Seeds...

Well. That was terrible. Yesterday I collected seeds from the Drosera burmannii I have been trying to clone. Let me just say these seeds are extremely valuable to me, as they are my last tie to this plant before it dies. I had one jar of the tissue culture gel left. Showtime.

So everything started out well. I modified my sterilization process a little, because I was working with seeds and didn't want to use as many chemicals. I hauled the box upstairs and sprayed everything down with bleach. I put the seeds in a piece of coffee filter and paperclipped it shut. I placed this in a baby jar filled with 10% bleach for 13 minutes. I added a little dish soap so that the bleach would have a lower surface area and better cover the seeds. As I shook the jar to make sure the seeds were thoroughly cleaned, I noticed about ten seeds slipped out of the packet. This was ok, I had sort of planned for this. Not that big a deal.

So then I transfer the packet to a vial of hydrogen peroxide for about 4 minutes. After that I swirled it around in two different jars of steril water for 10 minutes each.

For the whole sterilization process, you aren't that worried about the seeds because they are about to get cleaned again and again. However, at the last stage where you have to transfer the seeds, you have to work FAST to make sure you don't compromise the sample and the jar. I pulled the filter paper out of the final jar quickly and started to unfold it. Unfortunately, it ripped. Stupidly, I just decided to keep ripping the filter paper apart to get at the seeds as quickly as possible. Emphasis on stupid. I had folded the paper enveloped multiple times to try and seal the seeds inside. So when I forcefully tried to rip it apart, all the layers compacted into a solid pulpy mass, trapping my seeds inside. I pulled and pulled and pried, but I could never get the seeds out from inside the filter paper.

I managed to get about four seeds of the forty seeds I has started with onto my finger (in hindsight I realized I had forgotten to wipe myself down with alcohol, so they were definitely compromised). These I transferred onto wet tweezers and tried to flick into the jar of nutrient gel. However, they stuck to the tweezers. After about four unsure bangs on the rim of the open jar (meanwhile millions of bacterium, algae, and mold spores are falling inside) I moved onto the other seeds and repeated the process. At the end of this miserable attempt, I found one black speck (which still might not be a seed) lodged in the nutrient gel.

Ya.

Well, I refuse to let this hinder me. While I do not have time to redo the entire project (plus I'm out of baby food jars), I would like to retry the process further down the road. The important thing is to learn from yesterday. Here is what I could come up with.

1. Always unfold the filter paper.
2. Practice flicking wet seeds into a jar, or sterilize a thin wire, get them onto that, and then carefully lower them down onto the gel (lab scientists use a thing called an inoculating loop).
3. Practice with seeds you don't care about.

Hopefully, I can get this right the next time around. While I still considered yesterday fun, I really hope the third time's the charm.


I almost forgot the good news! If you watch my vlog, you can see my previous plant grow area. Over spring break, I bought and built a GROWSHELF, complete with reflective bubble wrap I rigged up around the plants.

YEA BUDDY