Update on my TC with gelrite

[dudo klasovity]

Here I report what has happened in my test jars filled with gelrite-gelled media and some species, apx. 1 month growth on such medium:

First, here is my control jar of weedy d.capensis. The proliferative growth shows that the composition of the medium should be fine for common drosera:

Drosera burmannii "Humpty Doo"

Drosera sp. Lantau Island . This species I have on regular peat/sand mix as well. It is a very easy species and grows fine, but in vitro it produces enormously large plants, I have never seen on regular substrate:

Drosera neocaledonica started to form hairy roots spontanneously

Drosera ordensis (very hairy form). Grows very fast. I have deflasked about 30 plants and kept this one to see how she will create shoots on 0.7mg/ml BAP

Now this one surprised me. Drosera arcturi. You can see tens of plantlets being formed on one leaf. The reason why this surprised me is that this species in no way froms shoots easily. And this particular plant is on medium WITHOUT hormones.

Drosera affinis- growing slower than i expected, I think it is due to absent roots.I noticed some plants are starting to grow tiny roots on hormoneless medium so soon they will really take off;-)

Species that grows like a salad on this type of media for me is drosera falconeri. I have to replate very often to keep the overcrowded jars managed. Here, 3 experimental jars (no hormones, NAA, BAP):

Here, drosera afra. Very interesting behaviour in TC. Grows really fast, unlike other species, creates roots spontanneously, and when adult, starts to form clumps of plantlets on the base of the root.

When drosera afra is placed on the medium containing small amount of cytokinin, it encourages her proliferation even more. The plant creates plantlets on the leaves as well. Moreover, she forms plants on the tips of the roots as well. Forming plants from the tips of the roots I have seen only with d. peltata species. Note the opening 'bud' on the tip of the root:

This is my latest achievement that really made my day recently. Although it looks like an ugly piece of shapeless red mass, it is very exciting to watch direct organogenesis from piece of tissue of Drosera ramentacea grow in vitro. I have been trying to do this for some time. Not very pretty, but that is how a successful jar starts. To me beautiful, anyway:-)

Drosera hartmeyerorum creates extensive root system without induction of auxin

And here are some darlingtonia californica plantlets growing on medium without hormones:

Finally, my first nepenthes species:Nepenthes albomarginata seedlings

...and Nepenthes benstonei seedlings, growing first tiny pitchers

Thanx for watching:-)

Edited January 22, 2011 by dudo klasovity

[Iggy]

Great work doctor Fascinating jars!!

I have other seeds for you !! I'll send a PM.

Cheers,

Iggy

[Pato]

Fantastic job!!!

How much longer will be in the culture medium?

[Binataboy]

very interesteing, great to see the different way the species respond. Well done :)

[dudo klasovity]

Thank you for your comments:-)

@Pato: typically for about 2-4months before deflasking. Depends on the species.

[nadja77]

Interesting projects! Thanks for sharing the info and well done!

Something I would love to try one day and your threads on that subject will be a great start!

[jimscott]

Very impressive!

[UtricSeb]

Hi Dusan, that is a big success. Thanks for sharing the information and pictures.

[ada]

very interesting,you certainly get the plants to grow well and proliferate in these conditions.

How do they respond when de flasked? Do they take long to aclimatise.ie suffer due to the humidity drop etc.

ada

[dudo klasovity]

Thanx for your nice comments:-)

@Ada: The deflasking is usually the easy part when you stick to the basic rules like to be very thorough with the removal/washing of residual media (otherwise the plant will quickly mold and die), then the humidity needs to be kept very high (in jars it is 100%)-I use 90-100% after deflasking and then bring it down gradually. Another rule is to avoid direct sunlight, overheating and so on. It is not very complicated procedure, but some species insist on giving me a hard time when deflasked;-) Some take several weeks to adjust to normal conditions, other species show no interruption in growth. Most of the drosera species I deflask rootless and they create root system in the substrate and go on with growing. Others demand to have roots generated using hormones in media prior deflasking. It really depends on species and one has to learn how they react to new conditions. There is no book telling you how particular species will react so it is mostly trial-error methodology.(Which in my personal opinion can be turned into much fun;-)

I am going to introduce some 7 more drosera and pinguicula species in TC tomorrow so I will keep you posted on my experiments:-)

Edited January 29, 2011 by dudo klasovity

[ada]

it sounds like you will have to take notes on each species individually.Keep up the good work.

ada