Sowing/Flasking Masdevallia green pod or dry seed?

Hello Fellow Enthusiasts,

I have decided to venture into sowing seeds at home (with some tools from work at the university).

I recently posted a Masdevallia floribunda that I had selfed. There are 5 pods growing and they will be 30 days tomorrow. I will abort 2 or 3 of them to not overly tax the plant as the spikes are developing their second bloom at the moment. This will be mostly for practice as a get ready to do some hybridization when more of my plants come into bloom.

There is tons of info out there on general sterile methods and I am familiar with those as well. I will ba constructing a laminar flow hood in the coming months (24" × 24" or 24" × 18"). What is lacking is information specific to Masdevallia (except for the links below).

• Does anyone have any experience with this species and how long the pods take to mature?
• Reading suggests green pod is easier and more successful, but how long to wait before harvest? (I see Marni suggested 90 to 120 is the more common range).
• Or should I let them develop until they dehisce?
• Any media recommendations specifically for Masdevallia?

http://www.oocities.org/~marylois/archiv73.html
https://www.orchidsforum.com/threads/masdevallia-dry-seed-sowing.10425/#post-84550

 

Thank you very much, Marni. It is in a naturalistic terrarium/vivarium, so I would imagine that there are tons of contaminants in such a small and dense enclosure. Interesting point on the counting "sun" days. Since this is inside and under consistent conditions, I wonder if the plant "thinks" if it is in summer or winter.

I'll start sowing on day 90 and take it from there and see how they all go.

Do you have preferred media for Masdevallia?

 

P668 is from Phytotech, correct?

They list P668 as listed without agar, do you add agar yourself? Or use P658 (it this the same formulation but with agar)?

 

That makes sense. Thank you.

 

When recipes mention coconut water. Is it water from mature, husked coconuts (see image) or from fresh (ripe) coconuts with still a wet husk (green/yellow/ whatever color they are once ripe depending on cultivar)?

 

That makes it easy! Thanks

 

I just wanted to share an update.

I have not been able to get the selfings to germinate yet. They are dehiscing at about 55-60 days in my vivarium. I am playing chicken and keep losing by 1 or 2 days.

I have had some success with sterilizing dry seed using H2O2. This is a flask of my first hybrid using this plant as the seed parent.