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Encouraging the formation of basals

DragonsEye

carnivorous plants of the world -- unite!
So while bebopping around on the web, I happened upon the ICPS site which I had not visited in years. I came across the following advice for encouraging Nepenthes to form new basals:

"If it is a long stem it may be better to encourage the plant to grow a new basal rosette. You do this by laying the pot on the side and letting the long stem go out horizontally or, even better, hang down. In a few months the plant should sprout a new basal rosette an you can remove the whole climbing stem."

Does anyone happen to know why this would be effective?
Has anyone had experience in doing so? (Inquiring minds and all that ....)
 
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It probably has something to do with auxins etc?
 
I don't have experience doing this, but I will attempt it soon and I'll let you guys know. As for my guess as to why it works, the plant probably "realizes" that it isn't as stable or it thinks it has fallen over and grows a basal in an attempt to reorient itself similar to how bamboo(or was it sugarcane) will grow new shoots from the side if it falls over.
 
It has a lot to do with auxins and other growth hormones the plant produces. The ones that suppress basal production are produced at the growing point, and oddly appear to follow gravity; plants with stems climbing up allow the hormone to drain down through the plant, and don't produce basals until they get very long and the distance dilutes the hormone too much for it to be effective at the base/root system. Those bent down level with or below the pot level will tend to basal rapidly because the hormone is no longer draining into the base. It doesn't matter in this case really how long the vine is, so long as it's more than just a few inches.
 
I have regularly used homemade "keiki" pastes, with auxins and / or cytokinins to encourage cell division, in a base of pharmaceutical grade lanolin . . .
 
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I think hcarlton's explanation makes sense. Actually, auxins itself isn't following the gravity (i.e. auxins aren't sinking), but the auxin eflux protein relocates toward the bottom side of cell membrane (which drives the direction of auxin flow). If you look at Statolith section of the following wikipedia, it gives a brief explanation.
Gravitropism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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You could also induce offshoots by simply clipping the meristem, since as Hawken pointed out, it's a factory for auxins.
 
Thanks, folks. I suspected it was likely due to growth hormones (auxins)
Though it still seems odd that the position of the vine would have that great an impact.

Twas most intrigued to learn of the presence of statoliths in plant cells. Had not known there was a plant analog to the statoliths/statocysts found in some animals like crayfish.


 
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Thanks, folks. I suspected it was likely due to growth hormones (auxins)
Though it still seems odd that the position of the vine would have that great an impact.

Auxin flow can be disrupted in a few different ways, including by bending the stems horizontally against the ground, which disrupts apical dominance; the auxins "pool" at the bottom of the horizontal stem, and so the cytokinins that promote lateral growth and act antagonistically to auxin will send new growth from the dormant nodes that now face upwards, while the original apical bud starts to decline. You can see the phenomenon on tree branches that have grown horizontally or by lashing a tomato to the ground. One of the plant science professors lashed a tobacco plant to the ground a few months back that illustrates this growth pattern fairly well, I'll see if I can get a picture of it.

I've noticed that on my vining Nepenthes with horizontal stems, they do seem to produce more basals but that's purely anecdotal. I'm hoping that an N. vieillardii I received recently will send out some basals because its stem was snapped about halfway through in transit, an accidental sort of notching which should have a similar effect.
 
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I've had this happen on multiple occasions with my neps. If anyone's interested I can try to take some pictures tomorrow to show you.

Let me clarify; in all cases the main growth point had become prostrate and produced basal shoots on their own accord. I haven't laid a pot down to force the effect.
 
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