give reasonable results (nothing like flasks of course) although I haven't tried any of them myself as I have access to a flasking set up. All rely on the parent roots supplying the fungi. The only one I recall is from memory mentioned in one of Rentoul's books although I may be wrong on the author. Essentially you wrap some peat fine orchid bark in some cheesecloth, soak it, place it into a clay pot and sterilise it in a pressure cooker. Cover the pot when you take it out of the cooker ASAP with cling wrap or glass- probably a good idea to clean the glass with alcohol (eg ethanol, isopropanol or metho) before use. Minimise the amount of time you keep the cover off or you may have fungal problems. Once everything is cool place sprinkle the seed on the surface on the towel. Cut off some heathy roots from the parent plant. Thoroughly clean the roots (might be worth treating with 3% H2O2 or 10% bleach) and cut into inch long sections. Lay the sections near the seeds, mist with cooled boiled water put the cover back on. Place the pot in the dark with minimal temperature fluctuations until you see germination and then move it into light and remove the root peices once the protocorms start developing. Essentially the roots innocculate the towel+peat/bark with the appropriate fungi for germination. As I mentioned I've never tried this method and it does rely on the your plants roots containing the appropriate fungi. For wild collected plants I have no problem thinking it would work. For plants out of flask I can't say, although the RGO post below would make me think that orchid fungi may be ubiquitous enough that plants that have never had any contact with their natural habitat may still contain all the right fungi. If you're so inclined and it might be worth a try. If it fails all you've lost is a handful of peat, 10" of growing space and a bunch of seed you were never willing to flask in the first place.

Here is a link that might be useful: rec.gardens.orchids-Gene Shurg's post

Bob, you might take a look into a flasking service. You send your seed pod off, which is then germinated in vitro and sent back to you for compotting. Troy Meyers runs a respected one (www.troymeyers.com) that can be free (!), I think if you are crossing species and supply photographs. Otherwise, you pay by the flask. I've never used this service, but it sounds like a good way to get into the hybridization and seedling hobby without major investment. Cheers.

I agree. Get them professional flasked. I am almost certain that the Micorrhyza you buy in those tiny bags is for use on trees. (Read and research.)

Yeah, I've thought about the flasking services, but that's cheating. I want to witness and have an active role in the entire process. After doing a bit more research online to see if I could make my own flask; it doesn't look that expensive, because I would just use a fishtank and a sheet of plexiglass. It's the sterility I'm not sure I can keep up with. If I have trays of agar and sugar which is what I asume the medium to be, essentially, any and everything will try to live there... It's perfect, warm, humid, bright etc. Doing it outdoors in the open I don't have to worry about it.

I'm wary of slicing healthy roots off of a plant I have just forced to produce seed, without knowing for sure it will even work. I'm absolutely sure if I poured the seeds in some of my other established pots ! would either 1. wash them out 2. have to keep them wet enough and kill the mother plant.

I am in a pickle. Thanks to all of you for your insight, I'll keep thinking. But in reality, I'll probably break down in a few months and make a flask. My self control with regards to plants is next to nonexistent. Bob

I have at the moment about 30-60 million seeds of species, X Self, self made hybrids and natives to my area. When your pods ripen, Place them in a paper envelope( Securely sealed since seeds are super tiny) and place the envelopes in a container in the fridge. Mine are all in a wooden cigar box. Do lots and lots of research before you try sowing any seeds. Look up kitchen culture for home flasking. Media can come from anywhere for flasking (ie. Phytotechlab.com, Orchid seed bank project, etc...) also read all you can here or on Orchidboard.com/propogation.
also

http://orchidmall.com/supplies.htm

I would love to find a way to do it naturally but flasking produces much more plants from viable seeds than mother nature can... Until our next leap in orchid knowledge atleast...

Corymbosa, you were onto something with that. I like mosses to form on thae outsides of my clay pots for a natural look. I use a blender and shread the adult mosses and add either buttermilk or sugar and spray it on the clay pots to naturalize before I put plants into them. Maybe shreading up a one inch piece of mother/father plant roots(almost no damage to the parents) with a 3%H2O2 mix and spraying that on the cheese cloth... Hmmm. I do the same moss naturalization to some of my tree fern plaques before mounting an orchid on it, spraying on the moss and the plaque goes into its own plastic seed sprouting domes/super miniGH... I haven't flasked any of my seeds but I have a ready to go plaque in said setup, I'm going to give this thought a try...

Bob,

I can't vouche specifically for any success with cattleya types, but...

A good friend of mine was fairly successful at germinating the seeds of dendrobium kingianum without flasking. He and I both use coconut husk as a potting medium which may or may not have contributed to the success of germination.

Basically, he just soaked some of the smaller chunks of coco husk, then put about a 1/2 inch of this in a small plastic container that had been cleaned, though not necessarily sterilzed. The husk will need to be moist...not soaking wet, but also not bone dry. Then the seeds were sprinkled on the husk, and he covered the tub in plastic wrap. The key seems to be ensuring that the moisture level in the container is never too wet but never allowed to dry out. Coconut husk is very effective for maintaining optimal moisture levels.

In about 3 months, it was fairly obvious that the little corms had formed, and about 3 months later, there was no doubt that the container was filled with small orchid seedlings. When the first hint of green started to appear, I was very skeptical, and just assumed that my friend had successfully grown a container of moss. But in the end, there were more than enough seedlings to verify that this technique was successful.

I can't help you out much more than that because I wasn't the one who did this germination. Personally, if you want to avoid flasking just to see if you can do this, I say go for it, and good luck!