aphos: The miracle of Seed

[David]

aphos
New Member

member is offline



NepenthesSiam



Joined: Oct 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 21
Location: BKK, Thailand
The Miracle of Seed
« Thread Started on Jan 22, 2008, 10:55am »
Hi all,
I am new here for this forum. After I read all information here for a while , I think it's my time to share something in this community. I live and grow nepenthes in Bangkok, Thailand. Nice to meet you all.

On Jan 20th 2008, we have meeting for our small nep lover community. In the meeting we have
talking, discussing and trading our plants in our group.

The plant that is striking me is plant in picture. (I am sorry I took just only pitcher) Someone in our community brought this plant for trading. He labeled it as N. mirabilis x Tiger. But as you can see in picture below. It's pitcher is very nice and size of pitcher is quite big. I was stunning with it for a while. I never expect that both parents that are totally ordinary, can give nice hybrid like this. The owner said he recieved as seeds from someone, who I know him very well in Thailand and he has many seed that cross by himself. So I am very happy to know that there is nice hybrid establish in Thailand also.

BTW, I have same cross that grow from seed. But mine is still small and I can't tell much about pitcher. I hope after it grow maturely, it will produce some attractive characteristic like this.









Link to Post - Back to Top Logged aphos
New Member

member is offline



NepenthesSiam



Joined: Oct 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 21
Location: BKK, Thailand
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #1 on Jan 22, 2008, 10:57am »
But I think for this pitcher image, someone might feel it's not interesting enough. But for us, we know how the parent is, and this hybrid combines its parent genetic very well.
Link to Post - Back to Top Logged rainforestguy
Senior Member

member is offline





Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 386
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #2 on Jan 23, 2008, 12:55am »
I like to see unusual colors from species which we do not expect to see colors from, especially when they are extra colorful in their progeny.
Any seed grown item is extra special to me as it says that nepenthes can be grown to perfection from seeds and the surprise is an added bonus. More emphasis needs to be made regarding seed origin plants. Too often we always resort to tc clones which soon replaces the uniqueness and individuality of any plant. I don't ever want to see a sea of exact same replicas, how dull and boring!
Three cheers for seed grown, seed original material!
M
Link to Post - Back to Top Loggedhttp://www.lhnn.proboards107.com/index.cgi David
Administrator

member is offline





Joined: Dec 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,326
Location: Kuala Lumpur
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #3 on Jan 24, 2008, 8:56am »
Thank you for sharing aphos. Nice coloration on the picthers. It's true that TC clones replaces the uniqueness and individuality of any plant, but I think members here must understand something. I think we must also appreciate the fact that TC has made it possible for the mass market to obtain a rare plant that otherwise would be either very expensive of unavailable.
Link to Post - Back to Top LoggedMy Wantlist phissionkorps
Advisor - Nepenthes

member is offline



if you don't grow from seed, toughen up!



Joined: Oct 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 307
Location: Republic of Texas
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #4 on Jan 24, 2008, 11:21am »

Quote:I think we must also appreciate the fact that TC has made it possible for the mass market to obtain a rare plant that otherwise would be either very expensive of unavailable
I'll certainly make the argument that they should coexist, but TC should cover much, much less of the market (except for perhaps the first 4-7 years it would take to grow the clones out to maturity). 80:20 seed grown to micropropagated material, or 90:10 would be an optimum ratio. TC certainly has its purposes, I'm not going to argue with that, but flooding the market with TC clones and effectively stomping out genetic diversity in cultivation is not to my liking.
Link to Post - Back to Top LoggedNatura non facit saltum
Species seed is worth its weight in platinum
Valhalla when I die rainforestguy
Senior Member

member is offline





Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 386
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #5 on Jan 25, 2008, 12:50am »

Quote:I think we must also appreciate the fact that TC has made it possible for the mass market to obtain a rare plant that otherwise would be either very expensive of unavailable.
This is what the growers want you to believe. Yet the prices of tc plants remain "artificially" high. Species that have been around for some time include N. hamata, inermis, insignis, etc. and prices have always been kept high. If seed grown plants would enter the market in masses and only when such an occurrence happens, this is when you see a drastic price reduction in tc plants.
We all know the effects on our businesses when this happens. Ever been caught on a string when buying tc plants at INFLATED prices only to find out that they've dropped in value because they had an inventory clearance due to low sales? This is another reason I refuse to invest so much in tc plants. With seedlings, this could never happen. A seedling is a unique entity that nobody can touch, alter or fix. It remains true until death! Can you say the same thing about tc clones?

