FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey everyone. Just wanted to check in with a picture of my TC progress. I've had an exceptionally brown thumb this year, both in TC and out which has been pretty discouraging. This is the one culture I've done that is still alive. All of my flower stalk cuttings got contamination (it was strange, it took 3 or 4 weeks to show up) and all of the other seeds, including the other one in this jar died. I had them on a heating pad, which I suspect was too hot. It was evaporating a lot of water out of the agar, some of which was managing to escape the vessel. The agar was still very soft though. This remaining culture (and its dead friend in the background) was starting to look bad too so I transferred it into the jar in the picture and stopped using the heating pad. I also tried decreasing the light thinking maybe it was growing too dependent on photosynthesis rather than the sucrose in the media. I think that turned out to be a mistake that finished off the little one and I moved it back under my light. That was a while ago. It's now been in culture for 130 days. Do you think the heat was the problem or could my media have a problem (or both)? This being my first attempt, I'm not sure how much growth to expect after 4 months. All I know is that it has definitely still outgrown the in vivo seeds in terms of sheer mass, despite its struggles.
I guess I may as well mention another mishap in case maybe it's a classic beginner mistake. A couple months ago I made a second batch of media that I was going to try some ceph cuttings in. I'm 99% sure I measured the agar correctly for the volume. After I dispensed it into my vessels, then I realized I totally forgot to add my sucrose! So I added the sugar to each vessel individually and was just going to let the autoclave dissolve it then swirl them when it finished. As I added the sugar and the recently boiled media continued to cool, I could tell the agar was starting to gel up. By the last vessel, the sugar stayed pretty much completely on the surface. Then I autoclaved them (for 20 min). After they had totally cooled, the media was complete liquid! Thickish liquid, but not gelatinous at all. It was like the agar that was clearly solidifying in there before broke down or something. Any ideas? I still have the stuff, think I can autoclave a concentrated agar/water solution to add and salvage them?

xr280xr wrote:Hey everyone. Just wanted to check in with a picture of my TC progress. I've had an exceptionally brown thumb this year, both in TC and out which has been pretty discouraging. This is the one culture I've done that is still alive. All of my flower stalk cuttings got contamination (it was strange, it took 3 or 4 weeks to show up) and all of the other seeds, including the other one in this jar died. I had them on a heating pad, which I suspect was too hot. It was evaporating a lot of water out of the agar, some of which was managing to escape the vessel. The agar was still very soft though. This remaining culture (and its dead friend in the background) was starting to look bad too so I transferred it into the jar in the picture and stopped using the heating pad. I also tried decreasing the light thinking maybe it was growing too dependent on photosynthesis rather than the sucrose in the media. I think that turned out to be a mistake that finished off the little one and I moved it back under my light. That was a while ago. It's now been in culture for 130 days. Do you think the heat was the problem or could my media have a problem (or both)? This being my first attempt, I'm not sure how much growth to expect after 4 months. All I know is that it has definitely still outgrown the in vivo seeds in terms of sheer mass, despite its struggles.

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I guess I may as well mention another mishap in case maybe it's a classic beginner mistake. A couple months ago I made a second batch of media that I was going to try some ceph cuttings in. I'm 99% sure I measured the agar correctly for the volume. After I dispensed it into my vessels, then I realized I totally forgot to add my sucrose! So I added the sugar to each vessel individually and was just going to let the autoclave dissolve it then swirl them when it finished. As I added the sugar and the recently boiled media continued to cool, I could tell the agar was starting to gel up. By the last vessel, the sugar stayed pretty much completely on the surface. Then I autoclaved them (for 20 min). After they had totally cooled, the media was complete liquid! Thickish liquid, but not gelatinous at all. It was like the agar that was clearly solidifying in there before broke down or something. Any ideas? I still have the stuff, think I can autoclave a concentrated agar/water solution to add and salvage them?

Unless you live in the Arctic, I would never recommend the use of heating pads; and both that high temperature and your media may well be the problem. It takes little heat to make agar become softened; and some gelling agents require a minimum solute concentration for them to even solidify. That account of forgetting the sucrose and attempting to add it, piecemeal, afterwards, is a big mistake; and there is no real way to salvage that batch; nor would there be any way to assure a legitimate pH reading. Dispose of it and begin again.

Consider using a stock solution / medium preparation log sheet available online, to keep a tally of what has been added, and in which amounts. I have used them for years for sh*t simple record keeping . . .