Deflasking
Or commonly called "How to get the little buggers out of the bottle without killing them all".
With time, some things change and some things stay the same. Similarly, over the last 5 years, I have probably deflasked over a thousand flasks. I'm sure that is no record but the point is that I have learned a bit from that old teacher "Experience" and will attempt to guide you in some things to do and not do if you haven't deflasked Disas before.
First, let's consider the overall picture. We get a flask of Disas in which the humidity is close to 100% and all the nutrients that the plants desire are readily available. The tissue is probably soft and not used to strong daylight or extremes of temperature . The roots are similarly unstressed. They are embedded in a nutrient agar that supplies the plants with their complete nutritional requirements. What we want to do is get them out of this friendly environment and start them growing in our cold hard world. I'm going to present here the way I do it as well as some thoughts at the end about how else it might be done. First I will go through my past and present methods and then I will talk about possible methods to use when you only have a flask or two.
When we order flasks, prior to doing anything else, we need to decide how big of a plant we want in flask before we take the little buggers out. I specify that my lab person calls me when the first leave touches the top of the flask. This is what I consider to be the optimal time to deflask. There are some who actually like to deflask their plants at an earlier time and are successful but I have had the best results deflasking when the first leaf touches the top. The main downside to deflasking when the first leaf touches the top is that if you are getting the flask by mail, it is impossible to keep the flask contents from getting scrambled in transit. This means that the flask needs to be done as soon as possible after reception because the plants will be scrambled and also because they have probably experienced an air pressure change during transit and may have picked up some contamination as a result. You won't necessarily see any contamination because it takes time to develop but if you just leave the flask sitting, surely in a matter of a few days to a week, you will start to see weird stuff starting to grow in the flask. I normally ship flasks inside a zip-lock bag which has been sterilized to minimize any fungal problems but there is no perfect system.
The alternative is to let the plants grow until all the plants touch the top. Usually this minimizes the scrambling in transit but it also means that the plants are beginning to run out of nutrients and are getting stressed because of crowding. You also have a bit of an additional problem because the roots are starting to get seriously entwined. When the roots are all tangled together, it makes it harder to separate without root damage and that also increases deflasking time. The flasks are still subject to pressure changes in transit so they still should be deflasked as soon as possible.
Some of you will think that the choice is easy then, just ship when the plants are larger and avoid most of the scrambling. This is a decision that you need to make but if it were me making the choice, I would still like to get them when the first leave touches the top and that's mainly due to the second consideration. The second consideration is the time of year. Ideally, you want the flask so that your new seedlings are just deflasked and ready to start growing as early in the spring as you can guarantee the plants will be subjected to no frosts or freezing temperatures. Remember, the longer period of time they are allowed to grow before the end of summer, the better.
Once received, I let the flasks sit in the greenhouse in a shady place where I grow the Masdevallias and Draculas and acclimatize for a day or so. This may not be possible if the seedlings are scrambled by transit. The removal from the flask is going to be hard enough on the plants so letting them get a bit used to the conditions where they will be growing is always helpful when possible.
The next problem arises when we take them out of the flask. Physically removing them is easy. Just fill the flask half way with water, hit it sharply against the heel of your other hand and the agar should break loose from the jar. Then you need to be able to put the agar and plants on something to hold it while you wash off the plants. For a small number of plants, you can get a screen colander at a discount department store. Try and get one at least 12" in diameter with a flat bottom. If you are planning on raising lots of plants, I would recommend getting a plastic laundry tub at someplace like Home Depot. They are relatively cheap and you will also be using it when you do your annual repotting. What you need to do is build a frame that covers the top of the sink and to which you can attach ordinary plastic window screen. I built one very quickly and cheaply by using 1"x2"s stacked upon each other to form a 2"x2" frame that goes all around the top of the tub. Layout the layers so that the corner joints overlap for strength and screw together. After the frame is made, staple plastic window screen across the opening and you are ready to go. The screen keeps all the agar, dirt, leaves, and stuff from going down the drain and plugging up your drainage.
