|
BACPS | Newsletter |
| Fall 2007 |
| Next Meeting: January 26, 2008 |
| President's Message | |
| November Meeting Minutes | |
| BACPS Web Forum | |
| BACPS at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show | |
| Treasurer's Reports | |
| Upcoming Events | |
Lois Ochs's Utricularia fulva on display |
Date and Time: January 26, 2008, 12 noon to 4 p.m.
Location: University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley
Program: Bill Weaver's Trip to Borneo
In addition, because the BACPS web forum has generated a discussion about San Francisco Bay Area water issues (see Stephen's article below), BACPS members who want to find out how pure their water is should bring samples to the meeting for testing.
by Larry Logoteta
As your new BACPS President, I would like to thank Steve for all his hard work and dedication as President for the last three years and the support from all of you who helped make Steve's job a real success for our club. At our next meeting, on January 26, 2008, the guest speaker will be Bill Weaver, speaking about his trip to Borneo in search of Nepenthes.
To members of the club, I would like to have your input on what we as a club can do for you as a member, as we all have a say in the club's direction. This is your club -- I'm only the person who conducts the meetings, and the rest is up to the club members to voice their opinion. You can e-mail me with your suggestions or talk to me at the next meeting.
by Judith Finn
Date: November 17, 2007
Location: University of California Botanical Garden, Berkeley
Attendance: 35 + (5 new members)
Stephen Davis thanked all the members who helped him in his years as
president of the club. He gave special thanks to Geoff Wong, who has been
especially helpful in his advice, Tony Gridley for editing the newsletter,
and Bill Weaver for distributing it. He also thanked our founder,
treasurer, and steadfast helper -- Joe Mazrimas -- and Larry Logoteta for keeping
the membership records and helping with the meetings. Special thanks was
given to Christina Palmer for her work at the annual show doing the registration
and other jobs that make the annual event possible.
Stephen leaves as his legacy a far more sophisticated newsletter, website, and annual show and meetings featuring many interesting speakers, which he also recorded for future viewing. As if this was not enough, at this meeting he introduced a new computer forum for members to communicate with each other. It will be a place to post questions and answers, share experiences in growing and propagating carnivores, and make it easier to trade and sell plants to each other. Janet Amaro is responsible for the creation of the forum.
Although Stephen is stepping down as president, he assures us that he will
continue to help with the club's function and mission. We are very grateful
for the many years of service at the helm and thank him for all the
innovations that he has initiated.
Since the ribbons honoring the winning plants at the annual show were not available in September, Stephen handed out the ribbons to the growers of the awarded plants. They went to Geoff Wong, Tony Gridley, Michael Drabinsky, Stephen Davis, Max Schaeffer, Ken Kirkpatrick, Stephanie Quick, and Doris Quick.
Robert Co did a wonderful job of photographing the plants at our annual event.
Stephen reminded us that Mike Woodring graciously lends his projector for our meeting lectures, but we would like to purchase one for the club, and your donations and participation in the auction help us to raise funds.
We raised $104 with the sale of B52 VFT (David Conner), Pinguicula laueana, Nepenthes spathulata, N. × 'Savannah Rose', N. × 'Peter D'Amato' (Geoff Wong), and a N. 'Joanne Holland' hybrid.
Stephen Davis brought in a Pinguicula 'Pirouette' grown on a rock and in flower.
A dried pitcher of Darlingtonia californica found in Gasquet by Harry Tryon was an amazing 35 inches.
David Conner brought in an assortment of VFT cultivars such as 'Sawtooth,' 'Red Dragon,' and 'Hurricane White Creek' and Drosera hartmeyerorum distinguished by its yellow glands.
Geoff Wong, David Conner, Tony Gridley, and Ron LaPedis brought in the following plants for the raffle: Pinguicula laueana, P. caudata, Nepenthes spathulata, N. ventricosa, Utricularia reniformis, Venus flytrap, Drosera paradoxa, and Drosera capensis.
David Conner (dconnercps@sbcglobal.net,
www.connerscarnivores.com) grows
carnivorous plant cultivars from tissue culture in Fairfield. He presented
a very detailed PowerPoint show about growing plants from tissue culture
that was produced by his friend, Dr. Carol M. Stiff
(carolstiff@kitchenculturekit.com,
www.kitchenculturekit.com). He told us
that if we wish to purchase a tissue culture kit from her to mention his
name for a discounted price.
