Hello Triffid, stefpix, RosieC and everyone else out there! In response to stefpix's questions, I kept the agar sterile by rinsing the bottles in a weak bleach solution before pouring in the mix. With the seeds, I mostly used pods before they split. I cut the pods with a steak knife lengthwise just after quickly sterilizing the blade in the flame from my gas stove. There was about 20% loss to contamination except for the 2 split pods, one of which had some bottles without contamination and the other with total contamination. With the contaminated bottles of seeds I have attempted to salvage some of the bottles. When the contamination was spotted in a small circle I used a soldering gun (outside of the house to avoid the fumes) to melt and trace a hole in each plastic bottle and then to trace around the contaminated spot with the soldering gun followed by using the tip to scoop out the spot. Then I wrapped the bottle with plastic rap. Time will tell if this will work for any of them! It doesn't matter, I just wanted to try and see.
As for the germination question, I have some seeds turning green and growing (hope it is an early sign of protocorms and not some contamination) Bye for now
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First Post (Phal seed experimenting)
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