Meet The Bokors

[christerb]

What a beaut! It looks like the plants from your in-situ photos. The foliage really got a nice colour, and then the yummy red pitcher lid.

Regards,

Christer

[Dave Evans]

Here's a link to photos of my N. bokorensis.

http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~dpevans/Nepent..._bokorensis.htm

One of the photos hidden in the first one:

[Sockhom]

An update.

I'm going to have real upper pitchers soon.

All seed grown N. bokorensis are almost 3 years old now.

Cheers,

François.

[rsivertsen]

Lookin' very nice François, hope to see some home-grown seedlings soon! :)

[Sockhom]

An update:

François.

[Phil Green]

Looking really good Francois. I guess the next update will be flowers.

I'm gonna have to see if I can find space to put mine in a nice big pot (outside is no problem - it's bringing them back in for winter).

What are the lowest temps these are known to be able to withstand ?

[christerb]

Beautiful pitcher, the biggest I have seen yet in cultivation. My biggest plant still produces the tubby pitchers with the wide mouths. I like the shape, but I wish they would get bigger.

Regards,

Christer

[Dicon]

Hi All,

here are a few of my clones updated.

This first is a squat red form with glabrous pitchers

This is another squat form but with velvety texture

robust red

More standard form just producing uppers now

chocolate (grown cool)

green lipped (windowcill grown)

Now what about this?

When does a clone become a confirmed dwarf?

This was one of my earlier selected clones that grew at the same pace as the others, but has never grown beyond this size, it grows side by side with the other full size (warm grown) plants but it remains quite small.

[Sockhom]

Hi Dicon,

Such a great selection of clones. Nice job!

Oh by the way...My biggest N. bokorensis is... FLOWERING!

There will be at least 2 flower scapes and it looks like there will be two additional others as well.

I'll have to wait some weeks though, before I know whether it is male or female.

François.

Edited September 29, 2010 by Sockhom

[marcello catalano]

In these days I'm collecting and freezing some pollen from a male selected among your seeds for size and speedness. If you have a female...

[Sockhom]

Unfortunately, it looks like a male. Can anyone please confirm this?

(This last pitcher is 25 cm long)

I have another bokorensis which is about to flower, I think. Fingers crossed.

Cheers,

François.

[Dicon]

Congratulations Francois!

That is a cracking plant.

I would say it is male also.

Let us hope the other is female.

Wow that is fantastically fast I remenber it was about August 2007 when seeds were sown, so just over 3 years to full maturity.

If only highlanders were so fast!

It is great too that you keep updating us with clear photographic progress, during what is afterall an ecxiting time.

Edited October 6, 2010 by Dicon

[James O'Neill]

Beautiful plant and impressive pitchers. A female would be brilliant.

[christerb]

Great to see!

While reading one of our daily papers, I found an article about new discoveries from the Mekong. I was pleasantly surprised to see François's photo of the three beautifully red N. bokorensis pitchers attached.

The article was based on a WWF-report that can be found here:

http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_w...er_mekong_2010/

Hopefully, this will result in better conservation of the flora and fauna in the area.

Regards,

Christer

[Sockhom]

Hello,

Thanks for the link, Christer.

This WWf press release is quite useful in terms of publicity. Even if it is a bit catchy ;-)

I've been contacted by some N. bokorensis growers and we have, at least, 4 flowering plants.

-Marcello's got a male.

-It seems mine is a male too.

-A French friend seems to have a female.

-A Belgium friend seems to have a female too.

Do you think we should number the clones before we proceed to pollination?

Cheers,

François.

[marcello catalano]

That would be great, but I think that the codes will get lost after some time, most growers don't seem to care about the origin of their plants...

We can do it anyway...

Also, I'm not sure how long frozen pollen will last when taken out of the freezer... it's supposed to survive for a few days in an envelope...

[Bojahnik]

That would be great, but I think that the codes will get lost after some time, most growers don't seem to care about the origin of their plants...

We can do it anyway...

Also, I'm not sure how long frozen pollen will last when taken out of the freezer... it's supposed to survive for a few days in an envelope...

I also think it's very usefull to number the clones.

Btw ... I already have used pollen which I took out of the freezer several times and refreezed it without problems.

My last try was now 8 months old truncata pollen and the pods seem to develop fine.

