Jar Propagation

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 Necessary items:

• Reverse Osmosis Water (we used a little more than one gallon total)
• 6-10 small jars (the more airtight, the better)
• Spray bottle
• One gallon container
• Scale in grams
• Tillandsia seeds (try other slow-growing seeds too!)
• Bleach (we used 6%- check the label)
• 7g Agar powder
• 10g Sugar
• 1.5g Plant fertilizer (we used Epiphyte's Delight)

Helpful items:

• Plastic tub for soaking
• Tweezers

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Growing Tillandsia seeds is one of the most rewarding experiences in this hobby. It is not difficult to understand the needs of seedlings, and not difficult to provide them. However, seedlings typically require constant care, adjustments, and careful observation. This is because Tillandsia seedlings must remain wet enough to germinate and then stay alive, but dry enough to avoid fungi, bacteria, and other pathogens. Also, Tillandsia seedlings grow pretty slow- it might be five years for a seed to become a Retail Tillandsia! 

If Tillandsia seedlings required less direct, hands-on care, it would be much easier for anyone in almost any climate to propagate them. 

Plant Tissue Culture is the growth of plant tissue or cells in an artificial medium. This process basically grows plants from test tubes and has been around for over 100 years. Usually, this process requires special plant hormones and scientific equipment providing a sterile environment. We can adopt some of the processes and theories from plant tissue culture to grow Tillandsia seed in jars with extremely low maintenance.

Our seeds will grow in small sterile jars, in a gelatinous medium of agar, sugar, and fertilizer, and they shouldn't need any direct care at all besides light for up to perhaps one year. Follow along to try it yourself! 

• Prepare the disinfectant. We need enough sodium hypochlorite (bleach) solution to soak our seeds and materials, and a bit left over to add in a spray bottle. Our disinfectant must be 0.1% sodium hypochlorite solution, so we started with store-bought 6% bleach. We added 2 oz of the 6% bleach into 126 oz (2 oz less than one gallon) of reverse osmosis water to get there. Please don't ask us to show our work, we had to use online calculators and smart friends for this step. Add some of this disinfectant into the spray bottle. 

• Disinfect. Soak the Tillandsia seeds, jars, lids, and any tools/tweezers in the disinfectant while we continue. 

• Prepare the medium. In a deep pot, combine 500ml reverse osmosis water with 7g agar powder, 10g sugar, and 1.5g plant fertilizer. Stir occasionally and heat until boiling. Get ready to pour it into the jars.

• Add the medium to jars. Retrieve the disinfected, empty jars and pour a bit of the medium into each one. Go back and pour a second round to make sure it is evenly distributed.

• Cool the jars. Putting the jars in a freezer to cool will reduce the likelihood of contamination during cooling. Check them in 15 minutes. They are ready to proceed when the medium is a gelatinous solid.

• Disinfect again. Using our spray bottle of disinfectant, spray each jar with disinfectant- swish it around and dump it out.

• Add the seeds. Using tweezers or clean hands, remove the seeds from the disinfectant and distribute 10 to 20 in each jar evenly.

• Close the lids tight. Store the jars somewhere dry in moderate temperature. They can remain in the dark until the seeds have germinated green tissue, in about 1 or 2 weeks.

• Provide light. Once possessing green color, the seedlings will need light to grow, but direct sunlight might be too strong for them.

The seedlings will continue to grow in the medium for up to a year before they will need to be removed. The single biggest risk is contamination by fungus, bacteria, or other pathogens. In our experience, contamination manifests quickly, within a few days of closing the jars. If this happens, fuzzy or abnormal growths will appear, and the best bet is to abort process on such jars.

This process was adapted from an article by Mr. Honda (https://twitter.com/f168l?lang=en), which can be found here:  https://c299m.com/mukin