Hi All,

I just wanted to get people's input on how best to handle seedlings that are bruised from jumbling around in the flask during shipping? I just got some flasks in and they were fairly jumbled up and as you can see from the photo below, there is some bruising to the leaves. From past experience if there's a lot of brusing, i end up loosing quite a few.

Here's a picture of the flask, it's a flask of Phrag. fischeri

http://lienluu.com/fischeri.jpg

For another example, here is a photo of a flask of P. leucochilum album that I got 4 weeks ago. Came in also with quite a bit of bruising and most of the seedligs did not make it. Perhaps though because the flask was in transit for a week.

http://lienluu.com/leuo.jpg

Thanks Lien

Some people just don't ship flasks properly... But that is a separate rant.

I've found that the flasks that look like they have been put through the blender never do well. Regardless of what I do to them. You might get one or two seedlings out of a really abused flask, if any.

I think the bruising serves as an entry point for fungal infections. So you may try spraying them liberally with a fungicide. Maybe even every day for the first few weeks if they are really valuable seedlings. Those fischeri are expensive. I don't know how cinnamon would work, but that might be a useful thing to try.

I used to spray all of my deflasked seedlings with 'Wilt Pruf' (an anti-transpirant), when they first came out. That might work in this case too. Why did I stop? Ran out of Wilt-Pruf... And got out of the habit. But I might start again.

Rob

Hi Lien and Rob,

In my experience, treating bruised flasklings with fungicide can be very tricky. We keep a spray bottle of 10% Physan around to treat damaged or cut leaf surfaces and roots on adult plants, and I have tried it several times as a prophylactic spray on damaged flasklings with uniformly disastrous results.

The last batch of flasks that came in jumbled and bruised were Paph. dianthum var album flasks, and I sprayed the seedlings with this Physan solution, only to have them turn brown and die within two weeks. Ditto a couple of flasks of P. besseae v flavums that were damaged in transit. There appears to be a fair amount of phytotoxicity involved with Physan 10% and damaged flasklings.

Personally, I think the best thing to do is to compot the seedlings in relatively small pots, like 5 seedlings in a 2.25" pot, and let them dry out for a day or two - then watering sparingly for a couple of weeks until the damaged surfaces dry out.