I have continued my experiments with carnivorous plant tissue culture.
I have been struggling with endogenous contamination in the plants. TC is always challenging, and carnivorous plant tissue culture can be especially challenging. It is one thing to be able to produce sterile agar in a jar but another to destroy microbes without destroying plant cells.
I tried a new method by doing the explant sterilization under a vacuum and with detergent. I still used calcium hypochlorite, but I used 3% instead of 4% and extended the sterilization time from 8 to 11 minutes.
The vacuum setup functioned well mechanically. However, many of the explants died, got contaminated, or both, as before. I think I will likely need to change sterilants from calcium hypochlorite to NaDCC. It is more stable and effective, and less toxic.