Tip for feeding sundews

[Fero]

Hi all. Just a tip for feeding small sundews by juicy fruit flies, family name Drosophyla.

Now they are everywhere. They like especially old bannanas. You can easily catch them by an exicator. I used baby nasal aspirator which you can buy here for about 1 eur. Afterwards I put it in a freezer for couple of minutes. After this all fruit flies freeze and you can easily feed them by tweezers. Below some pictures of a full exicator, poor frozen flies and my happy burmanii from Dieter.

[ada]

i just place over ripe fruit in a container under the bench and give it a kick every time i walk past.

[corky]

Good idea that , I might try ada's lazy approach and place a ripe banana next to my plants

[Guest paul y]

use a "herb" grinder to grind up a pot of tropical fish food flakes into a fine powder and sprinkle all over any drosera, great for tiny, you can barely see them seedlings as well.

the odd crumb here or there on ping leaves has good results without overfeeding

 

me

[SoLongFairWell]

Or there's Maxsea.

[Guest paul y]

yes there is, be careful using that word rich, it can provoke very strong reactions summon demons and reduce your sarra seedling maturity times by two thirds, and we all know carnies don't need feeding do they? that's why they have evolved all the mechanisms to catch the food they do because they don't need appreciate or benefit from food,

evil stuff that maxsea  a vicar told me its the devils toe jam

paul

[Incursion]

You've both lost me

[Guest paul y]

this should illuminate your way,  there are two trains of thought when feeding carnivorous plants,  on one hand there is the attitude that cps don't need any food, you don't need to feed them, there is no point to feeding them, this attitude is adopted by some people who have never fed their plants and contrary to all evidence insist its not needed, its simply a case of "that's how ive always done it so it must be right" or "it wasn't like that twenty years ago so it must still be right now"

 

on the other hand there is the train of thought that is backed up by a ton of evidence, its so self evident its ridiculous, its being adopted by a lot of people and the worlds leading cp experts all agree its true.

  cps need and benefit from lots of food, the self evident bit of this is this, if cps don't like a lot of nutrients then please explain why they have evolved all the mechanisms they have to catch  food?

  this obviousness has led a fair number of people myself included to start experimenting with different plant foods.  the results ive had and many others has been nothing short of eye opening,

  there are big sarracenia breeders in the us who have reduced the time it takes a seedling to reach flowering maturity by at least two thirds, as in from seedling to flowering plant in two to three seasons instead of five plus years,

I and many others now raise drosera from seed to flowering plant in the same season, a small amount of dilute maxsea will turn a tiny drosera seedling to adut sized plant in weeks/months, osmocote and or maxsea makes cephs grow so fast that two repots in a season is now the norm for me with anything up to 8 new pitchers a plant every six weeks, and spraying with maxsea when you unpot and rip the ceph to pieces for divisions makes the divisions settle in and grow at a silly rate, a small divisions can fill a 10 cm pot within weeks of being divided. (root disturbance doesn't bother cephs either that's just another myth). 

osmocote pellets in the soil for sarracenia vfts, cephs, drosera all has very good results, some of the cp nurseries now sell peat with osmocote in it, packaged and sold as "premium substrate"

orchid food at full strength sprayed all over neps and helis every two weeks with osmocote in pitchers makes neps huge very quickly.

I use food on all my cps, lots of it very regularly, I get amazing results and have yet to encounter a plant that hasn't benefitted from it immensely, I could cite example after example after example.

 

but of course this post will now be followed by a number of posts by people  who completely disagree, and I say this,  show me one iota of evidence that your unfed plants are benefiting from that lack of food and are outperforming the plants that you have fed, or to put it another way,  argue with the FACT that cps benefit from food with facts and evidence that they don't. don't just reply with "I read it in slacks book 20 years ago"  or the worst type of ignorance which is "I haven't fed my plants in twenty years and they all grow fine"  define "fine" show some comparative evidence under set controls that show they don't need food.

 

like I said above, be careful with using the word maxsea, it can illicit very strong reactions, raise demons and have amazing results on all your cps, it must be evil stuff, right up there with Monsanto, westland peat and isis.

 

maxsea isn't available in the uk and as the company that produces it refuses to list its ingredients to uk customs it wont be coming to the uk any time soon, if you want it then you will need to build a working relationship with someone in the us or elsewhere (mine came from Jakarta) and get them to post you a bottle, I suggest finding people on facebook as its a lot more proactive inclusive and international and it will yield results rather quickly, and don't buy large amounts either, 1/4 teaspoon to 3 litres of water is a usual dilution rate and a small bottle will last a long time.

 

paul

[rwharold]

Or there's Maxsea.

Hi Richard,

 

I just purchased a small supply of micro betta bites fish food. I was thinking of using these the feed my Drosera capensis 'narrow red'. Would it be best to rehydrate the micro pellets before feeding or just use them dry?

 

Best regards,

 

Richard

[SoLongFairWell]

Just use them straight out of the container.

[rwharold]

Just use them straight out of the container.

Thanks Richard,

 

What frequency would you recommend? Have a great day!

[SoLongFairWell]

Maybe about three pinches of fish food per week. Just a guess though. Is there anything in Peter D'Amato's book about feeding this way? I think there may be.

[rwharold]

Somewhat. But he wasn't as specific about the frequency as you. Thanks a lot!

[Mark Anderson]

I found this great video on how to feed drosera with fish food pellets,

https://youtu.be/Lu9dtgQZghU

Mark

[rwharold]

Thanks carni grower, Great video! I purchased a small bottle of Zoo Med MICRO Betta Pellet Food. The MICRO pellets are about the size of the point of a ball point pen, so they don' need crushing and liquefying. My Drosera capensis 'narrow red' seems to enjoy them and within a few hours the tips curl around the micro pellet. I also purchased a container of the seaweed based product "Maxsea" that I use to spray a diluted mixture on my supply of living sphagnum moss which seems to keep it growing quite well. I also spoke with Peter D'Amato the author of the new revised book titled "The Savage Garden" and owner of California Carnivores, and he told me that I could also spray a diluted mixture of Maxsea on my D. capensis. I haven't tried this yet because I was wanting to hear from others about their success with this special sea weed based product. My CP collection now consists of 1) Dionaea muscipula 'Ginormous', 2) Drosera capensis 'narrow red', and my newest arrival: 3) Nepenthes x  'Rebecca Soper'. For the N. 'Rebecca Soper', he told me to drop a single pellet of Osmocote into each pitcher after I have added a small amount of distilled water to each pitcher (since they were dry from the shipping process). I am now waiting for my supply to arrive by mail.

 

Any and all comments would be greatly appreciated.