Succulents from bits & peices

Yes, you did read today’s title correctly; I literally mean "from bits and pieces"! Imagine taking a bit of root, leaf, flower, or even flower stalk from a particular succulent. Then, using the right laboratory techniques and procedures (which assume you have the right equipment and training to begin with), you are able to re-create the whole plant. And not just that, you are able to propagate and multiply these plants until you have a whole bunch of them. Such is the magic of the scientific technique called tissue culture.

Tissue culture has been used, not just for succulents, but for many other genera of plants. I understand these techniques are used quite extensively, for example, with orchids here in the Philippines. Tissue Culture techniques are frequently used to grow and multiply many rare and hard-to-propagate species. So instead of raping and pillaging the wild for these hard-to-find, slow-growing jewels as has so often been done in the past (and, unfortunately, still continues to this day), scientists and horticulturists are finding new ways to propagate the plant material they’ve already got in their collections.

One of the leaders in the tissue culture of succulents in the world is Succulent Tissue Culture (STC) in the Netherlands (www.succulent-tissue-culture.com). STC was started in 1995 by Robert Wellens and is a small though rapidly growing company. STC produces rare and endangered cacti and succulent plants using in-vitro techniques. Also STC is doing tissue culture research on a growing number of ornamental plants, cut flowers, pot plants and rare ornamentals like bulb- and caudex-forming tropical plants.

Robert has been a succulent collector for many years and his first love are haworthias. I remember back in the early ‘90s when Robert was starting this idea of succulents from tissue culture. In order to expand his genetic pool and plant stock, he asked other collectors around the world to send him small offsets and other tissue material of various and rarer haworthias, then cacti and other succulents. He even flew as far as Thailand to source new succulent, caudiciforms and other ornamental plant material to propagate in his laboratory. From these humble beginnings, Robert has now expanded into a truly growing commercial enterprise.

He has a wonderful selection of haworthias, astrophytums, turbinicarpus and other succulents. In fact, he is so adept at propagation that he is able to sell both retail and wholesale. For example, he has been able to produce the very rare mountain aloe, A. polyphylla, or the equally rare Pseudolithos migiurtinus, to such a point that he is able to sell these rare plants wholesale, and in very large quantities. In the case of Aloe polyphylla, he can even sell this plant by the thousands in one shot.

Lately, Robert has had tremendous success propagating variegated succulents and other genera. For those in the hobby, you probably know that variegated plants are very much sought by collectors worldwide, and significant premiums are paid for these chlorophyll-less mutations.

Robert is constantly in search of other rare material to tissue-culture, so expect his offerings to expand significantly in the future. Robert doesn’t limit himself to simply growing plants for the horticulture trade. He also grows quite a number of succulents which have significant commercial value and sells these to companies worldwide. Case in point is the famous aloe vera, that secret personal health care ingredient for just about any symptom around. Robert carefully selected aloe vera specimens with very high phenols which produce very potent beneficial juices. He produces these plants by the bushel and sells them to leading pharmaceutical companies globally. As Robert tells me, he produces thousands upon thousands of these plants annually, but the demand is huge.

Robert further explains his business: "STC does have a lot of expertise on the use of different in-vitro culture techniques like axillary shoot induction, callus culture and regeneration and anther culture techniques. STC also performs induction of tetraploids and basic research in the field of induction of variegation and cristation in in-vitro plants.

The most used technique is axillary shoot induction. In cacti this is done using areole-activation, with other succulents dormant axils are activated and grown to new plants. Most aloes are propagated this way while most haworthias are propagated through somatic embryogenesis.

Another technique used is the induction of callus and regeneration of this callus into new shoots. Callus induction can be made on any plant tissue, although not all tissue and plant species respond in the same, successful way.

Last but not least, STC does in-vitro germination of seeds of different origin. This results in numerous sterile seedlings which can be used for further in-vitro multiplication or can be grown to mature plants ex-vitro. STC does have clean room facilities, growth room space, cold storage growth rooms, and finally grows ex-vitro succulents and other ornamentals in a 200-square-meter greenhouse.

Starting in 1998, STC has been doing more research on the use of different techniques in order to optimize the production of rare and endangered succulent plants. One of the techniques further in study is the use of home-made bioreactors.

STC does research for third parties concerning all sorts of private plant material according to the general terms and conditions in respect of supply of tissue culture products at request of the "produktgroep weefselkweek" of the Association of Dutch Wholesalers in Floricultural products Plantum NL."

If you didn’t understand a bunch of that scientific botanical language, don’t worry. I don’t understand most of it myself. Suffice it to say that it works, and STC is able to produce really nice, well-grown and sturdy plants which will make any collector proud. Once you get his "re-creations," though, you might just find it hard to believe that these beauties once started as mere bits and pieces in a lab.

I know I did.

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E-mail the author at succulentophile@yahoo.com.