North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Joe and Ellen Hecksel <jhecksel@voyager.net>]

Keith Benson wrote:


> Uh-oh - back to fruit!  Anyone on the list engaged in at-home 
> micropropagation??

I messed around with orchid seeds for a little bit.  My plan was to use 
that as a springboard for micropropagation.  Orchid supply houses have 
many pre-mixes for the media.  There are also many homemade recipes. 
They usually have a thickener.  Agar is the most common but I have seen 
recipes with corn starch.  They also have a nutrient source, usually 
mashed bananas but sometimes bizarre things like ketchup.  Basically, 
you make up the media, pour about an inch (25 mm) into each container 
and then "can" it like you would cold pack apple sauce.

I never really came up with a good container.  I was about to try large 
baby food jars when I stopped.  I was going to have a second set of lids 
with a piece of felt glued over a hole in the top so the plantlets could 
breath.

The basic home technique is to take a medium size cardboard box.  Cut a 
good size hole in one side.  Make a couple of practice runs so you can 
whittle the hole to the proper size and shape.  Find an area with no 
drafts.  Spray the jeepers out of everything with very mild bleach-water 
solution.  Open jars.  Add seeds or little lumps of tissue.  Stuff 
cotton into tops of flasks or screw on lids (as described above) or 
rubber-band polyethylene film over top.

None of my orchid seed germinated, which is very common for orchid seed 
that becomes fully dried out.  I was not particularly careful and well 
over 2/3 of my attempts did not get contaminated for the 4 months I hung 
onto them.

--
-Joe Hecksel
My personal web site: http://my.voyager.net/~jhecksel