Sundew germinated!

Last night I was looking into 1 of my old batch and observed another germination. It was a Drosera Rotundifolia seed. I was wondering why I had not noticed it a few days before while I was doing a lot of work on all my batches.

ST DA Batch : Drosera Anglica at Day 35

Naming it "Caterpillar" coz it's green and looked a little like this hehe 

I think the pinkish part is the roots growth, just like the VFT

Another angle

Some seed updates

ST DA Batch: Nothing happens except the fungus head remains even after the last time I'd sterilized it. I Sterilized them again today so to remove the fungus head.

RR DR Batch: Lost the DR seeds somehow, out of the 2 VFT seeds, only "Santa" is continue growing, the other one is keeping still.

"Santa" at Day 33

Mixed Batch: out of 3 VFT seeds, only "fittest" is doing very well in moss now. The other 2, nothing happen to 1, how ever the other one that has a crack before I sow it remember? A small piece has chip off while I remove it for photo taking. What's inside is kinda funny, it looked exactly like the germinated seeds roots but only difference is totally pale white.

Mix batch before sow

The chipped off seed

Day 37 "Fittest". Sorry, i didnt realized I did not have a clear picture today

Attempt seeds in in-proper Tissue Culture

I was reading about Tissue culture and thought about dropping some seeds in to agar-agar(that's how we call the jelly in Singpore). I didn't put much effort in sterilizing as I think seeds should be quite easy to germinate in these agar media.

Distill water 80ml
a pinch agar-agar powder
a drip of coloring
a pinch of sugar
a plastic food wrap on top with holds for passing of gasses

TC Batch - VFT anf Sundew seeds 21 Dec 2012

I continue to read about tissue culture and went to the very first post were Matt and a few others research very intensely in Tissue culture, it was really interesting on how they experiment with the methods, I was a little worried about germs and bacterial at that time.

One week later, I've observed some blackish stuff in the media, I could only suspect bacterial, I did not want it to kill my seedlings.

I quickly make plans to replate them, as I don't have any basic tissue culture equipments and tools, I resort to using what ever I have and sterilize as best as I could think of in an hours(thanks to plenty of reading over a couple of days before)

I use a baby bottle sterilizer and distill water to sterilze my used glass containe. Re-sterilize seeds using only 10% bleach, that is the only stuff I have at the moment. Distill water and sugar for mixture(No MS or BAP or PPM to be found in Singapore, I've tried google, etc), transfer stuff as fast as I could as I do not have any clean room or a good area to work with. My pincer was wiped with Alcohol swipes that was meant for wounds.
Its the best I could with everything I have.

TC VFT Batch and TC SD Batch - replated 28 Dec 2012

Keeping fingers cross

Christmas germination, Santa is born!

Hi all,

I can't believe I''m almost at home all day during Christmas! Anyway to kill my boredom, I took out my gears and increase my camera's setup to maximum magnification. I don't know how many times is that but it's definitely more than 24X on paper. I've attached the picture in maximum resolution Flickr could handle.

Here's RR DR batch's "Santa" I named it that because I've observed it's germination on eve of X'mas :)

"Santa" at Day 30, germinated much later compared to "Fittest"

"Fittest" first carnivorous leaf

Matt from the forum mentioned:

"The first two leaves that Dionaea make are non-carnivorous. They are the only non-carnivorous leaves the plant will make in its entire life cycle, barring any abnormalities. And it would appear that little guy in the photo hasn't made its first carnivorous leaf yet.
I wouldn't worry too much about the burning at the tip of the leaves. Wait for the first carnivorous leaf to come out, which appears to be forming now and see how it looks :)"

I think Matt is quite accurate, When  I went to take a close look today, he is right! the second set leaves are already forming! I'm very happy. Thanks for the heads-up Matt!  :D I'll be keeping watch on "Fittest"

Day 31, "Fittest" is growing 2nd set of leaves

Here's a close up, I can't get any closer because my lens' too big to get inside the container

"Fittest" taking a little burn at the tip

After moving it to LFS, it starts to take some burns on the tip of the leave, probably it was due to a sudden change from 100% water to moist/dam moss. I'm not sure, but I hope it don't dry further, I guess the little "trap" (i think) won't make it either. If anyone have some good advise, please feel free to give out, I guess i need some right now.

Day 30, "Fittest" taking in some burns..

That's a staple to give the estimation of the size.

VFT Seeds don't look good.

