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Tissue culture medium for Cephalotus


Guest Plantman

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Guest Plantman

Does anyone know a good tissue culture medium for Cephalotus ? I have had it in tissue culture for over a year now and it has steadfastly failed to grow more than a couple of minute traps.

Peter

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Guest Plantman

They are easy-ish through leaf cuttings but if tissue culture works properly they should mass produce much more easily. You can also use tissue culture as a guide to to get the best from them in the pot.

You could also say the same about VFTs- you can take cuttings and propagate them. But if they are so easy then why is it so hard to get hold of the unusual varieties of VFT (red dragon- sharks tooth etc)?

Cephalotus still commands a high market price if it is easy to propagate- I do not think it is. In my experience 25% of cuttings take so you need a big plant to really take a number of cuttings. I have just taken 20 cuttings and only expect to get around 5 plants back. Then the life expectancy of the plants is 3-4 years before misfortune occurs.

Peter

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I took a mere 8 leaves off my first Ceph (this year) and have four plants, lost one leaf and waiting for the others. I've just taken a load more due to a tidying up catastophe, I pulled a yellowing leaf off and one of the growing points came with it.

I think the VFT unusuals are not propagated to the same degree 'don't want to spoil the one plant I have', but yes TC will undoubtedly bring the price down and make this unusual CP a common one and therefore less desirable. Also means some people will be able to grow many.

I was just curious :-) :-) It's a mid life crisis thingy ;-)

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Guest Plantsman

Plantman,

Cephalotus is notoriously slow to reproduce, whichever method you use. It doesn't grow as quickly as one would hope when tissue cultured and the survival rate once acclimatisation to greenhouse conditions is initiated is poor.

You may have to experiment somewhat to achieve better results with your micropropagated examples but sadly I fear you still won't get the kind of growth rates/results you are seeking.

Hope this helps.

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