 This shows the detail of a corner joint. Quite simple to construct and a very useful addition if you want to do a lot of deflasking. You get a fairly rigid corner this way. |
 This is what the whole setup looks like. The sink and frame with screen were made with less than $25 worth of materials found in your local Home Depot. The colander was found at Target. |
 One of the most useful tools in my greenhouse is this sprayer. It is easily made from a 4 gal/minute Fogg-It nozzle on the end of a thumb valve. A brass on/off valve and a brass quick change fitting complete the attachment to an ordinary garden hose. The nozzle and thumb valve are available at the big hardware chains or from Charlie's greenhouse supplies. The brass fittings are from Home Depot. The sprayer is used to wash agar off of the roots when deflasking and also to clean the roots when repotting. In addition, you can always use it for watering and wetting down the greenhouse. The flask at the right is very much past the optimal deflasking time but the picture was taken the year I got flooded with over 400 flasks.
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To remove plants from flask, fill flask part way with water and rap the corner of the flask sharply against the heel of your hand. This should break the contact with the flask and then you merely tip the whole agar pad out onto the screen. |
The next problem that arises is how to get all the agar off the roots so no bacteria or fungus is able to get started on any nutrients remaining around the roots. You absolutely MUST remove as much of the agar as possible. Strive for 100% removal if you can do so without breaking any roots. The agar removal is made possible by using a strong jet of water. The roots are fully capable of taking the spray from my hose through the 4 gal/min Fogg-It nozzle. I first break up the agar disk by tipping the whole mass at about a 45 degree angle and while rotating the whole mass, direct the full force of the spray at the base of the agar plate holding the roots. This washes a lot of the agar off but the plants still need individual attention. I normally grasp the seedling in a manner so as to shield the leaves from the spray as I wash the roots clear of the agar. While the roots will take the full spray from the sprayer, the leaves are somewhat more fragile. The full force of the spray will pulverize the leaves if directed upon them. By grasping the plant so that my hand is cupped around the plant, I prevent most leaf damage while I am washing the roots clear of the agar.
 Here I am breaking up the agar disk holding the roots. |
 The plants after washing off some of the excess agar but before washing the agar from the individual root systems. |
 Washing off the individual roots. Notice that most of the plant is protected by my hand.
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 An older seedling from a flask past it's prime. This seedling has a lot of brown roots but will still grow |
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I hold the washed seedlings in a solution containing the above compounds. I
make a very rough mixture by starting with about a gallon of water in a
6 quart plastic storage container that can be obtained at any discount
department store and can be seen on the right. To the water, I add 10 -
12 drops of Physan 20, a capful of the Safer's Vitamin B-1 Plus solution
and a capful of the VF-11 solution. This results in a slightly
acidic solution containing an anti fungal agent, a root stimulator and
some fertilizer. The plants seem to like it and I have held plants
for several hours in this solution without noticing any harmful effects
after planting. It definitely starts the plants out with a boost!
The potting medium in the photo is the sand that I used to use.
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The solution that I use for holding plants needs a bit more of an explanation. Besides being in danger from drying out when you deflask, there may be some root damage due to handling. If you don't do anything about the damage and repot into a wet mix, you are asking for trouble with fungus, especially damp-off. The temperatures and climates also vary widely among Disa growers and often fungicide use is not only beneficial, but necessary. While I use a very small amount of Physan 20 in my holding tank when I repot, others have successfully used Subdue, Captan, and Clearys 3336. All are useful but I hesitate to use them because I am constantly putting my hands in the solution. Another approach is to use something like Rootshield which contains a beneficial fungus. As with any chemical, Please always follow the Manufacturer's suggestions for personal protection. Also please be careful with the Physan 20 solution that you use as if you use anywhere near the manufacturer's recommended strength, you will seriously damage the plants. Use no more than 10 - 12 drops per gallon.
The Vitamin B-1 solution is thought to be beneficial for reducing transplanting stress and also contains the rooting hormone NAA which can't help. Some people use Superthrive or the K-L-N solution from Dyna-Gro but the Safer's solution is readily available at Home Depot and quite a bit cheaper than the other two.
The last item is a fertilizer solution which has Potassium Nitrate and Phosphoric Acid as it's base. If you can't read the label, it's called VF-11 and I found mine at Long's Drugs. I guess the idea here is that it goes right to work and doesn't have to be broken down into it's constituents prior to being absorbed by the plants. I was introduced to it by Alan Koch of Gold Country Orchids and definitely see an improvement when used for a foliar spray.
The next decision that you need to make is what to do with your seedlings after you have deflasked them and washed the agar off their roots. You need to put them in a potting mix that will provide a slightly acidic medium and also be able to provide enough moisture for the plants to be happy. There are a number of choices here but I would strongly recommend the one using sphagnum moss. I will show you how to use coarse sand as an alternative but in my experience, I get much better results using a mixture of Supersphag and perlite at about equal volumetric proportions.
