Preparing Culture Medium No 09 (M09)

'Helmi.. I want to prepare medium no 9. You want to see how?'.. Oh yeah! In less than 10 minutes I arrived at Hj Naza's house. But firstly I checked the delivery order from Mikail. Seems everything is there!

Medium no. 09 will be used to germinate seeds and for growth of bulbophyllum and phalaenopsis. Ingredients used include fruits and vegetables such as banana, apple, potato and tomato. Seems like we are going to make cookies again...

The 'secret' recipe

Fresh fruits

Some potatoes

Activated charcoal

Bananas

Peptone

N63 fertilizer

Sugar

Agar

All these items will be blended together tomorrow. After that, it will be cooked and adjusted for the right ph. Finally, it will be filled into the bottles/flasks and then the same cycle (autoclave) will be performed. Germination process will be conducted 3-5 days later after ensuring that there is no contamination on this medium. Usually, there will be 10-15% chances of contamination for every batch of medium. Thus, cleanliness of the lab must be given the highest priority.

More Chemicals and Lab Equipment Sent by ERLA

Mikhail sent the previous order to Hj Naza. Total amount is RM1,300.25 only. He will collect the money in the afternoon. We met in my office that afternoon and he laughed at me for ordering '500L' of ethanol! Yeahh.. my mistake!

Discount 0.25 cents only.. haha

Petri dish

Hydrochloric acid and ethanol

Forceps and scalpels

Measuring cylinder

Air Terjun Sekayu Waterfall, Kuala Berang

While on the way back from our failed 'mencandat' trip at Kuala Terengganu, we dropped by at Air Terjun Sekayu waterfall. It is a famous family picnic river but to me it is a so-so only. It is quite far from the highway and it is actually on the way to Tasik Kenyir dam. There is a mini wild orchid of Terengganu section along the way to the main waterfall but it was not well-maintained. A very peaceful jungle but the waterfall is famous for many 'death' because of drowning!

Cleaning up Front Porch for Future Shelves Area

It's Sunday! Not doing any lab work but assisting Hj Naza to clean up the porch. We plan to build shelves to put all flasks outside once the seeds germinate and can be exposed to higher sunlight. Errk... got so many termites around the area.

Spraying anti-termites around the area

Record of Lab Works

We didn't do flasking work tonight. Just fixing some holes here and there in the lab. I browse thru Hj Naza's book / record and was laughing at him. It's so ancient!

I think it started in 1984

List of orchid names mostly from South America

Back cover - full of dates

Number of days taken for seed pods to mature/burst

Purchased of Refrigerator

RM850 for refrigerator! That's how much we have to pay for this 'Samseng' brand, hehe. However, Hj Naza managed to negotiate the price from RM999. He purchased the fridge from Nam Hong this morning.

Samsung brand - RM850

Flasking Works Started!

Tonight we started our flasking work in the lab. Not much but just sowing the orchid seed on the media prepared last Sunday. We sow the spore of D. echinolabium and managed to get few flasks. From these flask, the spore will germinate into protocorm and then become plantlets. Later the plantlets will be reflasked and grow into seedlings before being taken out to grow as  mature plant! Just imagine how much time taken to do all these works... definitely we need full-time workers and bigger workspace later!

p/s - Mikail came in the morning to set the autoclave and taught Hj Naza how to use it. He would come back tonight to send Ethanol - that's it? Where are the other orders?

Some of the orchid spore saved for germination process

The spore can produce thousands of plantlets

Preparation of flasking work

Sowing spore on the media

The spore will form protocorm

Another bottle

We'll see how it grows in a couple of days

Once completed, the flask will be sealed again

Proper labeling is important to avoid confusion

Hj Naza at work

That's me! an apprentice

Autoclave Works Started - Preparing Culture Medium No 39 (M39)

Alhamdulillah, the lab work has really started. Tonight we are going to test the autoclave for the first time. Hj Naza has filled up the flasks with M39 during the day. The media need to be sterilize before flasking work can begin later. The autoclave was set to 120 degree Celcius, 15 psi and flasks were sterilized for 15 minutes. In reality, it takes the autoclave 15-20 minutes to warmup, and then maintain for 15 minutes at 15 psi before it dries out and complete the cycle. Overall, it takes about less than 1 hour to complete a single process. Hmm.. i guess the autoclave has done a good job but we need to further refine our technique.  

4 crates of flasks - 200 flasks in total

Flask filled with M39 media

The cap if further tighten up with rubber band

16 flasks per level

A total of 57 flasks can be put inside at one time

This is how it looks like after nearly 1 hour of 'cooking'

The media is still boiling after being taken out from autoclave

Flasks are arranged properly with care

Chemicals and Lab Items from Dr. Zainal

Dr. Zainal sent the chemicals which he has ordered earlier. Total cost - RM748. How to pay as he did not give his bank account number?

Peptone, Activated Charcoal etc.

Receipt 1

Receipt 2

Receipt 3

Purchased Lab Equipment at Giant

Went to Giant to purchase few lab equipment such as 2 water filter, blender, book, stationary and etc. Spent about RM200 for all items.

Can it work? Or do I need to buy a distiller now?