VFT culture dormancy

[mrflytrap2]

I was curious if anyone has had any experience of VFT's in relation to their dormancy cycle while undergoing tissue culture.

I'm curious if new plantlets 'restart' their own cycle, or if they continue their own starting with a fresh time period, or if one isn't even needed at such a young age.

Thanks!
Nate

[ICPS-bob]

VFT dormancy is usually induced by a reduction in photoperiod and perhaps accompanying temperature. Does your tissue culture regime include such changes?

[mrflytrap2]

I haven't actually started the VFT tissue cultures yet. I'm just curious how to handle them once started and if it's possible to keep a long term continuous culture chain going without dormancy.

However I did start seed cultures a month ago that started to germinate this weekend, so their clocks will be ticking soon for the growing season.

[Aidan]

It is not uncommon for growers to start Dionaea seed and grow-on the resulting plants under lights for the first two or three years, before introducing them to the normal temperate cycle of growth and dormancy. That experience would suggest that it should be possible to keep cultures growing for quite some time.

[agar]

There's no dormancy requirement for VFT's in tissue culture. And like Aidan points out, seedlings can and have been grown-on under lights without dormancy for the first couple of years.

I suppose you could consider newly formed plantlets in culture(whether started from seed or plant tissue), as having "restarted" their dormancy cycle, but it doesn't appear nessessary to introduce either cultures or deflasked/transplanted plantlets to dormancy their first year.

The only dormancy related aspect that probably *does* apply, is that if starting cultures from seed, the seed needs to be stratified properly.

[mrflytrap2]

Thanks for the advice everyone! I have two more packets of VFT seeds that I wanted to start into cultures. I just wanted to respect any dormancy cycles that I might need to be aware of in the future.

My Gibberellec acid arrived today and would like to give that a shot in order to assist with the stratification requirement.

Exciting stuff! 8)
-Nate

[Aidan]

Fresh (or correctly stored) seed will germinate like cress within a matter of weeks and stratification is not required. Seed rapidly loses viability with age and no amount of Ga3 will revive it.

[agar]

Never tried Ga3, as I have success from seed/tissue without using it.

Adian may be somewhat correct with respect to longevity of the fresh seeds, but I'm not sure about the claim of no stratification nessessary.

If sufficient seed is available, distribute fresh seeds amoung pots/TC cultures, try a few with/without Ga3, and 4-6 week stratification. I figure you'll be as puzzled as some of us when you get the results. "Mother Nature" doesn't give up her secrets easily;-)

[mrflytrap2]

In regards to the Ga3, I was going off a reference that showed a significant improvement with germination by using it. Currently I have 3 cultures working off a packet from the seed bank, as of now only 2 seeds are showing germination. (I hope more will come soon, but getting a bit pessimistic)

While the Ga3 is mainly going to be used to attempt to skip Sarra. dormancy, I figured to try and use it on another batch of VFT seed to see if I get different results. On that note too, I'm sure using the seed bank as stock is a bit risky as I don't know the source or age of the packet I received. But when resources are scarce it's still a great one to have.

In all, I'm just trying to reduce as many unknown and try different things as possible.

I'll defiantly try to do a few different techniques as suggested.

Nathan