Need help please and thank you

Hi,
It would help to know where you live and what your are trying to propagate. In general we leave the germination of Orchid seeds to professional labs.
If you feel like reading up on this, here are a couple of nice articles describing the reasons why and the process itself.
http://baptcb.org/article/ptc2...
http://nopr.niscair.res.in/bit...

Just wondering, where you able to get a bit through those articles? I was hoping you have some questions! Please don't hesitate to ask.

Do you know where you can buy germinated orchids seeds?

Hi and welcome!

If you're after germinated orchid seeds, then you need to search for orchid seedlings in flasks from orchid suppliers. This is the earliest stage at which you can buy orchids. You can also buy individual seedlings once they are large enough to pot up.

Are you planning to make your own crosses?

I must admit I wouldn't try to grow orchids from seed or even from the flask stage. It takes literally years to grow an orchid to blooming size from seed. Some orchids may take 5 years or more. Baby orchids are not easy to grow, either.

This is the reason you don't see seedling orchids for sale very often, and also why blooming size orchid plants are quite expensive. It's taken someone years of exacting work to grow those plants to the size where they can bloom.

If you are, as your handle suggests, an orchid newbie trying to get into orchids without a lot of money invested, my opinion is you'd do better to buy plants on sale from places like Lowe's and Wal-Mart when they mark them down. We have a fellow on our forum here who gets them for as little as a few dollars, after they have finished their first bloom cycle and he has been successful in getting new flowers to bloom within one year.

Sometimes the folks here can give more complete advice if they know where you live. We have active members from all over the US and, as you can see above, other countries like Australia. It may be that someone would know of a grower near you where you could see seedlings and how they are grown. You can go to your public profile (click on the little person in upper right hand corner) and add a location. It helps.

Here I was just researching how to germinate epidendrum radicans seed. I have a nice pod with thousands of seeds and I thought I'd put them in a tray in sterilized peat moss, on the heat mat, and give it a go. Beginning to think it's a silly idea. Even if it took 5 years to blooms, it would be pretty cool to have mass quantities of these hardy orchids.

Years ago, before in vitro germination, growers tried to germinate Orchids by sprinkling some seeds onto the hopefully well established medium in the surrounding of an old established greenhouse. If there was the correct mycelium present, they might have gotten lucky. I would give it a 0% chance of germinating in sterilized peatmoss.
But the good part is, Epi radicans can be so easily propagated by keikies. You can have tons of new plants fairly quickly!
I always see seed pods on some Orchids, since mine spend the Summer outside. There is still a seed pod on my Den bigibbum v compactum ( That one always gets plenty pollinated) and if you look closely at the blue Darwinara Charm I posted yesterday into the Dec. bloom thread, there is a seed pod on the older spike. ( I purposely left it on to take a picture and will cut it off) My Encyclias always come inside with pods developing when I bring them inside in Fall and I simply cut them off, so as not to weaken the plants.

Thank-you Ursula for the advice. I really do have plenty of other seed projects this year without wasting time on something hopeless.

It's amazing that this could ever happen in nature!

It's so true. A seed needs to land in a very special spot to germinate and grow. Guess that's why orchids produce so many seeds, and also the reason they're pretty expensive to buy.

I have stumbled across sites online that offer flasking services. Since that is so far beyond my scope of orchids right now I've never ventured into the sites, much less bookmarked them, so I have no idea what is involved with these folks outside of sending them your seeds - no time frames, costs, etc. I did notice one that would send you the flasks back once established but again no idea what is involved.

I can't help but believe some local orchid societies or nurseries might not have someone who is that deep into hybridizing that might provide that service as well. The medium and flasks are available online but there is so much more than just throwing everything into a bottle and waiting.