M
Link to Post - Back to Top Loggedhttp://www.lhnn.proboards107.com/index.cgi David
Administrator

member is offline





Joined: Dec 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,326
Location: Kuala Lumpur
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #6 on Jan 25, 2008, 10:21am »
Hi Rainforestguy/Phissioncorps,

I am just trying to understand the situation and why you have been trying to promote seed grown plants so aggresively. I just want to understand why you would mention over and over again on almost every thread about seed grown plants.

My knowledge and experience is much more limited compared to the two of you and many members here. I wouldn't know better. So, please bear with me. I hope other members would also give their coments.

I do not purchase much from overseas nurseries but the few species that are available in the mass market in Malaysia are actually relatively cheap. We can get a plant for RM15 to RM60. On another thread here someone got his xventrata for RM12.00 in Johor recently. These are tissue culture plants that were brought in by a nursery here. The plants are usually robust and very healthy.

Could it be that the prices for some tissue culture plants are more expensive because the plants are more rare or more unique?

If it were not for tissue culture, wouldn't it be difficult to get these plants for the mass market. So far, no local nursery has told me that their plants are seed grown. The only seed grown plants are those they poach from the wild. In the Nepenthes market around the globe, which is more expensive? Seed grown plants or tissue culture?

Is it more costly for a nursery to grow plants from seeds or tissue culture? Would tissue culture produce more plants compared to seed grown plants? I don't know the answer and hope experts here can shed some light on this.

Wouldn't the price also go down further if there were more nurseries producing tissue culture plants. I think it works the same way if there were more seed grown plants being produced. Prices would also go down.

I understand your arguement for seed grown plants, that they are unique etc. I would also prefer different variety and forms from seed grown plants if they are available. But if the plants are not readily available, wouldn't tissue culture be the answer? Wouldn't that help curb poaching from the wild?

Also someone mentioned last week (I think) that tissue culture plants are also grown from seeds? Is this true? If it is true, wouldn't that be considered seed grown and the plants would have their unique individuality? I understand that there is another way which is using merristem, but this is more difficult. Which does tissue culture nurseries use?

I am sure nureseries would offer more seed grown plants in the future if the situation is right, demand is there and the nurseries are able to produce them. I think it would be a natural way of how things would work, wouldn't it? « Last Edit: Jan 25, 2008, 10:25am by David »Link to Post - Back to Top LoggedMy Wantlist nepenthes
New Member

member is offline





Joined: Jan 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 13
Location: San Diego, CA
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #7 on Jan 25, 2008, 1:15pm »
Tissue culture with Nepenthes has to be done by seed. Once the plant is in tissue culture however, it can be split up multiple times which then makes every division genetic copies of each other. This can be done many many times, so in a sense, tissue culture allows for a much greater number of plants from a single source. With purely seed grown plants, each seed can only form one plant and therefore each plant is genetically unique from the rest of the seed grown plants. Nurseries would offer more seed grown plants in the future, however right now there is only so much seed at hand (for certain species). Small, seed-grown plants have a high mortality rate, and therefore being able to produce more (in Tissue Culture) provides more plants that make it to maturity.

That being said, I would gladly pay a hefty premium for seed grown plants, as they are truly one of a kind. (Of course I still do enjoy TC plants, as some of them contain those must-have characteristics). « Last Edit: Jan 25, 2008, 1:18pm by nepenthes »Link to Post - Back to Top Logged-Daniel
My Growlist http://www.terraforums.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=110116 phissionkorps
Advisor - Nepenthes

member is offline



if you don't grow from seed, toughen up!



