FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I know people here recommend phytochemlab but with shipping delays I figured I'd look at other sources. Is https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NC798W9/re ... xFbA7DS5HC legit? Anyone try it yet?

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I almost ordered that myself just last week. But I ended up going with this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Gibberellic-Ac ... 3562902421

I just used it on Saturday, soaking some seeds until Monday and put them in tissue culture. I can post back here with the results in a couple of weeks if you're interested.

Absolutely! Based off a suggestion I'm getting some from Rare Exotic Seeds. They also have something called a smoke primer disk. I've seen it a few places, so I might try some of those too.

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Matt wrote:I almost ordered that myself just last week. But I ended up going with this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Gibberellic-Ac ... 3562902421

I just used it on Saturday, soaking some seeds until Monday and put them in tissue culture. I can post back here with the results in a couple of weeks if you're interested.

Any success?

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murrkywaters wrote: ↑Sat Oct 03, 2020 4:17 pm

Matt wrote:I almost ordered that myself just last week. But I ended up going with this one:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Gibberellic-Ac ... 3562902421

I just used it on Saturday, soaking some seeds until Monday and put them in tissue culture. I can post back here with the results in a couple of weeks if you're interested.

Any success?

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Yes! Lots of germination in my Sarracenia seeds that I put in TC without stratifying other than with a 48 hour soak in ~700ppm GA3 created with this powder. I'm happy

The write up I read said to use 1mg per g or a .1% solution. With GA3 that reads 5 ppm. It was intended for byblis, so that's what I'm trying. I haven't done TC work on plants but 700 ppm sounds high. I'd be curious to have the cheap stuff analyzed via NMR spectroscopy. If it works, it works, I'm just wondering if it's cheaper in the long run. 1g of GA3 at that concentration would make a liter of solution. As it stands I'm using 10 g of water at a time or $.33 a run. I'll post results. I might also do a recrystalization of the stuff I'm getting from rarexoticseeds if it comes to see if the claim of 90% purity is accurate.

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Interesting. A lot of people recommend a 500ppm mixture for Byblis annuals for 24 hours. Fishman said the perennials like gigantea need 1000ppm for about 5 days iirc? Something like that.

If you're referring to his article in ICPS he recommends a .1% aqueous solution, which on paper sounds the same, but in practice isn't. I lowkey hate TDS meters because they measure water conductivity. For molecules that are weakly soluble in water like gibberellic acid this will read on a TDS meter far lower than expected, or not at all. You can verify this by creating .5 molar solutions of various compounds in distilled water and check the TDS meter. Conductivity is also greatly effected by temperature so you would need to correct for that too. Note that the solubility of GA3 in water is only 5g/L or ~ .7% for a completely saturated solution at 20°c. If my measurements are accurate then the TDS reading for that would only be about 35 ppm. To add to the confusion the savage garden recommends a 1 cm coating on a toothpick per cup of water. I guess the real proof will be if/when the seeds germinate.

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Oh I don't mean by using a TDS meter like that. I was confused by that myself when doing it. I meant I use a 1/32 tsp which averages .08g which I add to 160ml of RO water. I did try to use it at first but realized very quickly that it wasn't going to be accurate, from that point I just used a mathematical formula I found to get the solution I was aiming for. When I did try, it registered something like 90ppm but it wasn't completely broken down. Still, it would've gone nowhere near 500.

It is interesting to hear the why though. I'm the furthest thing from a chemist but always enjoy learning new things.

From what I did read on ICPS, a guy suggested a 10 ppm mixture for byblis. Based on your information, I'm not sure if he means 10ppm through measurements or with a TDS meter but if you did soak it in a solution < 500ppm I would wager the seeds will germinate, just it may take longer.

I've had guehoi germinate with just homemade smoke water, and I'm testing it out on the B. gigantea as a control against the 5 day soak in ga3. In order to save on supplies I made seed packs out of thoroughly washed filter paper and dipped the packets into the solution and sealed them. That way the seeds are in constant contact. I'll do a full write up on it later. Eventually I'd like to have enough seed to do large scale tests at different concentrations.

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Sounds awesome man, I'm interested to know how you went about the smoke water. I've heard liquid smoke can be used as well. I don't think I'll be trying bleach though. The nursery I purchased from gave me some pathetically stringy and lanky plants that die off if they're brushed against. Reading someone else's notes on here, they described a plant they germinated with the same issues as a plant germinated using bleach. They said the GA3 gave them much sturdier plants. I would wager that's how they germinated this plant. I'm wanting to correct it. That's what half of this experiment of mine is about. I bought the original plant but knew I needed to propagate it to have real specimens after I received it. I think once I have a decent enough collection of mother plants, I'll do some tests too. I'll donate some seeds to your cause later on when they get going. Now that I know it works, I'm going to start working with the other seeds I got.

I'd be willing to wager that the chlorine damages the young plants before they germinate. Halides are notorious for their ability to get everywhere. Just look up a video of someone trying to handle bromine. As for my smoke water I packed a steel tube with dry bermuda grass and blew hot air from my surf mount soldering station through it. I submerged the other end of the straw in DI water. I repeated until I had a saturated solution, after I soaked some guehoi seeds for an hour before rinsing them off and planting them. Probably should have let it go longer but that will have to wait for now. I do have some arctostaphylos pungens seeds which also need fire to germinate. I will probably start them in a month or so.

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murrkywaters wrote:Absolutely! Based off a suggestion I'm getting some from Rare Exotic Seeds. They also have something called a smoke primer disk. I've seen it a few places, so I might try some of those too.

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Well, the order with the cheap GA3 got destroyed by the government, I guess because rarexoticseeds decided it wasn't worth the effort to properly label things. I don't think I'll be using their services, especially if I can find domestic sources.

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murrkywaters wrote: ↑Thu Oct 22, 2020 2:10 am

murrkywaters wrote:Absolutely! Based off a suggestion I'm getting some from Rare Exotic Seeds. They also have something called a smoke primer disk. I've seen it a few places, so I might try some of those too.

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Well, the order with the cheap GA3 got destroyed by the government, I guess because rarexoticseeds decided it wasn't worth the effort to properly label things. I don't think I'll be using their services, especially if I can find domestic sources.

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you can try to email them. they offered me some new seeds

I can't even get seeds from them lol. It brick walls me at checkout. I'm sorry to hear about the GA3. I can tell you that the GA3 I purchased is the real deal. I've germinated 2 separate batches with them and it has worked on 5 byblis species so far. If you're looking for something cheaper. 15 grams for 20 bucks.