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Buying in vitro material?

I'm going to start into tissue culturing soon, and between books I've been wondering what material I should use. I have a few Pinguiculas flowering, and thought I would start with their seed. Lately on Ebay, though, I've noticed a seller offering In vitro material such as N. Eymae, D. ordensis, H. Nutans ect. I am wondering if it would be a good idea to purchase the flasks, since they would most likely be sterile, and it would be a matter of replating to another flask and growing a callus until I have an army of plants. My only concern is that I would contaminate a flask because of my lack of experience, and have to just plant it in soil. Any input is appreciated, Thank you.
 
I have a similar or perhaps related question. I see the some of the same stuff for sale in tc, since as I understand it, the plants often don't form roots, and are used to mega-high humidity and easily digestible nutrients at their "fingertips",
how does one go about taking the plants out of the flask and acclimating them to regular media? Also, in the pics, the little jars appear to be/have a veritable forest of greenery, and there is usually no scale or way to tell how large
that container really is. It may look blown up to be five inches in length or so, and in actuality be a half inch tall. Or is it? Is the seller planning to take one tiny plant out of that tube-thingie and ship it off to the buyer, or do you get
the contents of it as shown in the pic? I really don't know. But for an asking price of $30 to $50, it might be good to know...
 
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For taking the plant out, it should have roots, otherwise it will be hard (I assume atleast). Wash out all media from the roots, making sure not to leave any, plant, keep in low light, ideal temps and max humidity. Then it's just slowly introducing more light and less humidity. From what I can tell the seller uses the same picture everytime for the flask, and I assume the plant is just a common picture pulled from the internet. I'm quite tempted to bite the bullet and buy one to check the quality.
 
It will definitely be easier to start with a sterile culture, but you still need good sterile technique to not contaminate it during subculturing.

As for roots growing in-vitro... A lot of plants will just root normally, especially on hormone-free media. If they don't you can induce root growth with hormones, before deflasking. The biggest things to worry about when deflasking plants are humidity (you have to acclimate them slowly), and keeping them fungi free despite the super high humidity and residue from the culture media. Adequate rinsing and transplanting into sterilized media (ex-vitro) should help lessen the change of ex-vitro fungal damage on newly deflasked plants.
 
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Depending upon the species, they may simply root ex vitro, in compost; though the most important aspect of deflasking, already mentioned, is the removal of media from the roots or plantlets. Otherwise, they'll be overrun with mold or fungi within days . . .
 
@PD: The seller typically is selling the entire flask. If you are unsure, then by all means ask them just to make sure.
 
The cz sellers usually send 2 or 3 plants in a fresh culture with only agar to hold them in place during shipment and recommend planting out or reflasking onto suitable media shortly after receipt.
 
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