[marcello catalano]

yes, de-frozen pollen works, Dicon told us about that, but the thing is: how long it will last after having been de-frozen?

[Dicon]

I definately would make clone codes for them, some of us are interested in tracability.

I think the shelf life of defrosted pollen is likely to be shorter than if it were fresh but I don't think we really know how long fresh pollen lasts!

My way of thinking is that until it is actually required by the female, it is best left frozen (where it originated) to the last minute of sending/using.

How many times it can be re-frozen and remain viable I would not like to guess, but Boris' experience sounds as though it is fairly resillient.

Boris, How long was it defrosted prior to being re-frozen? Was it hours or days?

Good luck making a match

Matt

[Bojahnik]

How many times it can be re-frozen and remain viable I would not like to guess, but Boris' experience sounds as though it is fairly resillient.

Boris, How long was it defrosted prior to being re-frozen? Was it hours or days?

Right it was taken out just for hours several times and not days. So it shows that it is possible but I also have no idea how many days it'll keep viable after having been defrozen.

That were fresh collected flowers which weren't dried. Just airsealed stored in the freezer. I think collecting the pollen and drying it and then storing might be also a point to discuss. I think the collecting and drying method is not needed if you send the pollen to other european countries. I got and have sent the fresh flowers without any probs inside europe. If you sent the pollen from europe to asia it has to be collected and dried before because else it'll mould on the long and hot journey.

[Dicon]

Right it was taken out just for hours several times and not days. So it shows that it is possible but I also have no idea how many days it'll keep viable after having been defrozen.

That were fresh collected flowers which weren't dried. Just airsealed stored in the freezer. I think collecting the pollen and drying it and then storing might be also a point to discuss. I think the collecting and drying method is not needed if you send the pollen to other european countries. I got and have sent the fresh flowers without any probs inside europe. If you sent the pollen from europe to asia it has to be collected and dried before because else it'll mould on the long and hot journey.

I have suggested the same in the pollen storage section of the Nepenthes Sex Register.

Each "sending" is different as you say, dependent upon postal time, readiness of recipient, etc

It is mostly common sense really.

Nothing can be better than freshly collected pollen, but if it cannot be used quickly then it really does seem to be best to freeze it.

I don't know if it is actually best to dry slightly before freezing or not, as you say it is probably best that it is dried prior to long distance posting, so it makes sense to have dried it before freezing.

The thing is you don't know where or when it may end up at the time you actually prepare it for storage.

I tend to freeze it in individual portions if possible so you dont have to defrost all of it each time.

Each species "pollen count" varies massively, some are almost impossible to extract a descent sample from.

[marcello catalano]

ok, well I have some frozen bokorensis pollen, and as we also have females, it seems that with the next expedition we are going to make a few (hopefully positive) discoveries :)

[Sockhom]

Hi,

Good news: I have put in contact several friends and they are currently sending pollen to each others. This should result in a nice amount of seeds.

I was very happy to discover this morning that my second flowering N. bokorensis is a female. It is not a vigorous plant but this will have to do.

The lady:

The lad:

Of course, I'll marry both as soon as possible. Hopefully, they'll have a lot of children ;-)

I still have to register the species on the IUNC RedList (should have done a while ago but wasn't excited to do this burocratic work) and I think this will be a fine achievement. Though, I'll have to monitor the species and work on some in situ conservation program.

Cheers,

François.

[James O'Neill]

A great advance in the conservation of these. Well done.

[numpty]

I still have to register the species on the IUNC RedList (should have done a while ago but wasn't excited to do this burocratic work) and I think this will be a fine achievement. Though, I'll have to monitor the species and work on some in situ conservation program.

Good luck with that! Can you say which category of conservation status bokorensis is likely to fall under?

BTW, what's the latest news from the hill? You reported a while back on the destruction being brought about by Sokimex as part of their "redevelopment" of the plateau ... will it be possible for NGOs to put any real pressure on such a powerful and well-connected company? Obviously you'll want to do your best, regardless. Which NGOs are active up there at the moment? Wild Aid, still? What kinds of plans are there for conservation?

(Or perhaps there's a Website you could point me to if you either don't have time to reply, or else would prefer to be diplomatic about the issues!)

Congratulations for all your efforts ... I'll always have a soft spot for bokorensis and would hate to see the destruction of the species, as well as its habitat.