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Hi all, A VFT that I like, to follow ...

Hello Everyone I have been reading various forums and watching you tube videos with regard to Venus flytrap care/dormancy and maybe I have overlooked into this but now I have absolutely no idea what the best thing is to do with my Venus flytrap over winter in the UK (Manchester) I was wondering if I could get some advice for my situation here, I really have tried to find all this out myself, apologies if this is such an over asked question! I got my flytrap around 2 months ago, it’s happily sitting on the window sill of my terraced house in a large bay window, I use only rainwater, keep it damp and have fed it the odd insect here and there, it seems to look lovely and healthy and has a couple of new traps growing and a couple that are going black. I think I’m doing good with it so far. I’m expecting that it will be going into dormancy anytime soon (maybe that’s started already) and that it needs to do this to survive in the long run. · I have read somewhere that in certain plant hardiness zones you don’t need to do anything apart from water less in winter….is this the case in the uk? · I have no garage, basement, shed or greenhouse to move the plant to for its dormancy where it can stay cool enough, I will have a shed with a window eventually but not til l next year. · I have a utility room with a window that I could keep unheated in winter, but that room also has my boiler and tumble dryer in there so could get a little toasty, is this a problem? · Is the best option to move it outside into the back yard in some sort of propagator to protect it, maybe using some mulch or sphagnum moss if the weather gets bad? I’d really appreciate some guidance, I ended up with this plant kind of by accident but have grown to love it and really want to try my best to keep it alive.

Cup trap. Sl seedling. Schuppentiel 1. Funnel trap. S. leucophylla "Red Veines/White Top MK L 15", Citronelle AL Best regards.

Excellent article: http://www.rdmag.com/news/2017/04/how-venus-flytraps-trigger-digestion Tom

I have a love of science and as a result have been testing multiple methods of leaf pullings on Dionaea for some time now, this is a log of my testing method, results and conclusions. Introduction: I'm a student so cutting costs is one of my top priorities when taking cuttings, as a result all of my experiment was preformed using items that can be found in the common household(excluding a full spectrum CFL and a VFT:-P) as a result no chemical additives were used eg. Rooting hormones, anti-fungal powders .etc. All experiments were preformed over a three month period During said period progress was recorded at 1 month intervals Each factor/method was preformed with three leaves Once the traps turned fully black (in all methods) they were removed to prevent fungal growth Taking pullings: Pullings were taken early February from a plant which was bought fresh fresh out of dormancy Pullings were taken by un-potting the VFT and "pulling" downwards on the leaves so a section of the rhizome came away each time All pullings were taken from the same two plants All chosen leaves were of the same size and health Procedure: Method 1: Pullings placed on Peat Moss The leaf Pullings were placed in dents on the surface of a pot of boiled peat moss(dent used to make the most possible surface area of the underside of the leaves be in contact with the peat moss, boiled in an attempt to kill off fungus spores and bacteria) The pots were placed in a tray of Rainwater approximately 30cm away from a CFL Each pot was covered in cling film Method 2: Pullings placed in Long fibre Sphagnum (LFS) The leaf Pullings were placed in on the surface of the boiled LFS with as much of the underside of the leaves in contact with the LFS as possible The pots were placed in a tray of Rainwater approximately 30cm away from a CFL Each pot was covered in cling film Method 3: Pullings placed submerged in Rainwater The leaf pullings were placed in glasses of boiled(then cooled) rainwater (boiled in this case in an attempt to kill bacteria and algal spores) The glasses were placed approximately 30cm away from a CFL Each glass was covered with cling film Results: Method 1: Pullings placed on Peat Moss This method resulted in the shortest amount of time before fungal growth was seen(at the 1 month interval) No successful strikes were seen before all pots were consumed by fungus(possibly due to cling film causing stagnant air which sped up spore germination) Method abandoned at 2 month mark when all leaves were noted to be dead Not a method I've had "lots" of success with in the past as well Method 2: Pullings placed in Long fibre Sphagnum (LFS) Method shows promise as 2/3 had strikes Fungal growth occurred only after 2 month mark Between month 2 and 3 two leaves were killed by fungus(one with a strike and one without) By the end of month 3 the remaining leaf had formed a plantlet Method 3: Pullings placed submerged in Rainwater By far most successful No maintenance required (ie. no topping up water) apart from removing dead traps %100 strike rate No fungus seen(due to submersion) Small amount of algae seen during month 1 but it was left alone Conclusion: After preforming all three variations of leaf pulling I found the most successful to be the technique of placing pullings in rainwater. The LFS strike that did survive had grown larger then all of the plantlets from the Submerged method, but a conclusion on size of plantlet can not be drawn as this could be an isolated case. From my own opinion the submersion method is also the easiest, no potting or watering, just stick it in a glass of boiled and cooled rainwater(not to mention it's the cheapest) Method of acclimatising Submerged plants to emmersed(yes it's a real word) state After plantlet has reached approx 1cm in diameter remove it from the glass and place it on LFS or peat (very wet) in a pot with cling film over the top Over the course of a 2-3 weeks pop holes in the cling film At the end of the three weeks you have air-hardy little plantlets After Notes: Two weeks on from the end of the experiment all 4 of the successful strikes have formed plantlets with small traps, the ones from the submersion technique seemed to take a week off of growing to acclimatise. I would like to see how long one on the plantlets could be left in water before being acclimatised as growth was much faster pre acclimatisation, buts that's a whole other experiment for a different time. I hope my long rambling report can help someone in some way eventually. - Niall FM

Hi all, I've been keeping Carnivorous Plants since Dec 2012. Till today, April 2014, I have a handful of them. I particular love Dionaea Muscipula. I do have some Drosera and Cephalotus. I always love plants that are small and clump together. I chose small and packed plants secondly because of my very limited space in a small 90 meter² floor space home. As I started my very first plant from seed, a Dionaea Muscipula. I shall share the video of my very first plant germination and continue to grow for total approxmately 80 days, made into a short clip. Please enjoy, choose full HD 1080 and watch in full screen for best experience. :)

Hello all who stumble across this. . . . . .. I originally read an interesting post by NialFM and rather than fill that with nonsense I thought it best to start this blog and link it from there Producing plantlets of VFT and drosera via water immersion technique http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=55419 So, what's going on here? - After reading the above experiment I decided to have a pop myself. I have the time and patience so why not?

