tc nepenthes

[leilani]

I must have missed something here. Was the first post withdrawn?

[thelarge]

Yes sir, I thought the topic might be suited somewhere eles.

[dvg]

Hi Thelarge,

It's okay to post that thread here in da forum.

Later on it can be moved over to the TC board, if management sees fit to move it there.

And TC is a great way to make some of the more interesting seed grown Neps more available to other growers, if said plants, once grown out, are deemed worthy enough to continue on the production of their clones.

Runts and 'Plain Janes' might end up being one and done, after at least a few generations in the flask stage. They will be out there in circulation, but the demand for them will more or less dictate just how many of these get to continue on in the 'afterflask'.

And as a side note, Phytotech Labs has Nepenthes Basal Salt Mixture listed in their new products section.

www.phytotechlab.com/detail.aspx?ID=1016

dvg

[agustinfranco]

Feb 6, 2011 10:24:12 GMT -10 dvg said:

Hi Thelarge,


Runts and 'Plain Janes' might end up being one and done, after at least a few generations in the flask stage. They will be out there in circulation, but the demand for them will more or less dictate just how many of these get to continue on in the 'afterflask'.


www.phytotechlab.com/detail.aspx?ID=1016

dvg

Hi dvg: I do resent the fact that TC Neps are often linked with Runts and Plane Janes, as we have already seen on another thread that
it could also happen in seed grown plants.
The only difference being that in TC plants you can multiply the runt 10X faster than the seed grown counterpart. It's time to kill these myths as they don't help anyone, especially the collector

Gus

[dvg]

Hi Gus,

Runts and Plain Janes are determined in the seed and not by TC.

TC is merely a tool to speed up plant propagation.

One of the problems with Nepenthes TC, from a collector's perspective, is that it takes 2 to 5 years for a seed grown Nepenthes plant to reveal it's adult characteristics.

In that time though, many clones can be produced, good or bad, with good usually being deemed attactive and robust, and bad either being a runt, a plain Jane, or both, when seen from a collector's viewpoint.

With any serious breeding program, some degree of culling is to be expected, and is indeed neccessary.

The effectiveness and ultimate success of a breeding program, especially when TC is being used, lies solely with responsible and good judgment on the part of the breeder to carefully choose the lineage they wish to create.

Haphazard and less than the very strictest of breeding protocols will only lead to the attainment of subpar results.

Plant Tissue Culture is just a tool, and like any tool, produces it's best results when used judiciously.

dvg

[agustinfranco]

Hi DVG:

Thanks for clarifying your statement. I am just confirming what you just mentioned. The problem is that some people believe that seed grown Nepenthes plants are superior to TC plants. The seed is the same. It's just matter of good judgement to decide which clones are to be kept and which ones to dispose in TC plants. With compost grown plants, one hardly has the same luxury, as there are fewer individuals to choose from.

Gus

[philgreen]

Gus - that does depend on your interpretation of superior. I do consider seed grown superior to TC. But NOT because they look or perform better; but in the same way as I consider an original painting superior to a poster, and for the same reason. One is a mass produced copy, the other is a unique individual. Especially when they are often close to the same price No way I'd pay the same for a poster as the original painting.

Also, as dvg has said. There could have been 5+ years of production by the time the TC clone was found to be a runt, and that is hundreds of plants now in circulation - rather than just one. Also, that assumes that the company selling them will have the deccency to stop it's production. Which isn't certain, especially if it is the only one they have.

[peterhewitt]

phillgreen, as you have stated (and I paraphrase) "Runt" or "plane Jane" is in the eye of the beholder. Breeders of commercial plants have various reasons for selecting a particular clone. Factors that might have nothing at all to do with what we as collectors are looking for in a plant. These are just some of them.
speed of multiplication
Speed of growth
Time to finished product
resistance to disease
resistance to cultural error
compactness and general shape (for packaging)
resistance to decline once packaged or placed on sale floor
Price of production per unit,
and many other factors.
with plants like Nepenthes, which the Layman finds novel in pretty much any form. What the plant looks like is only a small part of the deciding vote.
TC plants can exhibit undesirable traits brought on by Hormone manipulation.
But they exhibit far more desirable traits for a commercial producer in the guise of speed of production and uniformity.

[dvg]

Hi Philgreen,

I've heard the valuable original painting versus the less valuable poster analogy before.

That argument says more about the mindset of a collector and how s/he puts value on what they covet/collect, than about the actual value of a plant and it's ability to clone itself.

It isn't an accurate analogy though, because there will only be one original painting.

