FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I put a lot of Dionaea seeds into cultures on the 9th of March. Most of the seed came from Steve Doonan (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!

It's very hard to take good photos of tissue culture vessles, and it's even harder to get a good estimate of the size of the plants, but I did my best. I hope you enjoy!


These first two photos are of plants that are growing quite vigorously, but have typical traits as far as I can see right now.

Below are 3 red plants and one of the yellow plants. There is possibly a fourth red one that I didn't count because it had barely grown at all. You can see it behind the red plant on the left. It's just a red streak in the agar. I've noticed that the all red plants grow slower in general.

Below is a monster!

Below is another culture vessel with one more red plant (center) and two more yellow ones. One of the yellow ones actually looks almost white!

Below is possibly another reddish plant in the right corner of the photo. It definitely has some red tint to it and it's growing in a very clumped fashion and quite vigorously. I can't wait to see what these little guys look like when they get full grown.

Here they all are lined up on the counter. All 109 of the in vitro babies!

Wow! Neat, neat neat! Those look great, Matt. What a nice way to grow seeds. They grow more quickly and they look very healthy. "Ex vitro" tiny Flytrap seedlings often "retrograde" for unknown reasons (well, I've pinpointed a few, but sometimes it's just mysterious.) In vitro they seem very happy. I hope I'm in a comfortable position someday to get set up and learn tissue culture.

Congratulations!

Very nice! What was your media recipe for these?

Wow! These pics here are a perfect argument for getting set up to be able to do TC! Makes my 2 little sprouts in standard media seem pathetic Those are some monster seedlings.

your are havin a lot of success with the germinating. good job!!

Nicely done Matt, they are growing really well. You've got talent bro. Here are some pics of my 3 month old seedlings.





Some Burmannii seedlings.




hb

Steve_D wrote:Wow! Neat, neat neat! Those look great, Matt. What a nice way to grow seeds. They grow more quickly and they look very healthy. "Ex vitro" tiny Flytrap seedlings often "retrograde" for unknown reasons (well, I've pinpointed a few, but sometimes it's just mysterious.) In vitro they seem very happy. I hope I'm in a comfortable position someday to get set up and learn tissue culture.

Congratulations!

Yeah, I can't believe how healthy they look and how quickly they grow! And seeds are actually very easy to get going in TC. You should definitely give it a shot if you have a chance Steve. I'd recommend seeds over tissue any day of the week. Of course, the only draw back is that you aren't propagating clones when you do seed.

Definitely save me some of those "all red" seeds that you are trying to create this year Steve. If I get any interesting plants from your seeds, I'll repay you with lots and lots of them!

renesis wrote:Very nice! What was your media recipe for these?

Thanks! I'm going to start calling this my standard media mix:
1) 1/2 MS with full strength MS vitamins
2) 30g sugar per liter of media
3) 1ml PPM per liter of media
4) pH = 5.6
5) 1 smidgen scoop of agar per 25 ml in a baby food jar. I use a pinch scoop for 50 ml.

Redneck_Angel wrote:Wow! These pics here are a perfect argument for getting set up to be able to do TC! Makes my 2 little sprouts in standard media seem pathetic Those are some monster seedlings.

It's true! I don't know that I'll ever grow seedlings "ex vitro" again. And the even greater thing about growing them in TC is that if you have one that you really like, you can keep propagating it again and again in vitro until you have hundreds of them.

kevinqwe wrote:your are havin a lot of success with the germinating. good job!!

Thanks!

hackerberry wrote:Nicely done Matt, they are growing really well. You've got talent bro. Here are some pics of my 3 month old seedlings.

Thanks Jun! Yeah, they're doing great! Your seedlings look awesome too. I can tell they're definitely on the plant growth regulators now though. They're starting to look a bit deformed...hah.

In that third photo, are those two yellow VFTs and a red one?

Matt wrote:I can tell they're definitely on the plant growth regulators now though. They're starting to look a bit deformed...hah.

In that third photo, are those two yellow VFTs and a red one?

Haha! I added too much BAP and they went all crazy. Some of them are burned a little from too much PGR but they are recovering now. Some of the traps are already 1/2 inch for some of the plants. I will try to propagate some of the leaves, I guess no more sterilization as they have been inside the culture since they were born.

The 2 yellow vfts are putting out some hint of red, they are looking great.

hb

hackerberry wrote:Haha! I added too much BAP and they went all crazy.

Hah! That's what I thought. How much BAP do you have in there?

Yes, those yellow guys are starting to look great. I wonder if they'll keep their coloration when they come out of the cultures.

I used 6 ml per liter which is overkill. Should be at least 2-3 ml per liter.
The yellow are getting a red Tint on them.

hb

How did you sterilize those Burmannii seeds?

Droseras are the easiest to sterilize. Enclose them in a coffee filter and soak in 10% bleach for 15 minutes. Rinse for 5 minutes 2 times. Thats it! You can soak it in h2o2 for 1 minute if you like to add to the sterilization process.

hb

hackerberry wrote:Droseras are the easiest to sterilize. Enclose them in a coffee filter and soak in 10% bleach for 15 minutes. Rinse for 5 minutes 2 times. Thats it! You can soak it in h2o2 for 1 minute if you like to add to the sterilization process.

hb

Sounds easy enough. I'll have to give them a go sometime.

How did you sterilize the VFT seed Matt?

Seed is easy. I put it in a coffee filter, 5 minutes in hydrogen peroxide, 10 minutes in 10% bleach, 5 minute rinse in sterile water and onto the media.