He explained that tissue culture is a propagation technique that is used in mass propagation. With micropropagation you can obtain an enormous volume of identical plants. From very small pieces of plant tissue, which can be obtained from shoot tips, axillary buds or nodes, leaves, embryos, or even flower parts, new plants can be cloned. Why would you want to do this? You can replicate that fabulous plant that got you a blue ribbon at the annual show. You can produce great plants without driving conservationists crazy and getting jail time by ripping them off from the wild. Universities and private industries can maintain disease-free plants, preserve germplasm, do plant breeding programs, and do genetic engineering. (There is hope for Audrey yet.)
David explained that we could reproduce our plants using
simple, inexpensive equipment in our own home. Cleanliness is next to
godliness. You must keep everything as sterile as you can. To keep dust,
mold, spores, etc., from settling on your equipment, instead of an industrial
laminal flow hood use a cardboard box or a large PVC box. Next he gave us
the following list of supplies that you could obtain from local stores.
These are: alcohol for sterilizing instruments, canning jars (1 qt and 1
pint), pressure cooker or microwave, baby food jars, table sugar, bleach,
detergent, knife, small plate, measuring spoons, florist tape, plant
material, clean area. The following are items that you may also find
locally: agar (gelatin or cotton balls) to prevent plants from drowning,
forceps (6-8"), and pH paper (to adjust base/acidity in medium).
Hard-to-find things that you could obtain from suppliers such as Dr. Carol
Stiff include: growth medium for plant nutrition, hormones for inducing
roots and shoots, PPM to inhibit microorganism growth, and plastic baby food
jar lids for use in the microwave. Or you buy a "Kichen Culture Kit" and
get all of the above.
Next David went through the steps to sterilizing
water and the media, filling the jars, adjusting the pH, pouring the
contents into small jars or tubes with plastic tops if you are using a
microwave. Next step is a clean area, which is a box on its side. The area,
bottles, plate, instruments, and hands should be cleaned with 70%
alcohol. Now you are ready to add your plant material.
You first pick up the piece with forceps and dip it into 70% alcohol for a few seconds, then into 10% bleach and a few drops of detergent for 10 minutes. Rinse in sterile water for 1-2 minutes. This clean leaf is then cut and placed in the jar filled with the medium and covered and sealed with florist tape. You then put your culture in a bright room out of direct sunlight. After 6-8 weeks you can transfer the subculture into fresh medium, cover, and seal with tape. The final step is "deflasking" the subcultured plantlets, carefully dividing them and gently cleaning the agar-gel media from the roots, transplanting to soil, then "hardening off" by placing the potted plantlet in a high-humidity environment until it gets acclimated to lower humidity levels.
Recommended vendors are www.caissonlabs.com or www.phytotechlab.com.
Another interesting link is Rick Walker's slide show "Tissue Culture in the Home Kitchen" at www.omnisterra.com/botany/cp/slides/tc/tc.htm.
I think David has inspired us all with his lecture.
(Editor's note: You can ask questions of our meeting speaker in the new BACPS web forum in the "Meeting Discussion" forum.)
by Stephen Davis
The BACPS has put together a web forum! The web forum was soft-launched at the last meeting and now has 45 registered members who have made over 160 posts.
In the past, our four to six meetings a year were all we had to exchange information and ask questions of the local experts. But growing carnivorous plants is a year-round hobby, and talking to each other about it is one of the fun parts. Much more fun than weeding -- to my mind, anyway, although some of you might disagree. Getting advice from someone local with a similar or same climate as your own is also often more helpful than the advice from someone in a totally different environment.
So far we have had some interesting discussions on water, some great photos posted, Q&A from our last meeting's speaker about tissue culture, and about a half dozen members have entered a profile on who they are, what they grow, and how they got into the hobby. Someone asked about hobby greenhouses, and a local member posted detailed photos of his self-built greenhouse as it went up. Several members posted links to inexpensive greenhouses and their experiences with them. It's a great start.
We have made a number of changes since it was first opened up to the members, and we think we have it better organized. However, we need more input. For instance, do you want a trading post? Do you think we need to have forums for each genus? I didn't want to be like the other forums that already exist, so I have resisted that format so far, deferring to a design that is more about growing plants in OUR region. It keeps local flavor to it. However, if enough people disagree, we will change it.
As a marketer, I am fascinated by the statistics that something like this gives you and the insights it generates. I found it interesting that by far the most viewed forum is the "Introduce Yourself" forum. People really want to know who their fellow members are and want to know more about you. Please post your own profile as soon as you can.
The second most popular topic was "SF Bay Area Water," and a surprisingly distant third was member photos followed by "Growing CP in a Greenhouse" and "News From the Web." I was amazed at the interest in the SF Bay Area Water topic, so I started a poll to find out where members get their water. Taking things a step further, I created a Google map that you can use to find what the TDS reading is in your area. It needs more data points, so if you have a TDS meter, please go and post your reading!