And an original painting isn't able to reproduce itself so that in a number of years, the reproductions are indistinguishable, by the experts, from the original, but that is exactly what a plant is able to do.

A seed grown Nepenthes can be spread around to friends or buyers, either through stem cuttings or by the rooting of shoot offsets.

Conversely, in theory but probably not in practice, a Nepenthes seed, grown in a flask, could continue to be kept as just a single plant, if no multiplying hormone were applied to said flask.

And if that single flask grown Nepenthes was deemed by the grower to be so precious that it must never be shared, that plant would remain both very valuable and rare...

So in this case, with the scenario switched around, it would in fact be the TC grown plant that wasn't spread around which would be rarer and hence more valued, than the seed grown plant that was propagated and shared with others.

Sometimes the very nature of a collector, and their yearning to have the rarest of collectibles, colors the argument of the value of TC'ed plants.

dvg

[flymoon]

Hi All

I have read dvg's points and I agreed ith what he said in some aspects.

However , TC plants can be produced in a very short time and massive quantity, this is such a advantage for breeding plants.

But my point is, is this really a good thing ?

As we know , tasty vege or fruits are not always the fast growing ones , in fact they took more time to grow and developed.

So maybe the real issue between TC and SG plants debate is based on how long they grow in normal condition (as TCS term-ex-vitro)

I used to like all the nepenthes from two of the lagest Nepenths Nursery , one is focus on SG and the other is TC plants. AS the time goes by I found it's hard to breed those nepenthes which came from TC ,they are slow growing or just dead without a sign.

As in seed growing case , they came from every single seed and grows independently , it is easy to see a huge differences on their growing speed, but also can find out which clone is better no matter in speed or features.

And second , the reason I prefered seed growing plants is mainly based on their roots , I always told those new beginers how to choose the plants , just examine their roots , the more roots they got , the more stable they are.

I found TC plants always came with little roots as comparing to the SG plants and I think that's why I felt its not easy for some growers to handle , because you need a very fine place to grow them , if the plants are in a rough place ,in this case, will bring you a lot of casualties and retardant growing speed .

This is not what I want , I would rather wait longer to get more larger and more stonger plants.

If the nursery could grow the TC plants longer , I think they could be more competitive, however I don't think this is a good move for those nursery owners.

Because the basic concept for TC plants is to propagate the plants as soon as possible to persuit the maximum interest.

Like I said , faster does not mean better.

[agustinfranco]

Hi PhilG:

I respect your points of view, but i don't necessarily agree with them. We've been biased by the fact that one gets a beautiful seed grown plant and propagate them by cuttings and possibly these are given to other growers, so everybody have a beautiful seed grown plant (which in fact is a clone of the original one). We don't happen to see the dozens of seedlings that perished 3 years earlier to get only a few seed grown plants bigger and colourful. TC helps the runts and the good plants to grow side by side. The issue is that it takes some time to pinpoint the clones which in fact will give good plants and which ones will be runts. In the future, i would encourage all commercial nurseries to sort out the good ones from the bad ones when grown in TC flasks

Furthermore, there is a large percentage of growers in which most of their collection is composed of seed grown plants, that's great, but i would like to ask to those collectors whether the majority of their collection is made up of hybrids/seed grown. Obviously hybrid vigour plays an important role in these seed grown plants, thus we believe they are better because they are seed grown, but as a matter of fact the hybrid vigour in these plants is inconspicuously helping the plants to grow faster and not just because these are seed grown.
the only advantage of seed grown plants is that nature takes care of the runts while in TC: "everything goes".

We should be comparing species seed grown vs. species TC and hybrids seed grown vs. hybrids TC. I think it's fairer to do it that way.


Gus

[philgreen]

Peter - wouldn't disagree with anything said. ;D

dvg - you probably heard it from me, this isn't the first time i've used it, as it best describes my view - to the best of my knowledge it is my analogy. It may say something about the collector, but I personally just value difference (in whatever) over the uniform everything the same. But you slightly miss my point. I don't view cuttings much higher than TC - they are still just coppies, just less of them - so I guess they would be a limited editon set of prints but obviously have much less mutation risk than TC. The very fact that so many VFT mutations seem to keep appearing from TC shows that mutation does/can occur.
Also, if it was only one copy from TC, it wouldn't really be TC, just an invitro seedling and as such I would still view it as any seedling.
I also would never say a plant wasn't nice, just because it was TC - nice is nice however it is made. Just as I do have some posters of Pre-Raphaelite paintings, because I can't afford the originals
So TC (coppies) does have it's place, and are great expendables for people to learn with, as if they die there are still loads more about.

