Now that our big show is over our plants can return to one of their primary tasks which is producing seed for the propagation lab. Here Ed is pollinating Oncidium ornithorynchum by taking pollen from the dark pink clone and putting it onto the light pink clone. When ever possible we produce seed by using two different clones of a species especially with the Oncidium family where most species refuse to produce viable seed from a self pollination. The seed pods will be carefully wayches for the next few moths and they will be sown both green pod (just before they ripen) and dry seed (after the seed pods ripen and split).

As usual the propagation lab was busy before school with students making media and replaying seedlings in the laminar flow cabinets.