Joined: Oct 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 307
Location: Republic of Texas
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #8 on Jan 25, 2008, 3:39pm »
Seems I have a lot of stuff to cover, so as much as I really don't like doing this, I'm going to have to quote what I'm replying to in order to (hopefully) prevent confusion.


Quote:I do not purchase much from overseas nurseries but the few species that are available in the mass market in Malaysia are actually relatively cheap. We can get a plant for RM15 to RM60. On another thread here someone got his xventrata for RM12.00 in Johor recently. These are tissue culture plants that were brought in by a nursery here. The plants are usually robust and very healthy.
The low prices could be because:
1) the plants are TC
2) you're in nep territory
3) there is actually a market for them there
4) any combination of/all of the above
I live in the barren wasteland of West Texas. Besides the crappy, neglected, "cube of death" plants that no one ever buys (except me on occasion) we have at Lowe's here, (not even Home Depot carries them), we have absolutely no market for Nepenthes whatsoever in this part of the world. Practically no one here has ever heard of them. We pay about RM39 for a 2 or 3" TC'd ventricosa or ventrata, and trust me, they are always on death's door if you buy from those places. However, the fact that the plants look atrocious is 100% the fault of the vendors. They leave them under benches, inside, and don't water them. The only reason their stock rotates is when the plants die.


Quote:Could it be that the prices for some tissue culture plants are more expensive because the plants are more rare or more unique?

TC plants have a very limited aspect of uniqueness. Any TC clone is different from any other, but so is any seed. With lots of actual TC plants, but relatively few numbers of clones (only 1 in some cases) you can see where I'm going with this. So far, the only place I know of where you can get neoguineensis is Wistuba, and they are TC plants. Stage 2 is the only size he has available, which is 6-12 months ex-vitro, and knowing how plants from there are, they're probably what....1-2" across? They also cost about $60, or RM192. The current price for a seed pod (~50 seed I guess) is about $30. Assuming you have any clue what you're doing, you'll probably have at least 15 of those plants survive, and in about a year, they'll be about 1" across. So, would you rather wait 14 months (including germination time if the seeds are semi-fresh) and get 15 1" plants for RM98, or wait about 4 months (or however long it takes to get Wistuba plants) and get 1 1" plant for RM198? That is why seed is cheaper if you have good cultural techniques.

Of course, this is just one situation with one species at one time. This is the second time I've ever seen neo seed available. There was some going around a while back, and I got some, but something was wrong with it. Three other people that frequently grow from seed besides me got 0 germination, as did I.

Personally, I have no idea why TC is expensive, even with "rare" plants. It's touted as being able to mass produce plants and make them more available, so when supply goes up, price usually goes down....It's said that you can get many more plants much faster (even though seeds sown in vitro take much longer to germinate), but the price of rare TC plants is still high. Why? I don't know...maybe it has something to do with having to pay a professional (or semi-professional) to perform the culture, or the fact TC plants take a long time to grow. If plants that are a year ex-vitro are still only 1-2", that's a sign for concern. That means at that point, those plants are at least over a year and a half old, probably closer to two (~6 months in vitro germination, a couple months growing time, 12 months ex-vitro), and that's IF they weren't cut at all in vitro! Even my 1 year old seedlings are about an inch or more on average, and there is that splendiana x rokko I have that is quickly approaching a foot at only 12-13 months. OTOH, any hobbyist with a jam jar can grow anything from seed with next to no effort, and get plants that will reach the same size at least as fast.


Quote:
If it were not for tissue culture, wouldn't it be difficult to get these plants for the mass market.
Of course not. AFAIK, sp. Viking, sp. Cambodia, thorelii "Giant Tiger", etc have all been reproduced only from seed and cuttings. All their populations still exist, and many, many people have the plants. They grow quickly and are very easy to reproduce. OTOH, there's tenuis, which was seed grown and reproduced from cuttings, but I think I know maybe 2-4 people with the plant.