flymoon - often the problem of little roots is in the washing before dispatch by the nursery. I've had seed grown plants arrive with little roots left after having had the soil 'washed' off - along with most of the roots

Gus - like wise, it would be a dull old world if we all liked and thought the same things.
dito above - a cutting is just another copy. I have a real problem with people who try to sell plants as seed grown and then it turns out it's a cutting from a seed grown. At the end of the day all plants originally came from a seed even the TC ones. So I have just two classifications - seed originals and 'all other coppies'.
I also agree, hybrid vigor can come into play and you need to compare like with like. I do happen to grow a load of species from seed as well as hybrids and you can often tell the rouge hybrid from how much quicker it grows than it's siblings. And yeh, that is another benefit of growing from seed - it weeds out the 'runts'.

But as I said, I don't necessarily say anything is wrong with TC plants as such. Just that I personally prefer uniqueness. And I'd rather a nice poster than a horrible painting

[idontlikeforms]

I agree with Flymoon.

I know there are some among us Nep hobbyists that complain about TCed Neps having damaged genes and this being bad for breeding and I suspect that there is merit to this claim but most of the Nep hobbyists are not breeding their Neps. They are just buying 1 of every kind they like, not bunches of them. What matters to them is whether the Nep they just purchased lives or dies and if it lives does it quickly thrive or struggle for a long time.

Having grown a number of different species of Neps from seed to about 6-8 inches across and having purchased many TCed Nep clones from various sources I believe I can honestly say that the same leaf span SG to TC has SG Neps with about 3 times the root mass as TC Neps. This is a pretty big disparity and I believe is the main reason why so many Neps that people buy die and/or grow slowly. These SG Neps I have don't seem to have a slow growth phase once they hit about an inch or an inch and half across. They seem to just grow steadily from then on.

I don't know 100% why TC Neps have such puny root balls for so long but I'm strongly suspicious that the reason why is because they are basically being tricked into not developing roots for a long time even after they are deflasked and "hardened off" by the whole TC process. I think what is happening is that in TC they accumulate a rich amount of nutrients. Then they are planted in a cushy environment where they do not have to heavily transpire. Once they adapt to being deflasked they are still being grown in a very high humidity with temperatures that are not too hot. The plants then continue to grow rapidly making TC seem so superior to the original grower. But in reality the plant is not growing much root mass that it would ordinarily need because it is feeding off of the abundance of stored nutrients from TC and does not need a heavy supply of water either because it is not being made to transpire much. The plant thinks it doesn't need a large root mass and focuses on foliar growth instead. After all, all of its life experience so far has not needed big roots.

When we customers in the US and other countries buy these Neps after they have been "hardened off" by the retailer, who is himself growing the plant in cushy conditions, it struggles and often dies because most of us cannot provide it with ideal temperatures and very high humidity all day long. I suspect the original TC grower does not himself even realize that he is really producing a plant doomed to failure. After all he is not seeing the failure in everybody elses' homes and green houses.

But with a SG plant, we have less problems. They transplant much easier and don't stall in their growth as much when transplanted. They can also handle a little more temperature extremes and lower humidity. This is why TC is really crap and SG is superior. With other fast growing plants that normally produce larger roots TC may not be causing as much of a problem. But with Neps, because they are slow growing and normally have a smaller root to leaf ratio TC is basically producing junk plants for suckers to waste their money on.

I think if the retailers would hold on to their plants for longer, make sure the roots develop more, and acclimate them to strong light, and lower humidity than TCed Nep clones would eventually not be inferior to SG. The problem with this scenario is that SG Neps can probably reach that well hardened off stage at a decent size in a shorter period of time than a TCed Nep clone. So I think SG would still be better in this case too.

[philgreen]

If one was being a cynic, you could say it's actually in the producers best interests for many of the plants to die After all, how long would they stay in buisness if they all survived once sold - the Nep growing comunity isn't that large. But with a high death rate, people keep comming back for more.

[dvg]

Feb 9, 2011 2:34:17 GMT -10 philgreen said:

If one was being a cynic, you could say it's actually in the producers best interests for many of the plants to die After all, how long would they stay in buisness if they all survived once sold - the Nep growing comunity isn't that large. But with a high death rate, people keep comming back for more.

The world of the cynic can be a dark place indeed.

The best remedy for that is to go into your greenhouse, and while adoring those masterpieces hanging from the wall, decide which ones will be made into lithographs, posters, or even faxes to be sent out to the rest of us members of the plebeian masses. ;D

dvg