Lagochilus germination and cultivation

[Stonehenge]

I've looked over the threads on this board and can not find much info. I looked over the sab site and likewise, no info. This thread will hopefully coax a few people into revealing some info, or maybe not. Many people like to hoard knowledge. So be it. I will share what tiny bits of know how I have or what I discover.

Looking at the area that the plant grows in, I would expect it to be adapted to the cold. I hear lago seeds only have a 20% germ rate when put into soil but the experts are getting 40 to 60%. I believe that cold stratification might be a useful tech to use on this one. It has worked with other cold climate seeds. I recently aquired a small quantity of lago seed and put a few of them into the fridge in damp soil. I then put a few into damp soil out at room temps which are in the 70's right now. The ones in the fridge have been in for a longer time and I see some of the seeds have swelled up. I think this is a good sign and I hope to see germination. Does anyone think I should put them in soil after they swell but before they sprout or wait for sprouts and transplant them?

This brings us to cultivation of this plant. I heard from a few people that their plants did not do very well after they sprouted. We will have to experiment on how much light, water and ferts they like. It would be better to know ahead of time what to give them but no one seems to know or if they know, they aren't saying. They grow in open areas so probably like a lot of light but they may not like lots of sun when tiny. Many plants are sun lovers when bigger but the first year or two they like partial shade. Likewise, the ph of the soil is an unknown

Stoney

[planthelper]

to all u.s. members!

are you aware that farnheit has been outdated by degrees of celcius?

get real and join the rest of the world, or miss out on a least my input, because i got no time to check out what in the 70's means....

i suppose you mean playing 70's music to your seedlings, and running arround with extreem long side burns, well those were the 70's.

[ 16. January 2005, 07:57: Message edited by: planthelper ]

[Darklight]

Stonehenge:

I've looked over the threads on this board and can not find much info. I looked over the sab site and likewise, no info

In this instance I'd reckon it's because there is none. The plant material we received was heavily irradiated by AQIS and thus any seed that may have been in there is extremely likely to be unviable

I have some experiments to run on a very small number of confirmed L. inebrians seed but haven't started them yet entirely due to the fact that my lab is running about 6 temp zones, 3 light regimes, 2 photoperiods and solid and liquid culture simultaneously. If you don't count the fridge/ freezer where some seed will be stratified.

And if you don't count the massive stage fright I get before starting any new species

The Lago seed is very old and I'm not holding my breath, well, yes I am, or I will be soon.... you get the picture

[ 16. January 2005, 23:55: Message edited by: Darklight ]

[Torsten]

Between edot, EA and SAB I've posted everything I know. No idea where I've posted the bits and pieces though. I thought most of it was already here.

Anyway, I am building an info page on lago. Most of the lago in the world is not the real thing (incl those who claim to get it directly from peasant families in Uzbekistan). It needs pictures. It needs analyses. It needs more germination and cultivation info. Putting all this on forums is tedious and inefficient (too difficult to find, too much doubling up), so I am putting it on a webpage.

I have obtained herb from anyone who sells seed and none of the herb is the real thing. It is safe to assume there is no real Lagochilus inebrians seed out there yet.

[puristlove]

is it lago at all? this lagochillus calculus benth that was talked about a while back, for instance?

[Torsten]

L.cabulicus is one of the species that is available. But no, I think there is another one. I also think that ther emight be some real inebrians herb out there, which is kinda worrying. It represents a tiny section of the market though.

Originally posted by darcy:

L. cabulicus is sposed to vary from L. inebrians only in slight morphological differences. Activity is said to be almost identical.

Do you have any other reference for this besides the site that sells it? There is a pretty obvious morhpological difference between cabulicus and inebrians that Minas doesn't mention - the crystal dust/hairs whatever they are... it will make more sense when I get the page up.

As for effects, I am beginning to think it is all exaggerated. Hex & Carl had some of the real thing and got bugger all effects. Lots of people have had cabulicus and whatever else is on the market and got nothing either. And this was via traditional method.

[Stonehenge]

Yes, I don't know for sure if mine is l inebrians or some other variant. That's why I just call it lago and leave it at that. Might be l.i. but who knows? What I'm trying to find out is has anyone learned anything about this plant? I was thinking this would be a good forum to discuss it but I forgot about your hard working custom's people that you folk are so lucky to have. It seems that they very kindly make sure you can't get any good seed. I could send some in with my stealth tech but I only have a few seeds and you know how it is. Perhaps someday I'll be producing seed myself. Speaking of my stealth tech, did you ever get those two envelopes I sent recently, Torsten? I wrote you about it but no reply.

I really have no progress but I just looked at the ones I'm stratifying and they have all swelled but no sprouts. Does anyone have an opinion about whether I should plant the swelled seeds at room temps, wait until they sprout and plant or just stratify them longer and plant the seeds? I can report my progress from time to time if anyone is interested. Looks like I'm the only one in this forum trying to grow it. Yankee ingenuity and all that.

Stoney

[Torsten]

My apology for not getting back to you. Got everything and will obviously uphold my end.

If the seed swells then it should also germinate (or rot). Dormant seed should not swell. This is a spring germ, so cycle the temps a bit if they don't want to pop up.

[Pisgah]

Hi there. I've recently sprouted some seeds that I removed from the pod of some dry material advertised as L. inebrians on a US based ethnobotanical site. It turned out to be more worthwhile than ordering the seeds separately. I was hoping to get viable seed since the material was advertised as freshly harvested (04) and it is usually harvested after it has flowered. Turned out to be right, but the viability of the seedlings seems to be poor. I probably have them under too little light (10cm from a 30 watt flouro)because they are pretty leggy, but then again the mature plant seems leggy in the wild from pictures I've seen.

