Thanks all. I have to be honest that quite a lot of beer and wine has been consumed in this lab over the last months.
In the beginning I got quite a bit of contamination. The contamination was from two main sources. Firstly the medium was not always correctly sterilized, or contamination occurred at the time of pouring the flasks. I need a proper autoclave for the medium, but don't have the spare cash to buy one at the moment, so the pressure cooker will have to carry on working for the time being. I solved this first contamination problem by allowing the flasks to stand for two weeks before using them. I am able to reject the contaminated flasks now prior to inoculating them. The second source was from the flasks drawing contaminants into themselves. (Distinct from contamination at time of inoculation by being a much longer time interval) the day/night temp changes cause the flasks to 'breath' and so draw in contaminants during this expansion contraction process. The problem lies in the use of rigid flasks. This has been dramatically reduced by wrapping in cling film, something I did not do in the beginning (also slows the drying of the flasks)
I now have a wide range of species busy germinating, also some interesting hybrids. At long last, about a year down the road, I am confident that I have the process under control. My biggest problem is the availability of good seed. My own greenhouse can only generate a limited supply.
I am sorry, I don't have a picture of the stonei parents, as I purchased the seed from an overseas supplier (the only seed I have purchased to date, but stonei 'album' was hard to turn down! Let's just hope that it is true)