Quote:So far, no local nursery has told me that their plants are seed grown. The only seed grown plants are those they poach from the wild
I think this again is a product of your location. Were I you, I'd have no qualms with my personal collecting seed from the wild to share with other growers worldwide. However, I don't think I'd go around asking nurseries to get seed-grown neps in that part of the world (or Sarracenia in this part of the world), since as you said all the seed origin stuff they have is poached*. There are way too many opportunistic people that are quick to make a buck off of nature, and don't know/don't care about the implications of over-collection (why do you think lots of Sarracenia sites are kept secret?). If they were responsible, I don't know how successful they'd be at actually growing the plants. From some pics I've seen from members on lots of different forums that live in that part of the world, I get the impression most nurseries have no clue what they're doing with neps (except for nep-oriented stuff like fauzi), as most of the neps look absolutely horrendous when bought and brought home. On pitcherplants, someone in IIRC Manila, said they bought neps at a nursery that were potted in mud....in a coconut (with no drainage holes, mind you). Not very conducive to successful culture of the genus.


Quote:In the Nepenthes market around the globe, which is more expensive? Seed grown plants or tissue culture?
There are different forces at work in both situations. As I said, I honestly have no clue why TC plants are so expensive if they're so easy to mass produce. When vendors sell seed plants, many of them at times are expensive, as (at least some, but by no means all of) the vendors play off the fact that they are unique. Looking at BE's list though, they are selling seed grown tobaica's for $6 for a medium plant. That's pretty cheap to me. I have one of them, and I love it. $6 for a medium plant is also their retail price. I can't access their wholesale list anymore, but obviously when quite a few are ordered, they are even cheaper. FWIW, I got mine from a vendor here for $8, which IMO, is still pretty cheap.


Quote:Is it more costly for a nursery to grow plants from seeds or tissue culture? Would tissue culture produce more plants compared to seed grown plants?
The price of start up from seed is much cheaper. No labor besides about 10 minutes of preparing a seed flat, sprinkling, and misting. In the "initial" long run though, I suppose seed would be more expensive for the nursery, based on the fact that once they're out, they're out, until their stock plants flower. I think what some places do is sow seeds on compost and in vitro, begin by selling the seed plants, then move on to the TC plants, then they may or may not move back to seed grown offerings once their stock plants flower. Just an opinion however, I'm not a nursery owner. Maybe an owner can elaborate more on this point. TC plants can also be "exhausted" however, it just takes much longer. Once a plant has been multiplied over, and over, and over, unwanted aberrations begin to pop up. Also, if you're not a very smart TC'er and you use something stupid like base analogs, your plants are going to be mutated and all-around awful. Some TC plants also have inherent mutations BUT, the same plant grown from seed would have had it too. The difference is, with a seed, there'd only be one mutated plant, but if it is micropropagated ("TC"), there can be thousands of them. Now, if that hypothetical mutation is say...infertility, and there are only a limited number of clones in circulation (especially if they are all the same gender)...well then we have a problem on our hands. That's the big problem with TC I can see, is that you never know when you choose a clone to propagate. Of course, this problem could be counteracted by growing the clones you make out....but no nursery I am aware of has the space or time to grow out say, 50 clones of the same species, and do that for every species. They are businesses, after all.


Quote:Wouldn't the price also go down further if there were more nurseries producing tissue culture plants. I think it works the same way if there were more seed grown plants being produced. Prices would also go down.
Some things are going to be expensive regardless. Have you seen a cheap hamata? Me neither. There are a variety of reasons for this, even though the plant is in TC. Seed is hard to get to, not very much was originally collected, etc, etc. Would the price go down if a ton of seed was collected/produced? I'm absolutely sure of it. However, all the clones ATM seem to be male, which again is a drawback of the "not knowing" factor with TC. Not that you know with seed grown plants either. TC would be GREATLY improved with clone selection, but as aforementioned, there are space restrictions. I'd like nurseries to keep at least 10-15 randomly selected clones (one of each let's say) of each species for their private stock, to one day produce seed. Perhaps some or all of them already do? I don't work there, so I don't know.


