Brian, There are several books on tissue culture that give more details on zygotic embryo culture than the In Vitro Plant Breeding book that I referenced. I mentioned it first because it is introductory, and I happen to have a copy of it. I think "zygotic embryo culture" is the technical term for the subject of your inquiry. Many of the books in this subject area are relatively expensive, so you will benefit from learning to use Amazon's Search Inside! feature. You can find more detail in the book, Introduction to Plant Tissue Culture by M. K. Razdan, in Chapter 11 (beginning on page 128) titled "Zygotic Embryo Culture". Apparently you can't link directly to specific pages within a book. At least, I don't know how to do it. But this link, Search Inside! Introduction to Plant Tissue Culture should get you inside where you can enter the search string "129" in the Search box and press the red Go button to get a list of hits for that string. At the top of the list is hit 1. "on page 129" and clicking on that will link you to page 129, which is the second page in Chapter 11. Just use the left arrow in the margin of page 129 to go to the beginning of Chapter 11 on what would be page 128 if it had a page number, which it doesn't. At $49.50, that book is fairly affordable, but it is temporarily out of stock at Amazon. Another good book, Plant Tissue Culture: Theory and Practice by Bhojwani and Razdan costs $370, so there is motivation to use Amazon's Read Inside on it. Once you get into the Read Inside your target is Chapter 11, titled Zygotic Embryo Culture, beginning on page 297. Entering "297" in the Search box is the quickest way to find a link to that page, because it does have a page number. There are a bunch of good books on tissue culture, and tissue culture techniques can be used to culture embryos that otherwise wouldn't develop into viable seeds. That makes it possible to grow interspecific and even intergeneric hybrids that wouldn't grow without using zygotic embryo culture techniques. You might be interested in the Kitchen Culture Kits, Inc. website. Dr. Carol M. Stiff is the proprietor, and she might be able to put together a kit specifically adapted to your zygotic embryo culture needs. MM

Actually, all you need to do for a lemon tree is plant it in loose soil, water the soil lightly, and stick it in a ziplock bag. See this thread: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/trees/msg111341588777.html That lemon tree is mine. I grew from seed. All I did was (STEP BY STEP leaving out absolutely NO information) 1) I grabbed the seed from a lemonade drink made from a lemon bought from a lemonade stand, this past summer 2) put the seeds in a cup of water. All of them sank(sadly, I have no clue where they are now) 3) Placed them in a container somewhere (except for 6) 4) took that plastic cup and cut some holes in the bottom 5) put soil (which turned out to be harder than rock when watered) inside the cup 6) stuck the seed in the cup 7) watered the soil lightly 8) stuck the seed in a plastic ziplock baggy 9) put it on the counter 9) Forgot it was even there About 2 weeks later, I said "OH CRAP! AM I TOO LATE? IS IT DEAD? I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT ABOUT IT!!! OH MY GOSH, PLEASE DON'T BE DEAD! PLEASE DON'T BE DEAD!!!" After panicking and looking for about 20 minutes, I finally found it buried under a lot of crap. I looked into the bag and I'm thinking, "Awwwwww!!!! It's so cute!!!" There was a little lemon tree with it's first two leaves sprouting. After I saw that, I stuck it in the windowsill where it's currently working on it's 5th leaf while finishing up it's 4th. It's the most beautiful thing ever. I would've increased the germination rate though to all six seeds instead of 1 of 6 if I had followed the directions provided online though(nick the seed coat and all that other stuff). But really, just planting the seed and forgetting about it for about 1-2 weeks seemed to work fine. I probably just got lucky though.

I dont remember it being very specific on how far to allow true leaves to develop before potting up but I will reread it. Not really a specific time. It depends in great part on how you germinate the seeds - cell packs, yogurt cups, plug trays, etc. For example if you germinated 20-25 seeds in one yogurt cup or 4-5 in one Jiffy pellet as many do then you would likely need to transplant them before any true leaves developed. You want them separated before the roots get too badly tangled. If you only do 1 seed in each cell in a cell pack then they can wait until they are about the size in the "Potting up" photo on the FAQ I linked - the true leaves are still pretty small. Ultimately it boils down to transplanting them as soon as you are comfortable working with them IMO. I transplant all mine before any true leaf development. But I do staged transplanting - from bulk seeded trays to 6 packs to 4" pots. Dave

