Tissue Culture Workshop

[dSerk]

Wow, tre cool! I wouldn't mind attending I think someone else would get more out of it than I would. It's interesting in and of itself but i dunno what i'd do with it.

Can someone give a specific example of how they'd use these techniques? What plants would one use these techniques for? I mean, what plants are so rare/expensive that you'd need to use tissue cultures to grow them out? Is there anything in your tank that you can't grow from cuttings?

The wiki page mentions creating hybrid species as one of the applications. Is this anyone's goal?

[ingg]

Heh, welcome to the club, you'll see species you can't buy anywhere but from hobbyists all the time.

When I first joined a couple of ears ago, plants would hit the auction with the statement "Be one of 14 people in the country with this plant!".

As it was always said with a smile, I thought it was a joke for quite some time.

It wasn't.

Propogation and preservation of rare species would be a big factor of this.

[SCMurphy]

When I first joined a couple of ears ago, plants would hit the auction with the statement "Be one of 14 people in the country with this plant!".

We never actually say that unless it is under 10 people.

What plants would one use these techniques for? I mean, what plants are so rare/expensive that you'd need to use tissue cultures to grow them out? Is there anything in your tank that you can't grow from cuttings?

There are a few of us keeping rare crypts that are not easy to propagate. This is one way to produce more plants and make them available in the hobby.

[kerokero]

Damn, I dissapear and look what pops up! I've been waiting for one of these to happen around here for a long time I'm all signed up and will see you guys there!

dSerk - In theory most plants also reproduce asexually (cuttings and the like) so they could be produced that way (often the starter cells used for TC are the starts of these growths) but you get many, many more plants using TC. It's not really a NEED as much as a WANT... if you want lots of cuttings to distribute, TC is the better way to go. It's great for that new mutation that you want to market (more plants = more $$$) and conservation wise you can start with selectively few plants, propagate them out faster to get them into wider collections and thus not pulling from wild populations (or even using them to repopulate in the wild as some labs are doing). This is particularly popular with orchids... species wise because they are hard to get wild collected and slow to divide, and hybrid wise so you can distribute plants identical to the named varieties rather than hodge podge.

I hope to use it for some rather uncommon tropical plants I have The more people that have them, the less likely they are to fall out of the hobby!

[krisw]

In addition to propagation, at the Aquatic Gardener's Convention, Dr. Kane described keeping plants alive in sterilized conditions for years in the fridge, which provides a great way to store plants that you absolutely don't want to lose, but don't want to use in your aquarium at the moment.

[kerokero]

So was the fridge to slow down growth? I know I couldn't do that with a number of the species I want to work with (fridge conditions would literally kill them) but I think it would be interesting for more cold hardy species...

[Ghazanfar Ghori]

Only Stage 1 cultures are kept in the fridge - the cells just go into a sort of
suspended animation. Should work for most species. You're not trying to grow them there - just keep them in their current state, slow the metabolism down to a crawl. Since its a sterile environment - no rot occurs.

[Cristy Keister]

I signed up!

[kerokero]

Oooooooo interesting. Still don't know if that would work for some of the touchier species (I've had some die because they hit 65) but it would be interesting to try.

[DelawareJim]

I'm paid.

So what's the headcount?

Cheers.
Jim