Quote:But if the plants are not readily available, wouldn't tissue culture be the answer? Wouldn't that help curb poaching from the wild?
Even some TC plants aren't exactly what I'd call available (pervillei for example). Then again....never seen seed of it offered either. I'm guessing this is because of low numbers of seed collected originally. In a case like this, I'd rather have 3 or 4 TC clones that can continue on for a couple years, instead of only 100 people being able to grow the plant for the next couple years, but for some reason, there's only 1 clone of this plant. What happened to all the others and the other seed? Surely out of all the seed collected, more than 1 germinated? While seedlings are said to have a high mortality rate (I never lose more than about 10%), hardening off plants from TC kills at least as many if not more. When being moved from aseptic, 100% humidity conditions, to "natural" or "artificially natural" ones, TC plants are more than willing to die.

I think to some extent TC can help poaching, which of course is a good thing. TC certainly has its place. Let's look at a well known case; N. clipeata. This plant is virtually (if not already) extinct in the wild. IIRC, I think I heard there was a survey done in 96 or so, which only found about 5 mature plants. Overcollection killed or has almost killed off this species, but of course there are 3 TC clones. Unfortunately, there are only 3 TC clones, and at least 1 of these is male (see my website for more info: http://www.freewebs.com/phissionkorps/clipeatastuff.htm). So, if the other 2 clones end up being male...can we really say that the species has been saved? Effectively saved from extinction, yes, but I would not call it salvation if only 1 sex is available. I have found a lab that has clipeata in TC, and they are not Wistuba plants. This could be groundbreaking...or they could be JDK plants, in which case they're probably the hybrid, and are of no help whatsoever. I think it would be neat if most plants were seed grown, and TC was used in between generations. Being able to sell mostly seed-origin plants would of course have a pretty decent lag period (a decade?). Since getting wild clipeata seed is out of the question, I'm hoping we see some seed produced from some of the "illegal" plants in Germany and/or Japan. Of course this is very hush-hush, and from working with the NcSP, I can tell you for certain that not too many people will be loose-lipped about the status of their clipeatas (even the 3 "legal" clones).


Quote:Also someone mentioned last week (I think) that tissue culture plants are also grown from seeds? Is this true? If it is true, wouldn't that be considered seed grown and the plants would have their unique individuality? I understand that there is another way which is using merristem, but this is more difficult. Which does tissue culture nurseries use?
Yes, this is true. TC is not really an accurate way to describe the way Nepenthes are mass produced (as Rob pointed out in a previous thread here). Normal everyday seed is sown in vitro. These seeds then germinate, and grow. "TC" is really like letting a seedling grow, then taking a tiny little conventional style cutting from it, planting it in the same conditions, and repeating. Therefore, when you see something like "N. whatever from a single clone", that is the same plant...from the same seed. There could be 340,000 of them, but they are all exactly the same (unless some mutation arises). If say, MT has 4 different clones available, that is basically equivalent to 4 different seed-grown plants. You could order 40 plants, but only have 4 different possible genomes, barring random mutation. Mericulture of Nepenthes is certainly possible, and has been for at least 13 years. However, it is very difficult, and not very many places do it. There's a problem to overcome with Nepenthes, that is their meristematic tissue is infected with a fungus that will run rampant under TC conditions. To be successful, one has to be able to kill the fungus, without killing the tissue. This of course rules out bleach and many other things. I've long thought perhaps UV may work, but that would be a gateway to mutation. Another "far out" idea I've had is using acoustics, if it would be possible to cause the cells of the fungus to lyse at a different frequency than Nepenthes cells. One could also try to use a chitinase to digest the cell wall of the fungus, leaving the nep tissue intact. These are all just me throwing crazy and potentially/probably awfully wrong ideas out there. TC labs don't release or sell their protocols, which is the reason most places don't know how to do it. Each lab would have to discover it on their own essentially. There's a journal article written in 1994 that I could've sworn at least gave hints on the procedure. I'll see if I can find it again at some point. Might not happen though, since I don't have access to journal articles anymore since I'm no longer a student, and I am never on campus (the only place you can access them). Anyway, TC labs usually use the micropropagation method. Prices no doubt would come down if mericulture was widespread. Tenuis sells/sold for $180 IIRC, which not too many people are willing to spend on a nep. If that was mericultured, and sold even for $100, a ton more people would buy it, it would be a lot more readily available, etc. It takes a long time to produce 5 rooted cuttings (unless we're talking gracilis lol), but much, much shorter to cut a 2" section of meristematic tissue and make 40 plants out of it.