 I recently started VFT seeds in distill water and sterilized cotton. Out of total 7 seeds, 1 germinated successfully and had transferred out into potting. The rest were either still sleeping or some weird stuff grew out of the tip of the seed where it was suppose to germinate. Before, I thought they germinated, now I could only suspect the germination took place and immediately died off what looks like fungus or mold to me.

Could anyone point out what had happened to these poor seeds? Should I had included a light concentration of fungicide in the distall meant for seeds in the first place?

Photos as follow - approx. 20 days now the slim were observed on day 7 or 10 I can't remember.

Moving "Fittest" into a new home.

I've finally potted "Fittest" into a temporary take-away sauce container, 100% Sphagnum moss, modified water tray method and plastic wrap with holes to minimize water evaporation. I hope I am doing it right.

"Fittest" sitting in a temporary container. 

It's weekend and I had some free time to myself. The picture below is stacked with a total of 102 pictures in different focus point of the VFT, when stacked together - resulting in an "all area" clear focus photo. The area of focus is targeted on the plant only. The transparent "traps" (i think) is too small to be in clear focus. But I'll try to get a clear one when I have time again. Please forgive for the harsh photo, it was due to stacking.

Photo stack of "Fittest" @ Day 24

VIDEO: First attempt on VFT germination time lapse

Made "Fittest" into a time lapse video, focus point has been moving around due to water evaporating and refilling, seed growth etc. Hope you'll enjoy it.

http://vimeo.com/55704361


edited : 16 Dec 2012 - made an improved version and uploaded in youtube and vimeo
p/s: Thank you Stratofortress for some encouraging words.

The link:

Older version:

http://vimeo.com/55653702

I've learn something new today "Cotyledons"

As I was trying to figure out why was the tip of the VFT so hairy and pinkish. Little did I guess it was actually the roots of the VFT, now it kinda make sense that the roots would be the first to develop since water is 1 of the main source for it's growth. The tip that push the seed shell out were leaf.

BTW: It was a bad idea to use sterilized cotton as a backdrop for my photo taking, they tangled up with the roots so I had problem removing the ones in the roots, I had to leave a small portion in there. Not to mention I had some trouble untangling them from the leaves too.

edited

Day 23: Mixed Batch sole seed to rise out of all 3 batches.

HELLO WORLD! I AM "FITTEST" thats what I'll name this VFT.

First 2 non-carnivore leaves (cotyledons)

Some good and bad seeds

A little update from before, all the seeds I thought had germinated, stood in the same state. So it turns out that I was wrong. Even the one with the fungus head didn't grow anymore that before. It just stood there the same way.

The only one that had progressed was the sole seed from Mixed batch.

Day 17

Seed progress observations

While I was looking at the seeds yesterday, I already suspected some were germinating, but I couldn' confirm as there wasnt much light at night. This morning I went to inspect each of the VFT seed, what looks like to me are the early stage of germination.


Some of the seeds from the 3 batches I suspected has already started germinating


Here a seed from the ST DA Batch which I have been suspecting if it had germinated, because it look like a fungus head. If someone could confirm for me. But since it came up from the tip of the seed, I would 90% say it has germinated.
Day 7



2 Seeds from RR DR Batch which I highly suspected has germinated as well
Day 7


Another one from RR DR Batch


And Day 11 from the Mixed Batch, the same one I've posted earlier yesterday has grown so much over a night

2nd Batch iof VFT Seeds

A few days later, the other batch of VTF seeds came, and I too had them in distill water the same as the mixed batch. Ever since that day, I've been looking at them everyday, sometimes twice a day to make sure I do not miss out the miracle of germination.

So now I had 3 batches
Nov 21th : Mixed VFT Batch - 3 VFT seed (Indonesia - Mixture cultivar 10 seed)Nov 25th : RR DR Batch - 3 Drosera Rotundifolia and 2 Royal Red VFT cultivar seeds (Germany)Nov 25th : ST DA Batch - 3 Drosera Anglica and 2 Saw Tooth UK #1 VFT cultivar seeds (Germany)

The Packet of various CP along with 2 other VFT cultivars' seeds 

The other VFT seeds look almost exactly the same

Some Sundew seeds that came together in the batch

Drosera anglica

Drosera rotundifolia

My first VFT seed germinates!

I'm quite happy today, when I took up the mixed batch to take a good look, I realized one of the seed had something pointing out of it's tip. I took my Camera and snap on a magnification lens and I see 1 seed had germinated. This is my first experience on VFT and water germinating them.

Mixed batch Day 10: 1 seed germinated in distill water


Here's a closed up