A little question, as you can see from the image below my little Dionaea has his first open trap and is eagerly awaiting something to blunder in. Should I feed this first leaf or just wait it out. I don't want my little snapper to go hungry but I also don't want to kill it with kindness.

Well I took the plunge and moved on to Dionaea from my little Drosera and have got them to germinate. I'm looking forward to getting them from this to seed and grow some from my own crop. Here is a little pic of how they are doing so far. First true leaf.

Hi There, a few years ago the owner of Joel's Carnivorous Plants led me to try out nutrients on some of my Dionaea Muscipula specimens. After trying out what he recommended to me, I decided to try other products. I ran across something called KLN, which contains IBA. I created a mixture of this and other nutrients(not really homogenous at all), and tested it out on some plants. After some weeks, I discovered how we can make the roots of Dionaea branch. I later shared this information with Joel Garner, and he too conducted the experiment himself. The vertical roots of Dionaea put us at a disadvantage because they are more prone to dry out since they use only a minimal amount of medium to extract water from. If they were to branch out a little bit more, they would use more water and stay hydrated longer, like most trees. Using what I've been calling the BMC Method, I believe that this can help plants stay more hydrated. In the pictures(courtesy of Joel Garner), you will notice that the tips of the roots start to callous and branch out a bit. I will be conducting more experiments with the KLN on other CP's soon. I just thought that I should write this because I know a couple other people are aware of this experiment, so this will let people know who discovered this.

Hello everyone,these pics are update of my last vfts' experiments(the former report are onhttp://www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=48193).Hope you enjoy them! dioneae muspicula ellis,growing in tap wasser culturing medium without hormons: plantlets are too green for lacking of light but I'm sure they will get yellow-green soon under my newly purchased lamps,which are more powerful. they are growing too crowed and needs seperating There are some plants flowering in the jar,and cansequently I self pollinated them looking foward to harvest bacterium free seeds. self pollination: these are plantslets domesticating,young plants are put on Quatz sand in combination of a little moss.In purpose of forceing plants adapt to High salt environment,The Wasser used are also tap wasser,mineral contained.My Ultimate goal is to grow this salt sensitive plant in my local without artificial intervention,and this will be disscussed in my next experiment. leaf pulling,growes very slowly. These are soil forming rocks in my location.Soil they generated are well known "purple soil",which lacks nitrogen and some other nutrinents ,maily distributed in municipal chong qing or some area of sichuan provence.In my area these rocks and soil they formed are abundant so I'm trying to use this as growing medium of vfts,anticipating a nice result! In addition,these rocks will not generate CO2 when met with hydrocloric acid, implying they contians little CaCO3. rocks(identical purple rock) plants transplanted in the purple soil.I will report results(die or alive) after 2-3months later. very sorry for the poor img quality!

This year my vfts have been living on a sunny windowsill in my house which was less than ideal, but i have finally gotten hold of a greenhouse. average temperature in the house has been about 18-20C day and 16-18C night. However in the greenhouse, night time temps will be about 10c (50f). Will i need to acclimatize the plants or could i just transfer them straight in?. I have asked in another forum but only received one response so wanted to double check.

Here is a picture of my newly aquired redline, its growing perfectly healthy although it is quite "curly" leading me to wonder if it is truly a redline or not. Is this a normal trait for them, I'm not too knowledgeable on VFT's yet. Like i say its growing well and looks nice to me and was definitly worth the 6 quid i paid for it but i still have my doubts.

Hi all, Can anyone tell me the best time to start pricking out my VFT seedlings, as this is the first time I've grown any from seed and I'm a bit worried about disturbing them, by either doing it too soon or too late. At the moment they are just starting to unfurl their first true leaves and are still tiny. Would this be a good time to prick out and pot them on, or should I wait a while? Any advice would be appreciated. Best regards, Ian.

Halo,everyone,I've been trying to carry out tissue culture of venus fly trap and recently I'm enjoying some progress. I'd like to post some pics to share with you. sorry for the poor img quality as I'm not a good photographier with a not so professional device,I also optimised these pics' hoffman code. .petiole with traps cut off: this is the traps: And,callus+adventitious buds: Then,I get some young plants: The flower stalk was cut off and placed on the medium for buds induction: see also,young plants in the "subculturing medium"to multiply themselves: Some books have said that VFTs could not live in High salt evironment however,to my surprise,these following pics demonstrate my VFTs can,at least in vitro,wheather a ralatively high salt concentration.Notice that the culturing midium is FULL STRENCE MS with ordinary wasser(not distilled or reverse osmoisis wasser at all).Actually,they grew slowly in such a medium but did not dead however. My next step is to widely induce callus and offer them high salt concentration in order to get a "salt resisting mutant"if I'm lucky enough. Any suggestions are welcomed!

Hi everyone, I seperated my VFT today and took a few photo's. This is the plant seperated , One of the new divisions, with a few older roots and a new one at the base of the rhizome, And the Mother and daughters potted up and settling in. This is my first attempt at dividing a plant and I've already been asked by friends for clones, so I hope they do well. Regards, Ian.

Hi all, I just uploaded these pics of one of my VFT when it was flowering a couple of months ago. Thought I'd share.