plain agar for propagation medium

[kulamauiman]

Has anyone tried growing/propagation of Utricularia in plain 1-2% water agar? Not tissue culture. Just plain agar and no nutrients. I have started fooling around and first thing is it seems to keep the leaves nice and fresh and prevents dessication. Suppose it is just water in a matrix of an organic gel.



any ideas?
It seems to work for drosera also.

[Jefforever]

That is interesting! I've never seen anything like that for utrics.

If it looks like it works well, go for it! I don't know if it'd work for epiphytic species though (not including Longifolia - which actually is terrestrial).

[thwyman]

Well technically none of the "epiphytes" are actually epiphytic so...

I know alpina, nelumbifolia, humboldtii, reniformis, tricolor, dichotoma, and subulata (big surprise there) will grow in TC agar which is the same stuff with additives.

[BarryRice]

This is very interesting.

What happens to agar over time in a greenhouse environment? Is it stable? Or does it rapidly get consumed/degraded?

This is really interesting. Keep us posted on what happens.

B

[kulamauiman]

Nov 20, 2008 18:14:37 GMT BarryRice said:

This is very interesting.

What happens to agar over time in a greenhouse environment? Is it stable? Or does it rapidly get consumed/degraded?

This is really interesting. Keep us posted on what happens.

B

This was not the best agar. I don't think I boiled it enough so it gelled poorly. A portion of the same batch I put into another container and nuked for 5-6 mins and it gelled better but may be too hard. So it may be difficult to extrapolate from this first test. I will try some more and see how things work. However looking at things runny, watery agar might be better than the hard stuff for propagation.

I am seeing some fungal and bacterial colonies on the agar. I didn't do this aseptically. But figured without the nutrients they wouldn't over run the plants being propagated.

would love to try with other utricularia. Have sandersoni and bisqumata. Wink, wink

My plant pathology contact said if not kept sealed it will dry out. Only way it would get more water would be to heat it up again. So thus far it is in the greenhouse and in a fairly sturdy covered plastic container. It should prevent the agar from drying out. I did see that it might work well for sending leaf cuttings of Drosera or leafy stolon cuttings of utricularia, by putting some of the agar into a plastic centrifuge tube or vial then inserting the leaf into agar and send off to recipient.

Along these lines has anyone tried this sort of thing with acrilimide gel? dri water I forget what it is called. Another thing added to the soil/media and absorbs water as a gel. Might be better than agar.

mahalo,
mach fukada

[thwyman]

I know people have tried acrylamide for Sarrs. Personally I would be inclined to avoid it what being a rather potent neuro toxin and carcinogen and all that... But maybe that is just me...

[Jefforever]

Ok, I've decided to try this on a calycifida, just for fun.

It'll be interesting.