Awesome to see another South African doing flasking ... Just a tip, you really only need about 1cm of agar medium to germinate the seeds on. How did the phrag seeds go? Any success?
Dane
I have used around 1.5cm, some flasks have less, some have more. The cost of medium is low, so I do not try and save by making it stretch as far as possible.
The phrag seed has germinated on one of the mediums only. That is one of the media that I have selected as my defaults going forward.
Cool result. What sowing medium and sterilization methods are you using? JohnM sent me lots of seed as well but I never got a single one to germinate...
I have tested three sterilization methods, sodium hypochlorite, saturated calcium hypochlorite and hydrogen peroxide. I have found the peroxide to be more of a pain in the butt than anything else and wont use it going forward. Both chlorine compounds seem to work equally well and the simplicity if buying an 'off the shelf' prep of sodium hypochlorite which works, makes it my current choice.
I used 5 germination mediums. Two of them are from large companies and have had moderate results, the other three are tweeked formulas which I had mixed specially for me to test (problem was I had to take 100liter batches in order for them to consider making them for me, so I now have culture media all the way up my 'ying-yang') Of my 3 tweeked media, the one has given me the best results so far, and another is easily equal to the lab order product, so these two are my current favourites. The third has proven to be a disaster up till now, but I will still try it as a replate medium, who knows.
Of the twelve seed batches from John, only one has proved impossible to sterilize, and as such I have no hope for that one. Of the rest, 5 have germinated, and another 3 are showing good 'swelling' even if there is no protocorm development as of yet. The remaining 3 are unchanged, but they are only 5 weeks down the line. I am considering splitting these mother flasks into two further groups and treat them to slightly different temperatures to see if that has any effect.
It is still very early days for me, and I am sure that I will be changing many things in the coming months. One thing is for sure, .... this has the potential of getting badly out of control! Raising flasks is one thing, but potting them out and growing them might just be a very big problem (I have considered moving to Hawaii as I believe Limuhead buys a lot of flasks!)