Germinating winter growing drosera seeds

[Dieter]

Dear all,

as I received some questions about the germination of the seeds I offered in the sales and wants section, I decided to post a short description here:

Species without stratification (D. macrantha, D. peltata, D. auriculata): sow in september, keep wet and at natural (shorteningI) daylenght. Seeds will germinate when light period is appropriate, mostly from october to december.

Species needing stratification (most of the others):

Option 1: sow in august, keep hot (and dry if you want) until mid-end september, then treat as listed above for species without pre-treatment.

Option 2 (especially when too late for option 1): pack the seeds in some "tea-bags" (e.g. use filter paper from your coffee machine, do not forget to label the seeds), burn some plant debris (Roridula is great to start a fire). Extinguish the fire with hot water, filter off the larger remains, wait until the water has cooled to 60 °C. The seeds are then put into the 60°C water for 30-60 seconds. Let them dry, sow and treat as described for species without stratification.

I did not try to leave the fire part out. I expect it should work as well, but that remains to be shown.

I am sure there are more options for the stratification (like soaking with GA3) but those are the ones I use and which I find quite easy to use even with larger numbers of seeds/species.

Generally I sow the seeds in small pots and repot the seedlings in larger pots once they appear. That works well for many winter growing drosera species as they initially have just short roots and can be placed on fresh substrate easily. Exceptions for this are all D. menziesii ssp. and D. bicolor. Those produce an about 1 cm long fine root before showing their first leaves. Repotting these still is no problem, if the sowing mix contains lots of sand and just a little peat (at least the top 1cm should contain not too many long fibers which can make repotting a time consuming business). It sounds complicated but it gets routine quickly.

The seedlings are planted in 7 cm deep pots which actually may not be deep enough for some species already in their first season. If I happen to find a pot which a shoot for tuber production which grows out of the pot, I put some substrate into a (larger+)deeper pot, place the pot with the seedlings inside and stabilize with more substrate. I will make a photo to explain that a little better. The idea is to avoid tubers being produced outside the pot as the shoots and tubers may get damaged in that situation easily.

Best regards

Dieter

[James O'Neill]

Mind if I move this to FAQ forum? It's exactly the sort of thing that is needed there

[Dieter]

No, it sounds like a good idea!

Here are a couple of pictures (sorry, but I did not have much time today, so the quality could be better) to explain what I meant above. Picture 1 shows a pot with D. monticola (not grown from seeds but nevertheless producing shoots which grow through the bottom holes of the pot. This also is the size of pots I use to grow seedlings (7 cm square pots, 7 cm deep). To protect the developing tubers I took a larger pot, added some substrate and put the smaller pot inside. To stabilize the smaller pot in the larger one I added some more substrate.

When I carefully lifted the smaller pot the two shoots become visible (they have grown significantly since I "repotted" them). To make these photos I used some larger plants as I did not dare to disturb the seedlings.

Next season the D. monticola will grow directly in the larger pot...

Best regards

Dieter