I split a flask from Sam w/ a friend. We asked him to ship w/ agar on the
roots. Plants were beautiful when they arrived - big and in excellent
condition. We potted them up in one big compot (agar and all) in seedling
bark mix. My friend was moving fairly soon (and opening an orchid business
) so he only kept them in the compot for a month or 2 then potted them
up. In retrospect, I would have grown them on in the compot much longer...
anyway, we got I think 27 plants. I took 14 and he took 13. I have 12
still alive although one is just hanging on. They're growing well but
slowly - I think they're around 3 inches across max now. I grow them in a
mostly enclosed table w/ 3 levels of plants. each level is 8' x 3' and has
16 4' flourescent tubes... Temp goes down to maybe 65 at night and up to 80
or so in the day from the lights. Humidity ranges from 90-95 at night down
to 75 or so during the day. I water 2x per week and have been experimenting
w/ different fertiliziers and am currently using something suggested by
Antec labs - a Michigan State University formula purchased from Robert's
Flower Supply. It has good quantities of macro nutrients including Mg and
Ca which is lacking in the water here in Seattle (33 ppm of TDS right out of
the tap). So, they're growing well although if they'd stayed in the compot
a bit longer, I think they'd be doing better but who knows. Oh, last bit, I
have REALLY good (maybe too good) airflow in the table - one of those whirl
fans or whatever they're called on each level - top and bottom going to the
right, middle to the left.

Good luck!

ps: just start w/ the Sanders

"Elpaninaro" wrote in message
...
Good evening all,

I posted here about this time last year to see about getting a group
together
to guide ourselves through some of Sam's flasks of sanderianum.
Unfortunately,
an extended illness and eventual death in the family kept me from
proceeding as
planned, but I am now ready to get back to work on this.

Going to order a couple of basic flasks (sukhakulii and maybe the new PEOY
or
lowii) in a couple of weeks and do some testing before I do the real deal
in
8-10 weeks or so. Hopefully this is where I will figure out if there are
any
imminent threats in my apartment to small seedlings (ie fungus or pests)
that I
am not currently aware of. And if I am lucky, they will be resolved and I
will
have all the more seedlings to consume my living space

In the mean time, would love to hear from others about your success and
obstacles to date. I have saved some of our earlier emails and have been
reading the info again wondering how everyone's game plan worked out-
especially in terms of survival rates in the first few months.

From what I have gathered and prepared from last year- seems I am covered
except on the matter of temperature. I am thinking of getting a small
space
heater to run in the apartment right by the shelf to keep around an 80-85
degree range (my apartment runs 68 most of the time.) Any thoughts on
that? Has
temperature been a big issue for any of you with these seedlings?

Looking forward to finally joining the struggle!

Take care,

Tom.