The second aspect of what to put the newly deflasked seedlings in concerns the choice of pots. When you aren't doing a lot of plants, the choices are much better. I need to use something in which I can maintain a high humidity and then decrease the humidity over 4 days to a week depending on temperature and outside humidity. My problem is that i need to be able to deal with a large number of plants at the same time so my choices are a bit limited. As of spring 2002, I am deflasking into SR350 pots. I put in from 4 to 12 plants per pot, depending on the seedling size. This lets me use a tray which holds 18 pots and is perfectly covered with the 10 x 20 clear plastic dome to conserve humidity.
The first method shown here will be the old way in sand. I need to say a bit about the sand however. In South Africa and lots of other places, one can find a coarse sand that is referred to as sharp sand, silica sand or acid sand. The key ingredient is a sand in which there is no carbonate or salt content. Most sand will not do. You can test the sand easily by washing with a bit of RO water or what ever you are going to be using for your Disas and checking the reading of the effluent. It should not be over 100 ppm salt. Less is preferable. The second test is to put some in a test tube and add some vinegar or weak acetic acid. There should be no bubbles produced which would indicate the presence of carbonates. If you can find such a sand and not have access to SuperSphag, then you may consider the sand method.
 These are a selection of the various pots that I have tried. All have some advantages and some disadvantages. They range from the large, deep 6 inch square pot on the right to the short flat 801 liner which will fit 8 into a 10 x 20 tray which can be covered by the clear dome in the rear. |
 This is a sample of the sand that I used. It isn't ideal as it need to be washed a bit prior to use. It is marketed locally as #3 sand by a company called Lodestar. It comes packaged in 100 pound sacks and is supposed to be washed and kiln dried. You absolutely need to wash it again before use! |
The sand is put into the 801 liners in a 10 x 20 tray and then washed repeatedly until the wash water contains no salt. I normally just do this be washing the sand in place in the tray and just hitting it with hose water. The photo on the right shows me planting the seedlings. I would make a hole in the wet sand with a spoon handle and stick the plant into it. I wouldn't worry about getting the sand around the roots to much at this point. |
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 Following planting the seedlings, I would take the whole pot and submerge the pot up to the rim in a container of the holding solution. This would make the sand all flow into the holes and gently snug up the roots. A cute trick. |
 In this photo, you can see the results after a couple of months worth of growth. As you can see, the results are a bit sporadic with some pots holding nice seedlings and some holding not much anymore. Everyone has some problems in this regard but it made me want to find a better way. |
The main problem when using sand is how to just keep the sand moist enough for the plants to thrive but yet not too moist or too dry. The first step in protecting the seedlings was to cover the bench with a layer of shadecloth to reduce the light and also, more importantly, the heat. The 801 liners are only a bit over 2 inches deep and dry out quite quickly when filled with a free draining medium like sand. The second step was to install a misting system which is on a good deal of the time during the warmer months. There are a couple of things to remember. You need to water daily in the summer and sometimes more often than once a day. As a result, there is one set of sprinklers that is controlled by an ordinary lawn timer. I takes care of watering from one to three times a day during the summer and once every three or four days during the winter. In addition, I have a low pressure mister that is made by Arizona Mist which is connected to a thermostat. During the summer, it turns the misters on any time that the temperature exceeds 80 degrees during the period from 9AM to 4:30 PM or thereabouts depending on the day length. I still have to watch out for problems but it's good to automate to the extent that you can take a trip or something without having to worry about the Disas drying out and dieing. When using such a system, there are still problems with too much water promoting moss, weed, and liverwort growth on the surface. The moss and oxalis especially will give you fits.