As far as activity goes, not very impressive. 28 grams boiled down in H2O & Lemon to a concentrate produced mild "calming." Felt sort of like high blood pressure meds, which makes sense since it seems to be advertised to work that way by some ayurvedic guy on the web.

[Torsten]

Originally posted by Pisgah:

....which makes sense since it seems to be advertised to work that way by some ayurvedic guy on the web.

The ayurvedic guy who posts on all the forums that Dr Minas posts on and then disappears

(not saying that the ayurvedic guy doesn't exist, just that there is a connection).

[Stonehenge]

Yes, I'm pretty sure that minas was spamming all over the place. It's way too much of a coincidence that he shows up out of the blue and at the same time a "satisfied" customer pops up. That is pretty good proof of spam to my way of thinking.

I heard from another grower that the lago seedlings of his died after 6 weeks. I'm trying to find out the conditions under which they were grown. It may have been a newbie mistake like leaving the soil wet all the time or overferting. It may be that they need cold temps the first couple months or they may need low light levels. When I see how fragile peyote is, it's a wonder it ever grows in the wild but it does. It just needs certain conditions.

Good tip, Torsten, about cycling the seeds through warm and cold. I will definately try that with the seeds I'm doing at room temp. 2 degrees C is not going to hurt a plant like that or it's seeds. I'm sure subfreezing would not faze it much either but I'm not going to try that at the moment.

I'm not going to worry overmuch if none of my seeds sprout or if the plants all die. It would be nice to have as part of my collection but there are lots of common plants off the shelf that can do what it does and more. Might have medicinal value. I'm growing rosea rhodiola right now and it has no entheo value at all from what I hear. I stratified the seeds and they came right up. I got maybe 25% germ but a few did not progress and look to be goners.

Stoney

[Pisgah]

All but four (out of 20!) of my seedlings have fallen over and died, but the ones that are left are short stemmed and holding up pretty well.

One thing that I wasn't expecting from this species' seedling was that the stem branched before the cotyledon. I haven't studied botany extensively, but that seems kind of peculiar. Kind of like two little antennae, each with a cotyledon on top.

[Stonehenge]

Pisgah, are you talking about lago or r. rhodiola? That sounds exactly like my rhodiolas. The cotyledons are on stalks just as you describe. Several did not progress but a few look like they will make it.

I just noticed a couple sprouts on my lago seeds. They were the ones not stratified but left out in cool room temps. When I saw that I took the ones out of the fridge to see if they will sprout too. So far they are tiny. Will update when I get more progress.

Off topic but can anyone tell me why my post in the seed exchange was deleted? I know I put it there a couple days ago and even got a reply but it's gone. I was offering to swap various cactus seeds. Did I break a rule?

Stoney

[Liteweight]

I had absolutely no success with the 5 lago seeds given to me, either.

I tried warm conditions, cool conditions, freeze stratification, whatever.

So much for that!

The Spilanthes and lotus was easy, my Salvia divinorum is starting to take over my indoor garden, however! The stalks are getting little wavy wings along the corners of the stems. My Mitragynas are doing super, as well. I can't wait to put them outside this spring. :D

[Pisgah]

Hi Stonehenge, I'm talking about Lago. How weird that rhodiolas would branch the same way. Curious coincidence.

As far as getting the seeds to sprout, the only stratification that happened was when I accidentally left the bag of dried plant material in my car overnight when the temperature dropped below freezing. I separated them from the base of the pods (not really a pod, is it a calyx?) and sprinkled them over a soil with 30% coarse sand. I popped them in a humidity dome and kept them misted until they sprouted. I'm tired of screwing around with them, though. If one survives I'll hang onto it as a curiousity, otherwise I'm going to focus on trying to get my Mytragina cuttings to root...

[Pisgah]

I'm not sure I would buy seeds separately. They are usually kind of expensive. I bought 28g dried plant material for 15 USD from Bouncing Bear. I got bored with pulling seeds after twenty pods/calyxes and there were probably a hundred more of them with 2 to 3 seeds per pod. The seeds were still tinted green. Do it this way and you get to try the bitter stuff and see whether it is worth planting the 150 or so viable seeds in the bag.

[Stonehenge]

Pigsah, good luck getting your kratom to root. I've succeeded one time out of maybe 50 attempts using various methods. I'm starting to think maybe lago needs sun to survive. Syrian rue is that way, if you put it in the shade it'll die on you. Rue also does not like frequent watering.

My two sprouts seem to be down to one sprout last time I looked. It is growing vigorously so perhaps it will make it. I heard ga3 is supposed to be good to make the seeds sprout. I'll try it on a batch and see how it goes. I got my seeds in a trade.

Stoney

[Pisgah]

Hi Stoney, unfortunately it's too cold where I am to put my Lagos outside. Another month and I should be able to move them out during the day.

[Stonehenge]

Try putting them in a window. As for cold, they like it cold but I'd harden them off before putting any outside. For tiny seedling, indoors is probably better. They usually sprout in the spring and by winter they can take it no problem.

Stoney

[Liteweight]

Has anyone tried air-layering the Mitragyna?

I think that will be my first attempt at propagation when my plants are large enough.

[2b]

 

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to all u.s. members!

are you aware that farnheit has been outdated by degrees of celcius?

I hate the way that when you look at specs from US brochures they use inches for large mesurements and mm for small ones ! Sorry to post off topic but I've had my say now.

[Pisgah]

yeah, we're weird. All hail celcius.

[teonanacatl]

liteweight see here for easyest mitragyna propergation.

http://www.shaman-australis.com.au/cgi-bin...t=001811#000005

[Darklight]

Formally identified Lagochilus inebrians seed pic -this time with a sense of scale

[Pisgah]

Yep. That's what mine looked like, but they are all dead now I'll try again when I can start them outside, maybe...