FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Ok, so long time coming with this post.

THIS PLANT INFURIATES ME.

Drosera Regia. I have successfully killed every single one I have grown from seed. They have had ideal temperatures and humidity in a climate controlled area, ideal food sources (live fruit fly colony with them), and ideal lighting. I have followed every single recommendation that I have been told or researched. Ive tried every fix I could think of. And every single time, the plants make it to the 2 inch mark, and freak out, and die.

I think the issue I am having is with my soil. The last attempt was with a lfs-bark-pearlite-sand-peat mix at a 2:2:1:1:1 ratio. And guess what... FREAK OUT AND DIE.

So, my question to other growers would be what the heck am I doing wrong, is it my soil, and if so, what is your mix that actually works? Thank you!

Side note, I have successfully killed 50+ of these things at this point. Not one single survivor.

I've been told, a Regia will break your heart. And is not for inexperienced growers.

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You are not alone I keep trying to grow D.Regia from seeds and just when I think I have some going...well you know down they go. Anyway this time I am following these directions..
http://telopeanursery.com/articles_en.p ... sera_regia
This article is from the Regia king himself. Good luck.
It seems to me that a nighttime drop in temperature is critically​ important.

hollyhock wrote:You are not alone I keep trying to grow D.Regia from seeds and just when I think I have some going...well you know down they go. Anyway this time I am following these directions..
http://telopeanursery.com/articles_en.p ... sera_regia
This article is from the Regia king himself. Good luck.
It seems to me that a nighttime drop in temperature is critically​ important.

Ive actually emailed back-and-forth with Peter about them. They are his seed stock, and he doesn't really understand why they keep crashing on me as well.

I have one batch of seed left, and I was hoping to pick up a few last tips here before I watch them crash and burn. This will be my last attempt before I start tracking down root clippings.

What are these ideal environmental conditions you keep the plants in? How much light are they getting and under what photoperiod? Any pictures of what they look like before they collapse?

Take this one with a grain of salt, mine are approaching the 2 inch mark but haven't passed it yet.

Media: 80:10:10 Perlite:Peatmoss:Sand in a one gallon std. nursery pot.

Water: Top water each plant individually with 5 - 10 mL cool distilled water, daily (65 deg F: I store water on cool basement floor). Also, maintain 1/4 inch water in bottom of aquarium. (Note: If this heat wave keeps up, I will store some water in the fridge and use that for the regia, Darlingtonia, and N. ventricosa.)

Humidity 46 - 71 %. Pots are inside uncovered 10 gal aquarium.

Temperature: 70 - 81. Tank is on lowest grow rack in cool basement. Currently Milwaukee is hit with hi 80s - low 90s temps. Normally, tank temps are 65 - 75 night - day.

Light: plants are within 6 inches of two 100W equiv LED Daylight colored. Light fixture is similar to DIY $20 Light posted by Hollyhock some months ago. Photoperiod synced with local Sunrise - Sunset times.

Food: Weekly feeding with Freeze dried Bloodworm or ground up dogfood. Since plants were 1/2 inch tall, they get every fungus gnat I catch.

Fertilizer: Once spritz monthly with MaxSea. (1/4 teaspoon per gallon water) Wait an hour or two then spray the plant and pot with distilled water to wash the MaxSea off and avoid fertilizer buildup in the soil.

To sum things up, I treat Drosera regia seedlings like a Highland Cobra Lily. Cooler temperatures hoping for a nighttime drop, and cool running water over their roots.

Good luck to you! This is not my first go-around with this heartbreaker, so I can empathize with your pain. My seeds also came from Petar Kostov, so we're working with the same material.

Good growing,
Mike

Same questions as Neb. I killed my first batch when I cooked them but my second batch in highland conditions are now making 6"+ leaves. I have them in a peat mix and in pure LFSM so media isn't a huge factor. I do let them get fairly dry between waterings. When I started feeding weekly with Maxsea as seedlings they started looking much better.

Just a note on the 1/4 tsp per gallon maxsea dilution:

I find this concentration to have very little effect on growth, at least for someone who feeds their Drosera maybe once a month. I would not worry about it building up in soils if some of the spray touches the media. It may help promote cyanobacteria, but you can combat this by just diligently top-watering.

I wouldn't bother using any less than 1 tsp per gallon of Maxsea, and full strength should be safe too. There just aren't enough nutrients present in the weak solutions to do much for the plant.

nimbulan wrote:I wouldn't bother using any less than 1 tsp per gallon of Maxsea, and full strength should be safe too. There just aren't enough nutrients present in the weak solutions to do much for the plant.

When I'm an experienced regia grower with lots of extra seeds, I'll try growing parallel pots of seedlings, varying only the MaxSea concentration as an experiment. This go-around I'm using MaxSea to fill any nutritional voids left by the bugs, dried bloodworms, and dried dogfood. MaxSea is only a backup plan. I'm too afraid of killing them with over-fertilization.

Good growing,
Mike

Yeah I can't blame you there. I've only raised one plant from seed and I fed it betta pellets, grain moths (seems like I have no shortage of them,) and grain moth larvae. I tend to use Maxsea more for plants that have lots of leaves, or I just have lots of plants, because it's much easier and quicker.

nimbulan wrote:What are these ideal environmental conditions you keep the plants in? How much light are they getting and under what photoperiod? Any pictures of what they look like before they collapse?

Ok, so conditions pre-collapse have been 75 F day, 65 F night, net pots on an ebb and flow tank, 60-70% rH day, 80% rH night, and a 12 hour photoperiod under t8 6500 k bulbs, 10" from lights. Pots are kept from standing water via grating.

Their death either happens from the bottom up, or lower leaf tips down. About 50-50 on which way they die.

You all are scaring me. I'm grow these bad boys in my tropical environment (80+ degrees) with nighttime drop (attempted) of about 5 degrees. I'm thinking of making a peltier cooler if I have to do a round two and these die on me

erikHIplants wrote:You all are scaring me. I'm grow these bad boys in my tropical environment (80+ degrees) with nighttime drop (attempted) of about 5 degrees. I'm thinking of making a peltier cooler if I have to do a round two and these die on me

Don't be afraid, some people get them right on the first time. My suggestion is to not sow many seeds at once, it's taken me 2 attempts before I could get them out of the juvenile stage. One thing I did was scrap some of my dying seedlings and take root cuttings, that worked like a charm.