"Margaret Ramsay Micropropagator ... Fuses gardening with molecular biology to grow rare plants in vitro under sterile, laboratory conditions.
the sterile unit of the micropropagation wing at Kew... jars, neatly stored and labelled... epiphytic orchids. Each one has all it needs in the jar during its stay in intensive care: a carbohydrate source, a range of mineral salts and agar, vitamins, amino acids, growth regulators or plant extracts. ... in 1974 the micropropagation unit was set up to bring on sensitive species specifically for the Kew collection. ... Ramsay and her team will use techniques such as removing dormancy inhibitors and artificially ageing plants in order to speed up germination, until they... grow and prosper. ... Over 30 years the staff have become increasingly focused on saving what Ramsay terms the 'living dead', biomatter (often diseased) or a handful of seeds that represent the very last link to a species on the planet... Fortunately there are many successes, notably the reintroduction into the wild of the Lady's Slipper orchid [name, please!] (which lives at a secret, well-guarded location in Yorkshire)... Rescuing critically endangered species is a race against time and nature, not least because of a rise in extreme weather conditions... a fridge full of test tubes holding seeds of 500 rare orchids. 'If things were to disappear we would need to reassemble and reconstruct habitats. What we're doing here really is just giving ourselves some options for the future.' ... Margaret and her team are currently developing micropropagation kits for schools and home. ... her [and Philip Seaton's] book, Growing Orchids from Seed" article URL : http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,,2050647,00.html ************** Regards, VB _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
