FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Well, finally I did it, today I introduced this 6 nepenthes meristems to see if I had success with their dissinfection .

Congrats on your first attempt! Good luck!

One thing I notice from the photos is that your explants look quite large. In my experience, it's best to keep them as small as possible in order to avoid contamination. Let us know how it turns out!

Yes I know that detail and I'm concerned about it, but.. nepenthes hides its meristem really well, so this time I did not take too much time looking for it.

First week. The one on the very right is gone, fungi all over it. 6 to go.

BTW: meristem measure less than 0,2mm. This is culture of whole node with stem. In case of Nepenthes ( which are well know to have bacteria inside ) it is waste of time - they will contaminate. Try much smaller tissue containing meristem - 1-5 mm. I guess you will have then success 1:10 with good sterilization protocol.

Yes, the thing with the title is that the meristem, is the meristem Area, not the mere part, so then, if this first easy option does not work (because it has worked with a friend with mexico) then I would try smaller explants, of course, this is a 1 year trial period. The medium has PPM, if the dissinfection at the end did not work, I would also include a PPM dip before proceeding also.

Update:
Good news for now.
No more contamination, and the second explant from the right of the photo shows a clear growth, the new leave has energed from the center of the old one.
Yesterday (monday) I saw a small fungi sprouting in the plant 3 from the left, which is pubescent, so I dissinfected it again and it went into new media, it is doing fine right now.

Second week, the ventrata ones, that are not pubescent are growing well, they have no contamination and a fast development.
The 3 'gentle' ones, 2 have contamination again, fungi, tomorrow they will be dissinfected again, 1 for second time and the other for 1st time, the third of them is doing good. The plant is pubescent so it is not like very strange.
So this time I will add to the typical treatment a bath in PPM solution also.

After now 3 weeks, the nepenthes explants seem to stabilize, their slow growht continues, and no more fungi has been spotted. A treatment in 40min agrimicin with benlate and 1 hour in 8%ppm seem to have had good results even on an explant that was 2 times contaminated.
This are the plants that remain in good condition:

This two first ones are in the original medium





This next 2 had to be treated once again in dissinfection





And this last one has gone through its second extra dissinfection.

looks like to usual result , dont know any one who has successfully got any nep cutting , stem , leaf , nodule or any other part of the nep plant going in T/C other than culture seed grown in the jar
, so will be some thing unknown if you do get them to take , the best have tried , no one been able to do it yet !! still good luck with it , you dont try you never know !!
john

That is what I think, I had to try it here and see what I get! Even more when almost no one has had success.

Finally all the remaining plants are growing and some have produced a second basal shoot, the key was to use NaClO again during the re-dissinfection. they are doing great I think

As comparing to the last photos, I saw it is time for an update! The 4 remaining plants seem to have stabilized, seldomly getting contaminated again, but they have trully started to grow and multiply.
Any guess or aproximation of when could they be cut and replated?

Your ex-plants look good and look like they got some shoots. Wait until shoots are long enough and has at least 2 or more leaves then cut them and replace/re-multipliation.

Thanks! will wait to see when that happens to try the division!