I have long felt that communication is key to a strong and energetic organization. The new BACPS forum was the last important piece to that end I had wanted to implement as President. I hope everyone finds it useful. I can't thank Janet enough for putting this together. It took me three long years to find someone with the time and skills to make this happen. Everyone please thank her.
We have security set pretty high to keep out the spammers. So far it has paid off as we get several obvious spammers trying to register every week. However, this means that you will not be able to get instant access to the forum.
We apologize for the delay and for not giving everyone instant access, but keeping the site safe is really important to us.
by Stephen Davis
The BACPS has been invited to have a space at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show (March 12-16 at the Cow Palace) this year! It's an exciting opportunity, and I'm hoping we can get enough members to participate. We will have a meeting both before and after the upcoming meeting on Saturday the 26th. That way people who can't stay late can go to the early meeting and vice versa. There will also be a forum for it on our web forum.
We will have a large area in "Sprouts," which is an area just off the main floor targeting kids and their parents. We can do whatever we want in this area, and the limitation is dependent on our imaginations and member participation.
The goal is to get kids interested in plants through education and a participation display. At the core, we are planning on having a table for coloring and a table for potting up take-away carnivorous plants. Probably a lot of Drosera capensis, although we are open to ideas for getting enough VFTs that are not totally dormant! We will of course have information on how to grow the plants, and how to join the BACPS!
We need some additional attractions, however. Lindsay Davis has offered to put up her two science projects featuring CP experiments with VFT. Live display plants -- large Nepenthes, pings in bloom, sundew specimens, utrics, Sarracenia, etc. -- are all welcome.
Some other ideas have been suggested that we would like to persue, but they require some champions:
Do you have lights? We need to have members pull some plants out of dormancy right away. Anyone have any experience with this? Initially our suggestion is to put some Sarracenia and Venus flytraps under lights right away. If we don't have large pitchers, we might at least have some flowers. Several smaller and at least one really large Nepenthes would be nice too. Since the show is five days long, it makes it more worth the trouble of packing some up and displaying them. Remember, unlike our fantastic show, which reaches several hundred people, thousands will see the plants we display.
The most difficult part of doing this will be the staffing. Setup is Tuesday, March 11, and it goes through Sunday. We will need at least one person there at all times. We have a number of people who have volunteered already, but we will need more.
The Conservatory of Flowers is allowing us to borrow their giant Venus flytrap and Heliamphora. This is a good start to a great display. Now we just need some champions with some imagination to beef it up! Please check your schedules -- we hope you can commit to this project right away.
by Joe Mazrimas
| BACPS TREASURY REPORT | |||
| June 23, 2007 | |||
| ASSETS | DEBIT | BALANCE | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auction | $308.00 | ||
| Raffle | $135.00 | ||
| TOTAL | $443.00 | ||
| Current Balance (06-23-07) | $443.00 | ||
| Previous Balance (02-10-07) | $2807.91 | ||
| TOTAL | $3250.91 |
| BACPS TREASURY REPORT | |||
| Sept. 22, 2007 | |||
| ASSETS | DEBIT | BALANCE | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auction and Raffle | $423.00 | ||
| Hall rental | $304.00 | ||
| Current Balance (09-22-07) | $119.00 | ||
| Previous Balance (06-23-07) | $3250.91 | ||
| TOTAL | $3369.91 |
| BACPS TREASURY REPORT | |||
| Nov. 17, 2007 | |||
| ASSETS | DEBIT | BALANCE | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auction | $104.00 | ||
| Raffle | $71.00 | ||
| Sellers | $10.00 | ||
| TOTAL | $185.00 | ||
| Current Balance (11-17-2007) | $185.00 | ||
| Previous Balance (09-22-2007) | $3369.91 | ||
| TOTAL | $3554.91 |
January 26, 2008: BACPS Winter Meeting, UC Botanical Garden, Berkeley
March 12-16, 2008: San Francisco Flower & Garden Show
April 26, 2008: Bug Day at the Randall Museum in San Francisco
Clean box, tissue culture shelves -- David Conner; members watching David's presentation, Harry Tryon with Darlingtonia pitcher, David Conner with flytraps -- Stephen Davis; other photos -- Tony Gridley
The BACPS Newsletter is a quarterly publication produced by the Bay Area Carnivorous Plant Society. Please send newsletter submissions to Tony Gridley (tgridley@comcast.net). For more information on membership, subscriptions, or events, please visit our website: www.bacps.org.