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Before discussing the next method, I thought I would show you how to handle an overgrown flask. In the top photo, you can see how badly overgrown the flask is. This isn't a real problem except that it will take the plants somewhat longer to adapt and start growing. |
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In order to decrease the amount of foliage that the roots have to support, you just give the plants a "haircut" and take off about half of the length of the leaf. Depending on the condition of the roots, more or less leaf should be removed. This doesn't hurt the plant as it really needs to initiate new growth in order to survive. Often, the older, less thick leaves will die off as the new growth takes over. |
The method that I use now uses a product called SuperSphag which is imported from New Zealand as a compressed pellet which expands to three or four times it's volume when soaked in water. It is composed of chopped sphagnum which is dried and compressed. It has all the advantages of regular long fiber sphagnum moss and the additional and most important consideration, that it doesn't get all tangled in the roots. I first became aware of this product some ten years ago when it was used by a mid-western firm to grow their Phal seedlings right out of flask. I used it for many years as a medium in which to deflask my Phal seedlings and also initially tried it on Disas with no luck. (This was due to my placing them under lights and literally cooking them with way too high temperatures.) When I started being disappointed in the sand method, I tried a few flasks of seedlings in a mixture of SuperSphag and perlite and noticed almost an immediate improvement. Since then I have completely switched over to using SuperSphag / perlite in both my compots of deflasked seedlings and also for my main potting mix for all Disas and been very impressed with the results.
When using the SuperSphag / perlite mixture, you need to modify your planting method slightly. This is due to the fact that the mixture doesn't "flow" around the roots like sand and the roots on Disas are very fragile and once broken, do not grow back or branch. The planting method is to simply place the pot on a bit of an angle and kind of stack the plants in rows separated by a layer of the moss / perlite mixture. The following photos show the process.
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Once the rows are completed, you just stand the pot upright and you are essentially done. It may sound difficult but is really easy when you try it. It's a good idea to kind of separate the plants a bit if they are bunched together and stand them upright so the individual plants are standing straight up and down. |
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| The completed pots are shown above. The next stage requires that you provide an atmosphere of high humidity while the plants are adjusting to their removal from the flask. I couldn't use the clear bubble top on the deep pots so I used a 66 qt. clear plastic storage box. If you notice in the photo below, the lid is only covering half the box. Usually I cover the whole box for a day or so, then uncover a quarter for a day or so, then half the box for a couple of days, then I just take the pots out and pot them in the shady part of the greenhouse where they get misted on when it is warm. If any sign of fungus is observed, then the plants are sprayed with a fungicide and moved to a flow table where the humidity is lower and they only get misted when the temperature is above 85 degrees by a high pressure mister which delivers very fine droplets which evaporate almost immediately. I will sometimes spray the compot with the same solution that I use in the holding tray if I see maybe one or two plants that look like they are having trouble. This seems to pert them up a bit. | |
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I'd like to tell you that that's all you need to know as this article is already way too long but unfortunately, once the buggers are out of the flask, the hardest part is just beginning. Once out of flask, you need to harden up as quickly as possible to reduce the chance of picking up any fungal or bacterial infection. If you start to notice any fungal problem while you still are hardening off, remove the pot from the humid conditions immediately. You will probably lose a few of the soft flask leaves when you do this but you would probably loose them anyway and it's more important to save the plant. Treat the plant with a fungicide and monitor daily if possible.
Besides looking for fungal problems, you still need to closely monitor the compots. The old growth present in the flask often is too weak to survive in the real world and may start to desiccate and turn yellow or brown. This isn't necessarily a bad thing if there is new growth sending up green leaves from the center. Since we are mainly interested in the new growth, as long as the new leaves remain blemish free, we are okay. As the old leaves turn brown, they should be gently removed at the base so they don't promote any fungal growth. When you remove the old, brown leaves, hold the plant in place with one hand or you may find that you pull the whole plant from the mix.
Following are some things to look for when monitoring your compots. I have gotten a lot of flasks from other people and the plants were not always received in the best of condition. I will not send a customer a flask with problem plants but you should know how to deal with these situations should the need arise.
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The photo at the right shows what the compot looked like after treatment. |
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The photo above shows nicely developing compots. Note the lack of any brown leaves or signs of rot. This is what you should try and get the compots to look like. |
A shot of my favorite deflasker / repotter and general all round helper. My son Garratt at one of the sinks showing how to remove seedlings from a sand compot. Besides Garratt, note the way things are set up for planning your work sink. |
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Besides this brief introduction into the trials and tribulations of deflasking, you really should look at Wally Orchard's page on deflasking as well as the one presented by Ron Maunder. You will immediately notice that things can be done simpler than by my methods. The main thing to remember though is that the job isn't done once you get them out of the flask. You will still need to monitor the seedlings closely during the first three months or so out of flask. By that time they are growing strongly and you can slack off a bit but not ignore them completely. You should always take a close look at your plants at least once a week and take care of any fungal problems as soon as you see them. If you care for your plants, they will reward you with spectacular blooms. Cheers and happy deflasking!