Posted by: Matt
on Aug 20, 2009
So Leah and I finally made the move to Ashland, Oregon. Since getting settled in, I've got my new greenhouse set up! I'm very excited about that. It gives me plenty of room to expand my collection.
Unfortunately I kept most of my collection inside under fluorescent lights this spring in order to try to keep them cleaner so I could gather tissue for tissue culture. When we arrived here in Ashland, I planned to just put them out in the greenhouse and let them acclimate. I had no idea that the temperatures would be over 100°F the week we got here. Between the heat and the intense sun that they weren't used to, most of them burned to a crisp!
The plants in these photos were either outside when we were living in Boulder, have recovered or, for one reason or another, weren't affected as badly by making the move from fluorescent lights to direct sunlight.
Posted by: Matt
on May 21, 2009
It's been quite a while now since I've written a detailed log of my tissue culture activity. I think it's mostly because I'm lazy, but it's also because there hasn't been many new revelations for me. I guess I was also out of town for nearly all of April, so that put a damper on my TC activities. However, now I think I might finally have something to write about.
Putting seeds in vitro has become very easy for me as has replating them. I have somewhere near 200 Dionaea and Sarracenia seedlings going now in cultures. Seeds are very easy to sterlize and my sterile technique must be pretty good because I've not yet gotten any contamination from air when plating or replating seed or seedlings. The only time I get contamination is from explants. Up to this point, I've been mostly using leaves and trap with very limited success. The only strike I've had to this point is my one 'Cupped Trap' success. My next plan of attack is to grow any plant that I want to get started in vitro in my terrarium where they will have a very clean growing environment that will make them easier to sterilize.
Leaves should be a pretty easy part of the plant to sterilize because most of them aren't in contact with the soil. However, flower stalks are the easiest part of the plant to sterilize because they never contact the soil. I have used flower stalks to start new plants ex vitro, so it made sense that it could be done in vitro.
Posted by: Matt
on May 14, 2009
I put a lot of Dionaea seeds into cultures on the 9th of March. Most of the seed came from Steve at flytrapranch.com (Thanks Steve!). I don't know for sure how many seeds I had, but nearly all of them germinated within 3 weeks or so. Initially I wasn't keeping the temperature high enough, but once I raised the temperature, they started germinating almost immediately.
I replated most of the seeds that were germinating near the end of March. Then I went out of town for basically 4 weeks and I hadn't checked on them at all during that time. I came back last week and to my surprise, many of them had grown like crazy! Most of them are already larger than the seedlings I started in August 2008 and they're only 2 months old!
I did a head count on these babies and there are 109 of them total. Out of those 109, 4 appear to have the all red trait and 3 of them are very yellow and one of those 3 actually looks white!
Posted by: Matt
on Apr 05, 2009
Here are some more photos of the 'Cupped Trap' leaf that I've been able to get going in tissue culture. It's only been 4 days since I last took photos, but I've been amazed at how fast it's taking off!
Posted by: Matt
on Apr 01, 2009
So, it's been a week since I posted a photo of what I thought was callus forming on one of my cupped trap leaves. You can see the blog entry here: Callus forming on Cupped Trap in tissue culture
Well, I thought I would give an update with some photos. It's definitely callus and it's definitely progressing quickly!
Posted by: Matt
on Mar 25, 2009
So after many failed attempts at establishing an explant in vitro, I think I finally might have had success. On February 23rd, I put a lot of tissue from Dionaea muscipula 'Cupped Trap', 'Sawtooth', and 'Fused Tooth' into cultures. All of them either died or got contaminated so far except one. See the photo below:
That looks like the beginning of callus formation to me! Finally tissue culture success with explants! Man, micropropagation of carnivorous plants is extremely difficult if you're starting with explants. Seeds are a breeze, but then of course you aren't guaranteed what type of plant you're going to get from seeds.
