Chironex

Just finished setting up a few things and starting my first culture today, an embryo rescue is first on my agenda.

The flow hood is in my photo gallery along with some pics of the recently received starts.

Will continue to post progress reports as more gets going.

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Scot

xavierdlc61887

nice man hey did u ever send the seeds cause i never got anything...if not well its cool thanks anyway

chong

Congratulations, Scot!!!!

TomK

Very cool. Looking forward to watching your progress as I slowly accumulate my lab.

Gabe15

Looks good. Before you start trying to culture anything, I would recommend going through your normal procedure of making your medium and putting it in the vessel, and with the hood on, leave the vessel open in there for about 10min or so, then seal it again. If after a few days you don't see any contamination, you should be good to go. If you do see contamination, then check over your whole setup and methods to try to find out where it is coming from. Even with a professional setup and experience, contamination can be a problem and it would be good to make sure you are at least capable of having a truly sterile environment before trying to TC anything rare.

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Chironex

Good advice, Gabe. Will do. I set up some petri dishes with M&S medium in them just for that purpose since reading your post.

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Scot

Chironex

OMG, I just roasted some petri dishes. Check out my gallery. Well now I know.

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Scot

JCDerrick

LOL, I saw those at the top of the forum and was like "Uh oh"

Your set up looks great, I wish I had the time to try my hand at TC's. For now I'll have to settle for the pups.

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Malama 'Aina



Normal Jan. Low: 34°F, Normal Jul High: 92°F
Coldest: 16-20°F, Warmest: 98-103°F
Annual Precip: 48 inches

Chironex

Gabe, the agar is clear so far, so I am hoping to have aseptic conditions in the hood. Wish me luck!!! I just went ahead and did 5 seeds for embryo rescue - man those little buggers are hard to hold and see. Hopefully the embryos weren't mangled too much. We will have to see if anything grows besides contamination. I tried to be sooooo careful about that, but it's a crap shoot.
If they get something going I will post some pics. I placed each GA7 jar into a zip-loc baggie afterwards (done in the hood) so I am hoping to avoid contamination there, too. I hope at least one of them is a good rescue, but they are so difficult to see, much less to slice the seed. The first one, the scalpel blade broke and the seed went flying. I found it, resterilized everything and tried again, but the embryo looked rotten. It was all brown - perhaps oxidized from leaving the seeds in 10% bleach solution overnight! Oops!
How do you hold onto the seeds and cut them? I found it very difficult using forceps and a surgical scalpel. Is there another, easier way to do this? When you do ER, do you use a macroscope to see better? I was thinking of doing that, but after the difficulty cutting the seed, there is no way I can imagine doing this on a macroscope stage without knocking it over. Maybe one of the reverse viewing types with the stage as part of the base????
Anyway, the first cultures are going now. I have a Saba corm that's not doing anything after 3-4 weeks, so I might grab it to TC it. It has one more week to show me signs of life, or it's going under the knife!!!

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Scot

mskitty38583

congrats scot! im not that ambitious yet.....i want to try growing from seed first but i have a lot more to learn before i even start that. congrats again!!!!!

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Tog Tan

Way to go Scot! This is something I have always been dreaming about, now that you are onto to it, its gonna be 'look n learn' from your updates. All the best mate.

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

MediaHound

Yea, way to go! Sounds awesome!

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Bananaman88

Good luck, Scot! Sounds like you're having fun now!

Bob

Sounds really cool, once you have it down the sky's the limit I guess. The petri dishes look like Frankenstein got to them though!

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Gabe15

Perhaps you had seen this post awhile back, but this was my first couple attempts at embryo rescue, I also briefly detail some tips on opening the seeds.

Germination the easy way

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Growing bananas in Colorado, Washington, Hawaii since 2004. Commercial banana farmer, 200+ varieties.

Chironex

Yes, I saw and learned from it. Thank you Gabe.

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Scot

Chironex

Just put Manzano and another cold hardy banana into culture. The Manzano was last week, the cold hardy banana this evening. The one this evening was my best apical meristem dissection yet. It was textbook, except the media was still a bit soft when I put it in, so it sunk in a bit deeper than I wanted it, but that means more exposure to the media.
I was going to TC the Saba corm, but as I was lifting it out of the pot, I noticed that roots were growing like crazy and pups were forming, so I left it alone.
I will have some pictures tomorrow in my gallery. My camera isn't that great, so the resolution is so so. But a couple turned out ok.
The Manzano explant is elongating and no signs of contamination.
As for the Embryo rescue, despite being on the wrong media, it looks like there are some changes going on with one of the cultures, so I am optimistic that at least one will take. (cross your fingers!)

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Scot

Bananaman88

Good luck, Scot. Sounds like it's going well thus far.

kimarj

Congrats!!

Chironex

As promised, here is a picture of the apical meristem, ready to go into the media. To give you some scale, the lid it is sitting in is for a baby food jar.

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Scot