Both parents on every cross
Record a seed parent and a pollen parent. Each can be a plant in your lab, or a name or accession number for a parent kept in another collection system. A self-pollination is a cross too.
Orchids
Tissue culture software for orchid crosses and collections
Record each cross with both parents, the pollination and capsule dates and the grex, then follow its seed into flasks, media and replates on the same record.
Free for 14 days. No card needed.
Start the record at the pollination
Orchid work is slow. A capsule takes months, a flask takes longer, and the plant that flowers may be years from the cross that made it. The record has to hold all of it, for whoever picks it up next.
The dates a capsule depends on
Keep the pollination date, the day the capsule was harvested and whether it came in as a green pod or dry seed, under your lab's own code for the cross.
Seedlings that know their cross
Record a sowing from the cross and the new record is linked to it. The sown record shows the cross it came from, and each parent shows the crosses it was used in.
From pollination to plantlets, step by step
Six screens from a demo orchid lab, in the order the work happens. Every name and grex in them is made up.
Pollination day
Step 1: Record the cross the day you make it
Give it your lab's code and the date. Pick the seed parent from the plants in your lab, and name a parent kept in another collection by its accession number. The capsule and the grex can wait until you have them.
Capsule harvest
Step 2: Everything about the pairing, on one page
Both parents, the day it was pollinated, the day the capsule was harvested and whether it came in as a green pod or dry seed, the grex and where its registration stands, and every record sown from it.
Sowing
Step 3: Sow it, and the record starts there
Record a sowing from the cross and xPlant Pro starts the plant record, named from the grex or the parents and linked back to the cross.
In the flask
Step 4: Every replate, with its medium and counts
Each replate goes on the sowing's record with the medium it went onto, the vessels, the plantlets before and after, and who did it. The next one is scheduled, so a flask does not wait on somebody remembering it.
Years on
Step 5: The plant still knows where it came from
A record sown from a cross names the cross and both parents, one by the accession number it carries in another collection.
The whole programme
Step 6: Every cross, at a glance
Plants → Crosses lists every cross by its code, grex and parents, with the day it was pollinated and what has been sown from it, and searches by code, grex or parent.
The rest of the collection stays where it is
A parent can be named by its accession number when the plant lives in another collection system, so a cross can use it without the plant being entered twice.
If that system is Hortis, a plant material list from Hortis can be brought in through the importer with its material numbers kept as plant IDs, and your active plants go back as a workbook in Hortis's own import template. Both directions are files you check; nothing syncs on its own. Moving plants between Hortis and xPlant Pro shows each step.
The orchid family is listed under CITES, with Paphiopedilum and Phragmipedium in Appendix I, and the rules for a sealed flask are not the rules for the plants that come out of it. CITES and phytosanitary paperwork for tissue-culture labs covers what changes at the deflask, why Appendix I orchids are a separate case, and why the inspecting authority has the last word.
Questions orchid labs ask
Can a parent be a plant that is not in xPlant Pro?
Yes. Either parent can be a plant in your lab, a typed name or accession number for a parent kept in another collection system, or both.
Does xPlant Pro register a grex?
No. It keeps the grex name, where registration stands (not registered, applied for, or registered) and the registration reference once you have one. Registration itself happens with the registrar, outside xPlant Pro.
Is recording crosses an extra?
No. Crosses sit with plant records, so every plan has them, the free trial included. A sowing is a plant record, so it counts toward the plan's plant allowance like any other.
What does not carry crosses yet?
The data export, the API and the assistant connector do not include crosses yet, and there is no import for an existing cross register. Everything sown from a cross is an ordinary plant record, and those are in the export today.
Can a cross be deleted?
Only while nothing has been sown from it. Once a sowing is linked, unlink it first, so a deletion can never take a plant's parentage with it.
Is there a free trial?
Yes. Every new account starts with a 14-day free trial, no card needed. After that, choose the paid plan that fits the lab's seats and records. Current plans and what each includes are on the plans page.
Record your next cross where its seedlings will be
Record a cross, sow it, and follow the flasks from there. Start a 14-day free trial and bring in the plant records you keep today.
Free for 14 days. No card needed.