Anyone Tissue Culturing plants? Looking for personal TC work

I am interested to talk to anyone Tissue culturing plants. I have been growing many odd plant most of which are hobbiest type plants and not worth TC in larger labs. The thought of finding a good source to work with to propagate odd ball plants is very interesting to me.

I wish someone would answer this - I am also very interested!

I know I have thought about making my own lab here and doing the work myself. I have been interested in it for many years and have been to many TC labs. It does not seem to hard once you get the techniques down. I think their are a few places willing to do this but the numbers are usually far to high for rare hobbiest type plants.

The numbers - you mean the costs?

try this site I liked what I read but if I get one more hobby my wife would kill me.Here's the link,

http://www.kitchenculturekit.com/index.htm

I hope this helps. Please let me know how it works for you.
Dave

Wow, looks like it is the works!

We (the American Begonia Society) saw a presentation of TC from Byron Martin of Logee's a couple years ago. It didn't seem too expensive nor hard to do - just getting it set up (HEPA filter and fan, clean tools, vials, etc. and following procedures (work into the air flow, two different baths (alcohol and bleach), rinses, trimming, and planting the tiny pieces of plant material into dishes of agar). Once the first leaflets appeared then these could be plucked and restarted and the process repeated for as many plants as they wanted.

Google. Homemade tissue culture boxes. There alot of ways to do it cheaply and also if ya google that it will bring ya up to the links on youtube for micropropagation intro part 1 and part 2 and they also have a website where tissculture people meet and discuss differnt techniques and such.

I know a guy who was setting up a tissue culture operation for Brugmansias so he could mass produce and sell them. Obtaining the plants from the UK etc.. Don't know how he is doing. now. From the pictures he sent me he had a pretty large operation.

Jeanette

What little I know about Tissue Culture is that it seems similiar to Bacteriological techniques. You have to work very carefully on making your working surfaces , forceps. and glassware sterile. When you open a beaker or a jar you have to Flame the surface air and the rim of the container you are using each and every time you open the jar or tube. Flaming consists in using a gas burner or a propane torch. to heat the air and rim of the container with the small flame of the torch. Commercial Tissue culture labs us a laminate flow hood which allows only sterile air to pass over the work area, and avoids the flaming process. The culture mix is a agar like gel of salts which is cooked first and then poured into sterile containers. I believe you could achieve some success by using Baby Food Jars, (as your flasks and test tubes), to hold the culture media which can be purchased commercially. The media can be different depending on what plants you are culturing and the particular salts these plants need to grow in best. I know this outline is sketchy at best and I have to admit that except for a class in Bacteriology I took 45 years ago I have never tried it. but I think it would work if you try it with patience. The biggest trouble might be that it is so easy to get contanination in the jars from some bacteria or fungus which is on the equipment or even floating around in the air when you open and close the Jars. The other trouble is that if successdful you will soon have hundreds ( or thousands) of plants to grow on and need lots of room to plant them all.

That last sentence of yours is what has scared me off forever on trying this, arfitz. Feel quite comfortable I could do it (spent my whole adult life in the sterile-concious world of medical marketing/research...know all about them bugs/clean rooms/sterile environment, etc.). But what do I do with the successes? The challenge may overcome me at some point because it fascinates me, but until I can figure out a way to grow on/get rid of literally thousands of plants, I've resisted the challenge... So far. But the process/challenge still intrigues me...it's so cool...

Arfitz.. Is right. it definately not as easy as it sounds, and even under the most sterile of conditions, you stil have contanination getting in the tubes. Just openign that tube for a short few seconds , dropping in the tissue and resealing and ya got bacteria that went right alogn inside the tube withthe plant.

A very expensive operation and set ip just to get a few tissue cultures, definately needs to start as a hobby, and it an expensive one.

I found this topic very fascinating also and joined a yahoo group that you have to request to join. They have many links that provide invaluable info. Even if you don't get into it, which i don't think i ever will, but you can learn so much about plants and how and why they grow just from the links that explain various things.
It really seems to be impractical unless you are a large wholesale operation. Yes you can make thousands or millions of a cultivar, but you have to grow them out and eventually transfer and acclimate them into soil and go into a greenhouse and then on to possibly planting them out. The difficulty seems to be in the transition from the growing medium to soil. (the roots will have less oxygen, the leaves will have to start photosynthesizing and develop their stomata,etc.). So if growing roses say, what are you going to do with thousands of one cultivar if a large mailorder nursery may only sell a couple hundred a year of that one cultivar. Also you have to grow a rose (plantlet), the size of your thumbnail, into at least a band-sized plant to either plant or sell. However, if there is a rare cultivar, or you have a new hybrid, you don't have to bud graft them to increase the supply, for trials or selling. I think for most people, cuttings would be a lot easier and quicker. or even seeds would be less trouble.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hometissueculture/

I think if you are interested, whether you actually did it or not, it would salve your curiosity to join this group and read their posts. Nothing says you have to commit to anything.

LOL, where would we all be if Edison handn't tried the light bulb??? In the dark.

Jeanette

That subject has been in the back of my mind for almost 30 years. I will check that Yahoo group. This sounds SO interesting.

Sylvain.