Join us for a Talk on the ABC’s of Orchid Nutrition with Alan Koch of Gold Country Orchids

Meeting Date: Wednesday, June 12th at the Farmington Senior Center.  Doors open at 6:30pm for socializing and the meeting starts at 7pm.

The Farmington Senior Center is located at: 321 New Britain Ave, Unionville, CT 06085

Presentation: The ABC’s of Orchid Nutrition

Alan Koch owns and operates Gold Country Orchids where he specializes in miniature and compact Cattleya’s along with miniature species. Alan started growing orchids in 1969 with three Cymbidiums given to him by an aunt. While in college he became interested in other orchids and discovered many would grow outdoors in Southern California. He has moved five times as his orchid obsession has led to the need for more growing space. With the last move, he purchased 10 acres of land in Lincoln, California for his 250,000 orchids. He is recognized as an expert in the Brazilian Cattleya alliance and a trend setter in miniature compact and Cattleya breeding.

Alan has been published in the Orchid Digest, the American Orchid Society magazine, Orchids, as well as many International Publications. He has also been published in several proceedings of the World Orchid Conference. He is an internationally known speaker. He is a past member of the AOS Judging Committee, and the Research Committee, as well as an Emeritus Judge and is Training Coordinator for the California-Sierra Nevada Judging Center. Alan also served two terms on the Orchid Digest Executive Committee and 3 terms on the Board of Directors, as well as two terms as a Trustee for the AOS. He is currently the First Vice President for the International Phalaenopsis Alliance. Alan is also well known for the many AOS auctions he has done.

His talk will feature how to get the most out of your hobby and your plants. Learn some very simple tricks to get the most out of growing orchids. Interested in improving your orchid culture, come on out and join us at the June meeting, as always, we encourage you to bring your blooming plants for the Show Table! It’s always exciting to see what’s coming into bloom, looking forward to an awesome show table! See you there!

Please print and fill out the ID cards for the show table 

Join us for a Talk on Jumping Worms in Connecticut with Gale Ridge, PhD

For a visual comparison of worms here is a useful guide found on the Brunswick-Topsham Landtrust website here

Meeting Date: Wednesday, May 8th at the Cheshire Senior Center.  Doors open at 6:30pm for socializing and the meeting starts at 7pm.

The Cheshire Senior Center is located at: 240 Maple Ave, Cheshire, CT 06410

Presentation: Jumping Worms in Connecticut

For the May meeting we are venturing slightly off the orchid theme with a talk by Gale Ridge, PhD from the CT Agricultural Experiment Station on the topic of Jumping Worms in Connecticut. This is relevant for those of us that move plants outdoors in the summer or are interested in cultivating native terrestrial orchids.

The gardener in me certainly fears seeing these critters appear in my garden or local woodland. When you observe firsthand the work of a population of Jumping Worms it’s devastating to the soil ecology and plants growing there. Thankfully the name is a bit of misnomer, since they can’t actually jump, but they are fast moving and voracious consumers of organic matter which can quickly turn the soil into a crumbly mass of castings.

Potted plants can be equally at risk and a pot filled with moisture retentive potting mix high in organic matter can quickly become infested with worms that disturb plant roots and reduce plant vigor. Thankfully most of our orchids should be growing in fresh mixes that drain quickly and don’t provide a home for these critters, but pots with older mix that is breaking down or more ‘soil like’ mixes could become a buffet if left in ground contact where these guys are present.

Interested in learning something new, come on out and join us at the May meeting, we will be recapping from the Show last month and discussing how it went, and as always, we encourage you to bring your blooming plants for the Show Table! It’s always exciting to see what’s coming into bloom, looking forward to an awesome show table! See you there!

Please print and fill out the ID card for the show table orchid id papers

Join us for a hands on workshop: Tissue Culture and Un-flasking

A flask can take many forms, the basic requirement is a sealed container that can be filled with media and sanitized, where the orchid explants can be cultured. Flask in hand, Paph. Magic Paradise ‘Merlot’ x Paph. victoria-regina

Meeting Date: Wednesday, February 14th at the Farmington Senior Center;  Doorsopen at 6:30pm for socializing and the meeting starts at 7pm.

The Farmington Senior Center 321 New Britain Ave, Unionville, CT 06085

Presentation: Orchid Tissue Culture Basics and Unflasking Workshop

Our upcoming meeting in February will feature a hands on un-flasking workshop. We are putting together a short presentation on orchid tissue culture, after which where we will de-flask and pot up Paphiopedilum seedlings for everyone to take home. After talking with Dave Sorokowskyover at Paph Paradise, I decided on a nice hybrid sequential blooming Paph, amazingly enough he is claiming it can be bloomed in as little as 18 months out of flask! For those of you interesting in looking up the lineage, the cross is Paph. Magic Paradise ‘Merlot’ x Paph. victoria-regina. The fee to participate in the workshop is $10 per person. This will include: 1 seedling, potting mix, and container for transitioning the plant out of tissue culture.

Ever wonder how new orchid crosses are produced commercially? The process is a bit more complicated than popping a few seeds into a pot and watching them develop into a seedling. Early orchid growers sowed the dust like seeds of orchids onto moss trays in the greenhouse, success was very low and few plants were produced with this method. After a selected was bloomed successfully and found to be worth keeping the only way to propagate the plant was the slow process of division from growing leads. Early orchids were expensive and of limited availability to the general public unless in the form of jungle collected plants. With the advent of tissue culture the germination rate increased, making it feasible for production of seedling crops. At the same time a choice selection of a plant could be clonally propagated from meristematic tissue and multiplied exponentially faster in vitro than through division.  While you can order blooming sized seed grown or meristem culture plants, many growers also offer the option of purchasing flasks of young plants. Successfully transitioning plants out of the flask takes a bit of care to ensure that the tender orchids are properly acclimated to the new growing environment. The workshop part of the talk should demystify the process a bit for the hobbyist, with a controlled environment grow chamber of light rack this could be your next orchid adventure.

The pod parents Paph. Magic Paradise ‘Merlot’ AM/AOS x Paph. victoria-regina are both very attractive plants and should produce some nice offspring, seedlings all bring something unique to the table, maybe even an award winning cross in the batch!

Keep in mind February weather can be inclement, if the weather looks bad we will send out a memo to let people know if the meeting is still on. With any luck the weather will stay as mild as it’s right now!

Don’t forget to bring along your blooming plants for this month’s show table. It’s always exciting to see what’s coming into bloom, looking forward to an awesome show table! See you there!

Please print and fill out the ID card for the show table below.

Join us for a Talk on Orchid Viruses with Christian Lesage