Quote:I am sure nureseries would offer more seed grown plants in the future if the situation is right, demand is there and the nurseries are able to produce them. I think it would be a natural way of how things would work, wouldn't it?
I would hope so. It seems with each passing day, there is more and more demand for seed grown material. Were I a nursery owner, I would take heed of that and offer more seed grown stuff, but would not phase out TC at all, as as I said, it certainly has a positive role to play. However, from a business perspective, I don't know if it is a smart idea to offer a majority of seed grown stuff. I couldn't imagine why not (if you had TC backing it in between generations), but if it is not, we will never see nurseries offering mostly SG stuff. Of course this all depends on species again (we ARE talking neps after all). Like I said, no one ATM (as bad as they may want to) can offer hamata or clipeata seed. I know there is at least 1 female jaq, and if you read the forums you know there's at least 1 male jaq. However, we probably won't see jaq seed any time in the foreseeable future. We are dealing with dioecious plants, "unfortunately".


Quote:Tissue culture with Nepenthes has to be done by seed
Negative. See above. Not many places do it, but its far from impossible.

So, in closing, they both have their place, their advantages, and disadvantages. The only real drawback I can see with SG material is once it's gone, its gone (for at least a year or two if the same cross is made with the same parents). Do you have ANY clue how long I've been trying to get a hold of some of EP's plants? Even at that, looks like I'm going to have to wait a couple more years .

Sorry for the novel
PS: do I win the award for the longest post on this forum?
PPS: I hope you all enjoy lol. It took me almost 2 hours!

*there was a well known nursery here that was KNOWN to poach wild sarrs. They even asked a very prominent member of the NASC to field collect for them. It may have been them, or it may have been another nursery (pretty sure the same one though) that had what they called "flytrap farmers" who went out and field collected VFTs for the nursery to sell. I hadn't known about all this until after the fact, but thankfully someone told the gov't, and they are gone now (good riddance!). « Last Edit: Jan 26, 2008, 5:37am by phissionkorps »Link to Post - Back to Top LoggedNatura non facit saltum
Species seed is worth its weight in platinum
Valhalla when I die kltower
Pioneer Member

member is offline





Joined: Dec 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 195
Location: Kuala Lumpur
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #9 on Jan 25, 2008, 4:37pm »
Thanks David for putting out the questions I always wanted to ask but too lazy to do.

And thanks phissionkorps for the very impressive and informative answers which I thoroughly enjoyed. For effort, I will have some seeds for you. Please pm your address.

Choong
Link to Post - Back to Top Logged David
Administrator

member is offline





Joined: Dec 2006
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,326
Location: Kuala Lumpur
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #10 on Jan 25, 2008, 11:06pm »
Thanks phissionkorps for the thorough information. At least I have an idea of the whole picture now. Thanks for the two long hours you put into this to answer my questions.

Thanks to nepenthes too for the explaination on tissue culture.

ps: yes pissionkorps, I think you get the award for the longest post here. ... I think it should be longest and most informative! « Last Edit: Jan 25, 2008, 11:11pm by David »Link to Post - Back to Top LoggedMy Wantlist rainforestguy
Senior Member

member is offline





Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 386
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #11 on Jan 26, 2008, 3:09am »
PK, that dissertation was well written.