Question 1 - I was really blown away by how deep and big the taproot is growing on these trees. It's like most of the energy is going to create this big root. It's thicker than the trunks in every case, and the roots are easily twice to sometimes 3x as long as the seedling itself. So on on of them, I cut back the taproot a little bit... I took about a half an inch. I had read Al mentioning that slowly cutting back a taproot over time can help spur the tree to grow more roots higher up. I hope I didn't take it out of context. The first day the lowest leaf of that seedling, which has started to go brown on the rim, became pale and collapsed on one side of the leaf. Then yesterday it went dry. Today there has been no further progress of the leaf's collapse and no further signs of stress. The seedling seems strong... Was I wrong to try and trim it back just a little bit? Or did I do alright? Is this seedling out of the woods for now do you think? Young plants are nearly all dynamic mass, and as such, have a very strong "will to live". If your plant is currently doing well, there is no reason it will take a turn unless something cultural forces a change in course. Bonsai practitioners have learned that lifting seedlings as soon as the first set of true leaves emerge and removing the seed radicle immediately below the root to shoot transition zone and treating the top as a cutting eliminated taproot issues entirely in most plants. In stubborn plants with a hard tendency toward vertical roots, you'll need to regularly remove all first order roots (attached to main stem) growing downward from the root to shoot transition zone as well as all second order roots growing up or down off the first order roots. Question 2 - related to question 1, regarding the other seedling I root pruned a little. This one I took a little more off of because of root rot. I know I had to take it off, and I also took off a bit of taproot for this one too. The seedling itself seems fine. The uppermost leaf - which is fairly new and thin yet - went limp the first day, but has become stronger and greener these last two days. I know I had to take off the bad roots, but I was worried I went too far. I'm hoping I'm seeing indications that I didn't? Only way to tell is by putting a waiting period behind you during which the plant retains its turgidity throughout the daylight hours. Stomata close at night and slow water loss, so unhealthy plants have opportunity to recover from low internal water pressure and wilting. No wilt during the day is a good indication to bet on full recovery. Question 3 - When I was done, I investigated the 5 'dead' seedlings. Two of them looked like some of Al's bare-root pictures. The main part of the taproot was healthy, seemed alive, and had small alive roots still growing from it. but the end of the root was truncated in mush, much of which fell off into the soil. I washed them as clean as I could in a mist spray and cut off the mushy end to clean root. Then I potted those in 5:1:1 too. I'm hoping against hope that I might be able to save them. The top id dead back to the twiggy stump... Any thoughts if they might come back? Anything special I might do for them to give them the best shot - for instance a special fertilizer or watering strategy? Withhold fertilizer until the plant recovers. DAMP or MOIST are the operative words. If the fungal infection has gummed up the plumbing such that a vascular connection between roots and shoots isn't in the offing, it's a goner. If the infection isn't systemic, the possibility of retaining viability is still on the table. What kills cuttings is the inability to make that plumbing connection due to rot, or the cutting having an inadequate energy reserve. If the plant/cutting/seedling runs out of reserve energy while it still a net user of energy instead of a net producer of energy, it's over. 4: I have 5 I have not yet repotted. They seem to be okay... though 3 aren't doing much of anything, they're just existing and may have some first sign of browning on lowest leaves, but I might be looking too hard too... One is finishing it's fall flush of leaves, and one is start starting it's fall flush... I'm not sure if I should repot them so close to winter or if I should let them be until spring, since they seem okay right now. I especially am not sure I should mess with the one putting out new leaves. But on the other hand, what if I really am seeing some warning signs and some suddenly start taking a down turn in the next week or month? Wouldn't it be better to do it early, now, rather than later? The only reason I re-potted the ones I did was because I was sure they wouldn't make it through winter... I am not sure on these ones. If they were your plants, what would you do? A dearth of mobile nutrients, over-watering, root congestion, soil compaction, can all lead to loss of lower leaves. I'll ask you to spare me from having to do the research by telling me if these plants would normally enter a predictive dormancy during the fall to winter transition? If yes, then waiot until spring but guard against over-watering. If no, repot only if you suspect strongly that the plants will no longer be viable come late spring (June). 5: Fungus gnats. =( I manage to get rid of them for a while, but they always come back. Of course, I was always using compost mixes, particularly organic ones, and they're usually lousy with them no matter how much a brand claims they pasteurize/sterilize for pests. Do non-mineral soil media mixes have the same ability to attract and support these and other soil-borne pests? If yes, which ones to watch for? If you don't already have a good understanding of what constitutes the comparative degrees of container media (as in unusable, practically unusable, just plain poor, ok, better, and the variations of better from 'sort of better' to 'really a whole lot better'), making that a priority will almost certainly propel your advancement farther/faster than anything else you might apply yourself to in the near term. If you need the info that can tie soils up into a neat little conceptualization, I'll be really glad to help, but I think trying to do it in a thread that covers so many topics isn't the best format. Are you familiar with and understand the concept discussed here? Which brings my follow-up: If it can support pests that spent part or all of their life cycle in soil, then it should be able to support their predators too, right? I prefer to combat pests with their predators, like nematodes, predatory mites, aphid lions, etc. Would this be doable if needed? How about we work toward providing a home for roots that doesn't provide creature comforts? In the immediate, mosquito dunks and a restrained hand on the watering can are potential remedies. 6: For the future of these little babies of mine, what would a good strategy be for keeping them happy growing in a container? You'll find an outline here that will provide a plan for maintaining woody material in containers and in good health indefinitely. I know I need to keep them smaller than if they were in the landscape, and that means eventually removing the taproot. I also understand that taproot removal usually starts after a year. But these trees don't actually seem to have much besides taproot... smaller roots branch off of it, and a few have some smaller roots that come from the trunk matrix but not most from what I've seen. Would the best bet be to gradually prune the tap root back over a few years in an attempt to get the trees to put out more roots higher up? Or should I go for broke and just cut it way back and defoliate? Or is it possible that the poor media I have been growing in so far as not encouraged growth at the higher and mid root range and drove the roots downwards looking for air? I'm sorry I haven't taken any pictures to share to give you a better idea. If I end up re-potting any of the others, I will take some. I think I covered these questions above, but if not, ask again. Al