Venus fly trap experimental culture!

experimental vft in nutriagar

November 4, 2013
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Venus Fly Trap leaf and 2mm wedge of plant tissue on MEA, dextrose, GA3 & indole acetic naphthal-acetic acid and seaweed liquid nutrient for plants......

Diluted with 1/2 ml 80% ethanol to dissolve the hormones into deionized water. Boiled and sterilised in glass jar with micropore tape over hole for filtered air exchange. One fifth of a mm grain of iodine crystal added to ethanol. Not enough to register at .00gram, so a pinhead size, added for extra sterility and to help dissolve the partially insoluble growth hormone. Then added to the water at 100ppm, mixed with the agar nutrient mix and boiled After pouring the agar nutrient growth mix the lid was lightly screwed on and jar placed into an oven bag. Placed in oven for 17 mins until starting to simmer then let to cool before any caramelisation of the sugars took place. Next day the oven bag with jar inside was placed in the glove box treated with bleach - 1part 4 - parts water! Let to sit & sterilise box. Plant cutting was taken with disposable scalpel and placed in steril beaker. Area sprayed down with alcohol around lid of Glove box, in surrounding air then inside the box. Finally the cutting (Venus F Trap) was placed inside and once closed and alcohol evaporated, the cutting was cut again fresh in the sterile conditions, finally wedged into the nutrient culture! The small wedge from the extra cut was left to make its own way in the medium,(in other words it was left to float around wherever it decides to settle, hopefully it takes root as its the smaller wedge that will be the interesting result. It may just die because it was exposed to air outside when cut)! Does anyone think this will work as a way to culture plant tissue? It's just an experimental mixture so if it works awesome, if not I'll have to read up on "correct" plant tissue culture, instead of using instinct (or my educated guess work). It's only cloning using much smaller samples in my opinion, I started with larger parts to begin with but will go smaller if I have any luck. Comments welcomed on this technique.

Well been thinking on my method, think I should've tried hydrogen peroxide as a anti bacterial agent! Too bad I had none. But perhaps none would've been better than the iodine, I think it might have been the wrong thing to use for stopping competing bacteria or moulds. Another mistake may have been to try keeping it under a 30W light at night, at least at the stage it's at it's probably shocked and burned so I'm still waiting to see if any signs of death occur.

Has anyone here got any plant tissue culture experience? I'm real interested if I'm far off, better google it!