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Sarracenia Dormancy Skipping


SamuelRodryg

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Hello to you all!!!

 

I would like to know if and why does, skiping dormancy on sarracenias speed their growth since seed to maturity...

This because I saw a guy that had a sarracenia that since seed to maturity, toke about 2,5 years... He said that fed the plants with Maxsea (or something simillar) and skiped dormancy by 2 years...

 

Thanks ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Sam,

The idea is to force the plants to grow all year round instead of going dormant. This requires keeping the plants warm and under lights at all times.

On the Sarracenia Forum, one of the members was able to get from seed to flower in 14 months with a "new" fertilization technique. This is the fastest

on record so far, and I think this was WITH dormancy: http://sarracenia.proboards.com/thread/2980/carolina-atro-months-germination-flower

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Growing under lights and skipping dormancy if fine if you have the space but don't forget the plants need to be hardened off.O.K if you live in a warmer climate.

If you grow in a cold damp climate like the U.K the plants might react badly to it when put in normal growing conditions.

 

Fertilizing some seedlings is an option here,many use Osmocote with decent results.

Some people have started to use maxsea but i haven't seen or heard of the results over here yet.

ada

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Growing under lights and skipping dormancy if fine if you have the space but don't forget the plants need to be hardened off.O.K if you live in a warmer climate.

If you grow in a cold damp climate like the U.K the plants might react badly to it when put in normal growing conditions.

What would happen if you grew them outside in the UK, say in a brightly lit greenhouse? You'd skip the dormancy (assuming you kept the lights on during the winter) and you get your hardening? Would that work?

 

Fertilizing some seedlings is an option here,many use Osmocote with decent results.

Some people have started to use maxsea but i haven't seen or heard of the results over here yet.

Do you know where to get Maxsea in the UK? I just had a quick look, but couldn't find any. All I could find were imports from the US, with very hefty P+P charges.

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You could try one of our seaweed fertilisers as an experiment?

http://www.diy.com/departments/verve-liquid-seaweed-plant-food-1l/943677_BQ.prd

Have you ever used this? Not sure I'm brave enough to experiment on the few plants I have! I'd like to hear form someone who's used the stuff first!

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i grow mine in a brightly lit greenhouse,putting lights in during the winter would only work if you kept it heated too,defeating the object because they

respond to light and heat as a combination.

You can have many very bright winter days for weeks on end sometimes but they don't grow,do they!

 

ada

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i grow mine in a brightly lit greenhouse,putting lights in during the winter would only work if you kept it heated too,defeating the object because they

respond to light and heat as a combination.

You can have many very bright winter days for weeks on end sometimes but they don't grow,do they!

 

ada

Good point!

 

Might try starting some indoors and hardening them off in the summer, see how it goes. All part of the fun eh?

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You could try one of our seaweed fertilisers as an experiment?

http://www.diy.com/departments/verve-liquid-seaweed-plant-food-1l/943677_BQ.prd

Sorry, one more question on using fertiliser. Do you spray the plants with it, water them with it, or put it in the pitchers? Probably a dumb question, but I given that CPs have a neat mechanism for taking in nutrients, I wasn't sure if you were using it, or treating them like ordinary plants.

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The recommended way is to foliar feed, but some people do put the fertiliser in the traps.

 

You were saying about the p&p charges when importing Maxsea ,but when you consider that you get approx 660g and you only need about 1.5g to treat 500ml of water it will last you a long time and you know your plants and sphagnum will love it :)

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The recommended way is to foliar feed, but some people do put the fertiliser in the traps.

OK, thanks.

 

You were saying about the p&p charges when importing Maxsea ,but when you consider that you get approx 660g and you only need about 1.5g to treat 500ml of water it will last you a long time and you know your plants and sphagnum will love it :)

Guess so. I just baulk when I see such a high shipping cost compared to the cost of the item. Shame you can't get the stuff here.

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I haven't used any fertiliser on the sarracenia but the method is to put it in the pitcher tubes with a pipette apparently. So you would only be risking one seedling with whatever you decide to try. The Maxsea stuff is just 16-16-16 fertiliser with seaweed extract, so the B&Q stuff isn't going to be dissimilar. You'd probably get the same result by throwing some mealworms and water in a blender to make an insect soup to be honest!

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I haven't used any fertiliser on the sarracenia but the method is to put it in the pitcher tubes with a pipette apparently. So you would only be risking one seedling with whatever you decide to try. The Maxsea stuff is just 16-16-16 fertiliser with seaweed extract, so the B&Q stuff isn't going to be dissimilar.

OK, I'll give it a go. Can't spend £70 on a tub of fertiliser anyway! £5 is a bit more within my reach!

 

 

You'd probably get the same result by throwing some mealworms and water in a blender to make an insect soup to be honest!

Yum!!  :bad:

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£70  :bad: I got mine from Californian Carnivores and i think it was about £29 with shipping .

Hmm, didn't think of checking with them. Would be $35, which is a lot cheaper, but still a lot. I was looking on Amazon, where there are some very impressive shipping charges!

 

Prolly going to try the B&Q stuff that Alexis suggested.

 

Thanks anyway

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You could try one of our seaweed fertilisers as an experiment?

http://www.diy.com/departments/verve-liquid-seaweed-plant-food-1l/943677_BQ.prd

OK, bought some, what do I do with it? I mean, I know what to do with it, I spray it on the leaves (duh!), I mean what strength do I mix, how often do I spray, and how much do I spray?

 

Prolly dumb questions, but I've only ever sprayed plants with pain water before, and I tend to douse them until they are dripping. Not sure if that's such a good idea with fertiliser.

 

Thanks for any advice you can give.

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No, don't spray! It goes inside the pitchers :-)

Makes sense, they have a great mechanism for absorbing the stuff inside the pitchers!

 

Here's the main thread on the American forum: http://sarracenia.proboards.com/thread/2000/maxsea-maxroids

Wow, that's the most interesting thread I've read sine I last read something more interesting!

 

Seriously, that was a great discussion. Apart from the information about fertiliser pitchers, I didn't know you could spray droseras. I've always been careful when misting my plants not to spray them, as I thought it was bad for them. There were a few comments in that thread about spray fertilising droseras. Definitely going to try that!

 

You are a Guinea pig, so pick a plant you don't mind losing. I'd try diluting the B&Q stuff 50:50 with water first, just to make sure it doesn't burn the pitcher

Sadly, I don't yet have enough plants to do too much experimenting. I've only been at this hobby for a year, and although I've bought quite a few plants, I lost a lot when my growhouse blew down a couple of months ago. Apart from some D. Capensis (mostly gone now), I didn't have many duplicates anyway, so I have to take a risk and experiment on my single specimens of each type.

 

Thanks for the reply. I'll try and keep some sort of record of what happens, and report back.

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