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FourAssedMonkey
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Update: The beans are home and have been divided into 6 groups as there were three containers of them. total count is 1,471. They are no sorted into two groups per original container. Seeds that look viable and seeds that are a bit lighter than I would like. Now that doesn't mean they are no good, it just lowers the probability. The total seeds that have basically normal coloration is 1,043. I have begun the process of attempting to sprout these buggers and surprisingly, at 34 years old, we've gotten some results. First I washed 20 of them in a 30% H²O² solution. I then made a 5% solution of H²O² with sterilized water and soaked them overnight. After that, I put them in a sterile microfiber cloth that was saturated with a 3% solution that also had plant catalyst and superthrive in it as well. I then put them in a device that is kind of like an incubator that I made from a small, cheapo chest freezer. After 7 days, surprisingly, two sprouted. They are slow going, but going none the less. I gave the others another three days with two more trying to go but damped off. Next, I pureed some bio-char in sterile water and cut it by 25:1 with more sterile water. I used the bio-char solution to make a batch of agar and put it into 60mm x 15mm petri dishes. I then put the petri dishes under an agromax pure UV lamp that is mounted in my flow hood. The next step was to soak the 'duds' in the 30% H²O² solution again and hope for the testa to soften up enough for me to do what I needed to do. I removed the petri dishes from the flow hood, killed the UV and went to work, in the flow hood, on the 'dud' seeds. I carefully removed the embryos from each testa as best as I could. I lost four more trying to get them out but I have plenty so it's no sweat off my balls. I then placed each embryo in its own petri dish and put them in the incubator. I set the temp to 80°F and the humidity to 90%. After 5 days in the incubator, of the 14 remaining beans, I had 10 taproots. I have since transferred them into macroplugs and am feeding them clonex solution at 5ml per gallon. One of the two originals damped off and 3 of the lab rats have as well. I put them all 3/4" below the top of the macroplugs and they took about 4 days to pop out and open up their cotyledons. They are now a week since sprouting out of the plugs and look great. I don't foresee any more issues but only time can really tell. I'm just going to let nature do its thing for this first batch by keeping them in a single AO. I'll sex them and leave the healthiest male in with the females. I will need to take cuttings from each of the females to run in a separate AO for sampling purposes, and of course, to maybe have a decent mother, as is protocol when I start this kind of work. From the samples, I'll decide from there whether they need to be worked or if they can just be backcrossed to revive the genetic. Meanwhile, the seeds harvested from the first backcross will have a portion ran and begin the process all over again.
