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Growing Byblis liniflora from seed

Joseph Clemens

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Back in 1988 I was a student of horticulture at New Mexico State University (NMSU). I had a student job working with the Chile breeding program, supporting staff and graduate students. I was permitted to grow a few CP, using my own materials, in small idle areas between benches in the Chile breeding greenhouse. One plant I grew there was Byblis liniflora - it was good at collecting some of the few whitefly that escaped the other IPM. I originally obtained Byblis liniflora as seed from WIP (World Insectivorous Plants), many years before. The plants I grew in a tray at NMSU were started from seed, that was already several generations removed from the seed I originally obtained from WIP. As I grew this tray of Byblis liniflora plants I carefully pollinated a majority of the flowers as they were produced. Then I watched and waited, harvesting the seed as it ripened. I can only estimate, but I guess there were several thousand seed collected in total. Then I was unable to continue growing CP for quite some time. I donated many of these seed to the ICPS seedbank, I traded many more, and even sold a few vials containing one hundred each, of these seed.

It is now, almost twenty-three years later, and even though I had developed a favorite technique for germinating Byblis liniflora seed, I did not use it when I recently sowed ten of these twenty-three year old seed. I simply sowed them on the surface of a 2" pot of media.

It is about six weeks later and, "surprise" - already four of the seed have germinated and those tiny little Byblis liniflora seedlings are now growing in that little pot. I almost didn't expect the seed was still viable after all that time. If only all seed maintained its viability like this Byblis liniflora seed has.
 
I've been using the 10% bleach solution for the past few years.


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wow, Joseph- that's awesome! I think you definitely shattered the old record!
 
Only by almost one year. I understand that in 2001, BobZ had good germination from Byblis gigantea and Drosophyllum lusitanica seed that had been harvested in 1979. So, basically Bob's seed and mine were nearly the same age.
 
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