Unflasking!

   Well, today is a day off work for me, so I decided to do something productive. I finally decided it was time to do something about the two flasks that I had bought from Ching Hua back in February, which required a lot of prerequisites before actually unflasking and potting the seedlings up. Once again, I am feeling pretty great knowing that I have (hopefully) nothing to fear. Now I hope I can get these seedlings growing before I have some of my own crosses to unflask. More after the break.

   First I removed what was in the lower level aside so that the fish tank could fit inside. I also added a bit more sphagnum to the bottom and placed a level of egg-crate on top of the sphagnum, so that the pots don't directly sit on top of the sphagnum. I also have a layer of packing peanuts on the bottom, allowing me to keep some water in the bottom for the sphagnum to soak up and release humidity. Unfortunately I was not thinking ahead, and didn't take pictures of the whole progress.

   I don't know why I didn't take a lot of pictures, maybe because I was just so focused on getting the deed done, and it ended up taking about two hours. After preparing the fish tank and egg-crate for the seedling chamber, I headed down to the kitchen and began to do some cleaning. First I got my sphagnum ready by putting it in a steamer over some water with a splash of bleach added into the water. I do this now because Several times I had just used sphagnum straight from the bag, I had a weird red fungus appear that wiped out the plant from the roots up. Since then, I have always steamed my sphagnum for at least ten minutes, and haven't had an issue since. After that, I cleaned out the sink with soap and some bleach, and then gave the pots I was going to use a soak in the bleach water. Finally, I filled up the sink half way, added a few drops of bleach, and then opened the flask without breaking it, as I plan on giving them to the guy who does my flasking to reuse in the future. Since these were a little past due, the agar had started to get a bit dry, so I had to fill the flask with water and swish it around a few times before the agar started to loosen. I continued to fill the flask with water, swish, and then dump until the agar loosened from around the roots enough for me to be able to gently pull the seedling out of the narrow top. After pulling off dead roots and leaves, and throwing a few runts away, these were the seedlings of (Sogo Yukidian 'F4' x Join Grace 'TH288-4'), a grex now registered as Join Star, that I have from this flask.

Join Star seedlings.

   Because I am looking forward to this cross quite a bit, I gave them some space to grow out, and I also separated them into two pots. There were some pretty decent sized seedlings in this flask, and it was interesting to see that because of the sterile and moist environment inside the flask, dead leaves didn't really rot, rather then just yellowed and fell off, staying soft and limp.

Join Star seedlings potted up.

   I ended up forgetting to take a picture of the seedlings of the Hsinying Pink Mount seedlings before potting, but there were some big seedlings in that flask, so large, in fact, that there were quite a few runts, several of which actually died, turning into yellow little preserved. . . things. Because I might end up unflasking my own Penang Girl cross before either of these crosses are mature enough to come out of the incubation chamber, I culled out quite a few more from this cross so that I could fit all ten of the largest seedlings into one large pot, leaving me room for another large pot and a medium sized one in the chamber.

Hsinying Pink Mount potted up.

   And, the finished product with the seedlings in their brand new home.

   I have egg-crate on top to cut the light levels a bit and to also hopefully reduce the rate of humidity loss. I have the fan pointed up because I think that it would be too strong for the seedlings to have it pointed into the chamber, so I am hoping that the laws of nature work and create a small air flow as the fan sucks some air from the inside of the chamber. . . hopefully. I may change it tomorrow, but we'll see. I know my flasker grows his seedlings in chambers with pretty much no fan-induced air movement at all, and they are perfectly fine, so I'm trying not to fret.