Gibberellic Acid

[zakhren]

Does anyone know where they would sell gibberellic acid (GA3)? Aparrantly it's better than smoke when trying to get some seeds to germinate. Dave maybe you could check Ace? I can't go there so often...

[David]

I've already smoked the seeds using fire and actual smoke. Why not just do that? Easy and it saves you money.

I don't think so I've seen that stuff being sold anywhere. Perhas others on the forum would know.

[cosmoking]

Triffid Nurseries sell it:
www.triffidnurseries.co.uk/
They will happily sell you some as its not a plant so it will not require any permits.

I must say I do agree with David on this one: Ive never used it myself but smoke is much easier to use and get a hold of, and with Gibberelic Acid you never realy know how much is too much and how much is too little, and you culd easily kill your seeds by over-dosing.

[ericsow]

admin said:

I've already smoked the seeds using fire and actual smoke. Why not just do that? Easy and it saves you money.

I don't think so I've seen that stuff being sold anywhere. Perhas others on the forum would know.

David, any tips show how to smoke the seed?

[ischan]

They sell this product and smoke water, from rarexoticseeds.com
you can look at their website. They also have got quite a good selection of rare seeds of Sun dews, and other types of carnivorous plants.

[strath76]

I have seen a thing called a smoke pad for sale over here in Australia. it retails for $4. I haven't used them but I am told it comes with instructions and makes germinating seeds such as tuberous drosera a lot easier. Hope this helps.

[kianliang87]

Yea, is there anyone willing to share the proper way to smoke the seeds?

[shawnintland]

Just another input on this- I just received a bottle of gibberellic acid from a bio-chemist friend in Bangkok. He said it was quite easy to get and not at all expensive (he didn't charge me so I don't know how much! - Thanks Pop! Hopefully he will add his experiences to this thread soon). I just planted about 800 Nep seeds, 1/2 with 24 hour soak in 0.1% Gibb. solution and 1/2 with no pre-soak. It is still too early to give you any results but I'll post again when I know. Previously, my friend and I both planted seeds from the same sources at the same time but he had Gibb. and I didn't - it has sounded like he had far better germination than I did. In the past he was about to give up trying to plant seed because of poor germination - meanwhile, I had always had quite good rates! The turnaround made me think it was worth trying out a real side-by-side comparison test.
I hope others will post their experiences with both methods here - good or bad, so we can all benefit.

[aphos]

Hi Shawn,
Nice to see you in here. And thanks for sharing your experince in here.

As I read from many source in internet, some claim that Gibb promote Neps seed germination, but some of them did not convince about the result. I think it is hard to say because it is high variation in neps hybrid itself, some hybrid start germinate very quickly, the concept underlie this is from genetic background in each hybrid is very different. However, as stated in many text book about the effect of Gibberellin to seed germination and dormancy destroying, I use Gibberellin for neps seed soaking. As Shawn, described I sow seeds nearly at the same time as he did. But our growing condition is quite different, but when he e-mail to me about his first germination, I had 4-6 of the germinated already. May be this due to different in growing condition or effect of Gibberellin, this experiment should be re-do again. I use 3 different hybrids for soaking, viking x ('Red Dragon'), Tiger x rafflesiana 'alata' and viking x (spathulata x rafflesiana) (All seeds were recieved from Xir007 of Nepenthessiam board and member of the forum). Tiger x rafflesiana 'alata' and viking x (spathulata x rafflesiana) exhibit reasonable germination rate. But viking x ('Red Dragon') did not, it was reported that Red Dragon hybrid show low germination rate (personal communication).

However, from my information above, with my lazyness, I soaked all seed with our perform paralel experiment with control group, so I can not compare result with same genetic background in same growing condition. I think this time my friend, Shawn, will try with it and make comparison.

However, I want to remind that even germinating in TC media, neps seeds exhibit low germination rate, and different hybrid or species show different germination rate. However, in my hand, as I all failed to germinate neps seeds in the past, I've got better result with using Gibberellin.

Cheers,