You can purchase your tissue culture media or make your own. The directions for getting it ready to use are about the same. Plain media will produce good results most of the time for sundews and flytraps. If you want to use actual tissue culture media get MS w/micro & macro nutrients and vitamins. If you are extremely careful you will succeed sometimes without PPM but for success more often than not your going to need it. There is a link to a tissue culture supply store on the links page.

Now were ready to make up some home made media.
In the quart jar add 4 cups bottled sodium free water.
Drop in the multi-vitamin pill. Wait a couple minutes. Gently swirl the water around and remove the remainder of the pill.
Add the 1/2 teaspoon of the 20-20-20
Add 2 tablespoons sugar
Add the PPM if you have it
Cap tightly and mix well.

Now check the PH. It needs to be 5.5 - 5.8, 5.65 is best. Add vinegar to lower it and baking soda to raise it. 99% of you will need vinegar, probably almost 3 ml. But add it slow until you know about what its going to take. Once you have the PH set dispense 3 tablespoons of media into each baby food jar your going use. Add a smidgen measuring spoon of agar to each baby food jar.

You can substitute agar for gelatin or cotton balls if need be. Its only purpose is to keep the cuttings from floating in the media, we want to give it something semi-solid to root in. I think double the amount for gelatin but I am not sure. If you try gelatin use the sugar free kind, and let me know what measurements work well. Cap each baby food jar with an autoclave lid. Skip down to sterilize the media

To make true tissue culture media you need to make MS media. MS stands for Murashige and Skoog, named after the fellas that put it together. Order the MS with macro/micro nutrients and vitamins. I like getting mine sucrose free so I have control of how much sucrose it gets. Make as above but use 1/2 teaspoon of MS media instead of Peters and leave out the vitamin pill. If you get it with sucrose don't add the sugar. This is the media you should use for harder to culture tissue and if you are using growth regulators such as BAP to produce lots of plants. Adjust PH and dispense into babyfood jars, add agar and cap as above.

After you read all of the How To section take a look in the tissue culture section under the species you are planning to work with. There you will find media recipes tweeked for each species if needed along with plant specific sterilization techniques. I strongly recommend getting Carols tissue culture kit. It will only cost slightly more than ordering/collecting everything on your own. And you get an awesome manual that will prove priceless, not to mention you will have an expert to assist you should the need arise. With the kit all you need are the household items, work area and jars.

Carnivorous plants generally need 30 - 50% MS. It is packaged by how many liters of media it normally makes. A 1 Liter pouch makes 1 liter, 5 liter makes 5 liters and so on. But since we use 50% MS at most we get twice as much media for the price. So a 1 liter pouch makes 2 liters of carnivorous plant media. I wouldn't get it in pouches larger than 5 liters. That is a lot of media and you will need to store it in the fridge in a manor that ensures no moisture can get to it. A liter is a little more than a quart, almost a cup more. Thats ok, just use the measurements given here or on the TC by species pages.

We use the food coloring so we know the type of media by just looking at it. We use blue for BAP, yellow for 2iP, etc. Make up a color chart to suit your needs and stick with it.

Now you need to sterilize the media. Put the baby food jars on a smooth dinner plate. It is best to do 6 - 8 at a time. Place them in the microwave. Cover with the Pyrex pan turned upside down to hold the lids on when the media boils. You need for the media to boil for 1 minute, a slight boil is fine. You may need to hit the on off button a few times to cycle it. Just keep it boiling for the minute, not longer, without boiling it out. 50% -75% power usually works best. Let it cool some in the microwave when your done. Do not pick up hot bottles by the autoclave cap because they easily come off until cooled.

After it has cooled some take the Pyrex pan off. Raise it slowly to make sure the caps are not still under pressure, if they are they can blow off. I put the plate and all in the sterile box to finish cooling. Cover the opening to your box if you can while everything cools. If you can't cover it then its best to not have anyone in the room during this time. Keep all the vents closed and prevent any air movement in the room. If you have a lid just use it and the room can go back to normal.

Don't make your media until you have everything required, including everything on the supplies page. Make your media, sterile water, bleach and anything else you need at about the same time. It is best to use everything the day you make it, sometimes that is not possible though. Using it within 24 hours is best. You will have sterilization problems if you wait longer.

Now you should have your sterile area put together with all the supplies you need. You've made the media, now you are almost ready to collect the tissue. We have a couple more things to get ready though, click the "Pre-TC Prep" link above to continue on.