FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi

Do you know anyone that has tried honey in the tissue culture medium or are you able to try it? It kills bacteria and is good for plants and striking cuttings. I have used it to strike cuttings. Honey may increase the chances of the plants in culture living without infection and it may save a lot of time and expense of the extra sterilization. I thought it would be a low cost safe solution. I read sugar is used in the mix. Honey could possibly replace that.

Do you know anyone else that knows a lot about tissue culture and may be interested in trying honey or finding out about it?

I am planning on growing Venus Fly Traps for a start.

Regards Richard.

Richard, I have not tried the use of honey in the medium, but have read a little about it. My gut tells me that the majority of the microbe inhibitory properties is due to the high concentration of sugars and not due to other inherit magical properties. For example, microbes are slow to grow in bottles of syrup as well. If my hunch is correct, diluting honey's sugars by adding it to the medium would negate most if not all of the microbe inhibition. This would be a nice little science fair project for a student to compare honey/syrup concentrations and the rate of growth of bacterial colonies.

Hi

Some honey is much better than normal honey. Have a read of http://althealthworks.com/9387/mysterio ... row-at-it/
Honey does have sugars. See http://www.honey.com/images/downloads/carb.pdf
They have discovered honey can replace many other things like antibiotics that they used to treat infections.

Someone may soon discover that it can replace PPM and the sugars used in tissue culture. So it could be worth trying.
See how it is used in plant propagation at http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden- ... ormone.htm . Perhaps they have not tried it on tissue culture properly yet.

Regards Richard.

I am wondering whether most of the benefits are not osmotic potential related. In effect, does the honey keep the tissues "drier" in order to inhibit microbe growth (like a salting effect)? Remember that ham can be "salt-cured" or "sugar/honey-cured". Additionally, does honey also serve as a physical block for pathogens to enter a burn/cutting? If these two factors are the reasons for honey's tissue healing through protection from infections, it is hard to see the tissue culture benefit once honey is diluted in a medium. However, if one is to scientifically test honey, it would be wise to also compare with other high sugar-based condiments such as molasses, syrup, and perhaps even the liquid caramel that one pours over ice cream.

Hi

I am not fully sure about the answers to the questions in the last email. However, I know honey works well on cuttings like Nepenthes and many other people use it for cuttings.

If honey is used in tissue culture, sugar could still be used in the mix. The article about Manuka Honey at http://althealthworks.com/9387/mysterio ... row-at-it/ suggests it is very good and better than normal honey and "is capable of killing just about everything scientists throw at it, including some of the worst bacteria known to man". So only a small percentage of the tissue culture mix may need to include Manuka Honey for it to be effective and to replace the much more expensive PPM. It may take experimenting with a few different ratios to work out the best mix but it could be worth it as it could not only save a lot of money but could also give a better strike rate with less time involved for sterilizing. We could encourage a few different people to try it at different ratios.

I am planning on growing Venus Fly Traps for a start. I heard they can still be grown in tissue culture without hormones.

Do you know anyone that is interested in experimenting?

Regards Richard.

Hi,
Honey is very complex ( variable/undefined ) mixture. Yes it does have antibiotic properties, but in pretty high concentrations ( 10% or more ) = 100g/L or more. That is too strong for in vitro cultivation of plants...
There are plenty of other reasons which prevents its use in vitro...

Milos

Honey represses the growth of microbes in a variety of ways. Firstly, its high concentration of sugars discourages most forms of life from maintaining homeostasis. However, upon dilution of the honey, this property is lost and a large amount of heating (as required for in-vitro growth) likely denatures many of the secondary microbe inhibiting factors (other variety of ways honey discourages microbes).

As a substitute for "table sugar" the honey is probably just a more expensive carbohydrate source and of little benefit.

Richard Hole wrote:Hi

Some honey is much better than normal honey. Have a read of http://althealthworks.com/9387/mysterio ... row-at-it/
Honey does have sugars. See http://www.honey.com/images/downloads/carb.pdf
They have discovered honey can replace many other things like antibiotics that they used to treat infections.

Someone may soon discover that it can replace PPM and the sugars used in tissue culture. So it could be worth trying.
See how it is used in plant propagation at http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden- ... ormone.htm . Perhaps they have not tried it on tissue culture properly yet.

Regards Richard.

In college, we attempted any number of different medias -- even banana and plantain pulps; and there was also some experimentation with a variety of sugars -- though fructose was seldom the most effective or widely used. Fructose is one of the primary sugars in honey; and its antibiotic properties are simply limited to its high solute concentration; no magic there. It is also not typically sterile and Clostridium botulinum spores -- the causative agent of infant botulism (and the sole reason for not giving honey to young children) -- are difficult to wholly eliminate in tissue culture media with their brief autoclave times.

The same antimicrobial properties could readily be achieved with any high sugar or salt concentration; though it is definitely not friendly to plant life and will not ever replace good sterile technique and biostatic compounds such as PPM . . .