Don't get me wrong. Tc has its benefits, but with our current status quo, nurseries are ONLY propagating species from tc plants. With many of our private individual collectors growing plants much better than any high-end nurseries, the production of seed originals is important to ensure the life long plant variety needed to keep a species genetically fit and prosperous. Having just the single male or single female or worst case scenario, one sex only is a waste of a species. A species is constantly evolving and making itself better to a changing environment. Once a tc clone is replicated, it is only able to survive in a narroe parameter of growing conditions. You have seen beautiful N. hamata plants from tc, but only a handful of growers are able to succeed in making this grow well in a very specific environment. A case in point for seed-grown originals is the seed originals of ep's N. truncata. There isn't any seedling that grows better in highland or lowland conditions. They grow equally well in different environments. One lot of seeds, yet each seedling has allowed adaptive qualities to allow it to survive, even thrive in each of their prospective environments. Even N. truncata from tc clones are slow paced growers.
I think that the availability of tc clones does not curb illegal poaching. The idea behind poaching is to obtain a plant that is otherwise not available to the general public. If all the tc clipeatas, hamatas, macrophyllas, etc. are all males then the demand to obtain illegal females from the wild will be even greater, depleting wild populations by removing females at an alarming rate. Remember its not just about owning a rare species, but to own reproductive perfect plants. If you owned a white rhino, and it was just a male, well, its worth something, but if you had a breeding pair, well then, its priceless!
The problems with tc plants is that you narrow the genetic integrity of a species. There is just a single clone of N. villosa, yet in the wild, almost no two plants resemble each other. We have already seen the variations of in N. rafflesiana, ampullaria, etc. To have a specific form of each to represent the species would be a crime. Yet seed grown originals allow every collector to own a unique entity. Each clone has the potential to be male or female and when two are in flower, seed can be produced and either grown/sold/traded and produce more genetic material ensuring that species ability to survive for future generations of genetic diversity.
Many nurseries already have matured true species of their plants in their collections, but so few are used for breeding purposes. What a shame. Many of these are exceptional specimens exhibiting unique and diverse characteristics much greater appealing than the weak poor individual tc clones which they sell, we buy, and perpetuate. How sad.
I read somewhere that seedlings are weak and tc allows better growth rates. I have grown a lot of species from seeds and have not had that problem yet. But have purchased tc plants that were so slow it made me wonder about my ability as a good grower to get these beyond the seedling stage. Yet the many photos of seed-originals have proven that these are easy to grow plants and have allowed me to grow them when previously grown tc clones of the same ended in tragedy.
Seed grown originals is not a dead end propagation. While you can make thousands of clones of a specific individual, cuttings can be made from an original seed grown as well. The likes of N. Dyeriana we see all around the globe are examples of such propagative measures.

M

Link to Post - Back to Top Loggedhttp://www.lhnn.proboards107.com/index.cgi rainforestguy
Senior Member

member is offline





Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 386
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #12 on Jan 31, 2008, 3:08am »
I have said earlier that seed grown materials actually adapt and thrive over tc clones for a specific climate.
This is a seedling from N. ramispina and it appears to be a hybrid. What do you think?


Here's a close up of one of the pitchers


Its probably sanguinea or macfarlanei or perhaps an introgressive hybrid.

What do you think?

The concept of seed grown material allows me to grow this in a warmer climate than otherwise possible.

M

Link to Post - Back to Top Loggedhttp://www.lhnn.proboards107.com/index.cgi Robert
Advisor - Nepenthes

member is offline





Joined: Jan 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 584
Location: Sarawak,Malaysian Borneo
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #13 on Feb 1, 2008, 9:17pm »
wow ! PK thanks for the long and informative post. It makes for interesting reading.
Link to Post - Back to Top Logged strath76
Full Member

member is offline





Joined: Jan 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 122
Location: Australia
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #14 on Feb 3, 2008, 7:54am »
Thanks all, these posts make for great reading.

I think when all is sadi and done it highlights the importance of the trade forums as seen here. The easier it is for enthusiasts to trade seed and continue the diversity the better it will be for wild populations.

As stated in one of the posts it is the enthusiasts that seem to have the best strike rate in growing and maintaining these plants and therefore the more we spread the genetic pool the better off we will all be.
Link to Post - Back to Top Logged xir007
New Member

member is offline





Joined: Sept 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 24
Location: Bkk. TH.
Re: The Miracle of Seed
« Reply #15 on Feb 10, 2008, 5:17pm »

difference clone from seed.
Link to Post - Back to Top Logged