FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I've sown around 160 VFT seeds in the last 3 weeks, and many of the first group have already started to germinate. I'm now noticing several greyish spots on my medium (mold), and am wondering what my options are for getting rid of it. I'm told that fungicide is out, as it is a weak herbicide, and would likely kill any seedlings. Last night, I decided to experiment in one of my 6 cell trays with Hydrogen Peroxide. I suppose I'll see what happens, but I'd really like to hear from others that have had to deal with this.

In my setup, I'm using standard 10 X 20 greenhouse trays w/ seed starting cells (72), and a seed heating pad under the trays. Bottom watering with distilled water, 50/50 peat/perlite medium, 3 seeds per cell, 4 6500k T8's at 5" above the trays. I had a dome for a bit, propped up at both ends with orchid stakes (around the diameter of a pencil) laying across the trays, and the dome on top of those, which left about a 1/4" air gap all around. I decided that keeping the surface of the medium moist wasn't going to be that difficult, and have since (about a week ago) ditched the dome. There is a fan blowing a constant, slow, breeze over the trays.

Scraping off the mold would be difficult, as seeing the seeds is darn near impossible for me, unless they've already sprouted. Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Jeff

Spraying with a diluted hydrogen peroxide solution should work. I've used it before when I first started and had mold and algae. It worked great!

I heard that cinnamon powder also works

H2O2 can work I suppose, but not very well for me. If you apply it at regular concentration (3%) it is enough to make algae fizz. However, it does not kill all the algae or get rid of any of it without repeated applications. In the mean time, it was strong enough to burn back some of my sundews which lost all their leaves shortly afterward. They grew back. Most people use a lower strength but that would make it even more ineffective. Mold is probably less hard to deal with physically than algal slime and possibly more sensitive to the peroxide so you may have better luck.

Generally I find you can leave them alone, if your plants are healthy and strong the mold won't bother them. Not all molds are harmful or dangerous to the plants anyway. A lot of the molds just eat dead plant matter and peat. If it's growing on the soil it probably won't grow on the plant and will stay on the soil. I usually try to leave stuff like that alone unless it appears to be harming the plants.

You can use fungicides, just not any of the (more powerful) copper based ones. Micronized sulfur powder is safe for use on CP's and is a mild fungicide. Maybe some other fungicides too. A light spot application of tea tree oil or neem (tree) oil with a q-tip would be safe, it may work on the mold.

Washing the media thoroughly before use gets rid of most of the slime and mold and wierd mosses and it takes a long while for it to recolonize the media again although it eventually does. Unfortunately CP seeds also are notorious for taking a long while to germinate and grow too. This is one of the reasons I prefer water germination of seeds. I prepare washed media only after the seeds have germinated to give them a head start establishing before the mold and gunk comes back. Germinating on the media gives the gunk several weeks to re-establish before the seeds even sprout, and it is the tiny sprouts (not really adult plants) that are somewhat vulnerable to the gunk.

The best simplest cure is probably just transplanting them to new (washed) media as opposed to trying to treat the dirty media. But like you said that will have to be after sprouting, once you put these seeds on media you will never find them again unless they grow leaves. You can try CP safe fungicides like sulfur, but your best bet is probably to leave them be and let nature take it's course and hope some of them germinate fine in the mold and grow leaves so you can find them to transplant. If they are healthy seeds I'd say the odds are in favor of the seeds being fine and not hurt by the mold.

Thanks to all of you.

mwatson1, So far so good. My test cells look like they've cleaned up nicely with the H2O2. I even sprayed a cell containing a germinated seed just to see whether or not it would harm them. So far, I still see 2 tiny green leaves.

Hi Orios, Thanks, I've heard that too. However, most "cinnamon" you purchase in stores isn't real cinnamon, and I've heard some say that the phony stuff doesn't have the same anti-fungal properties. I don't know, but if it comes down to it, I'll probably give it a shot anyway.

entropy81, I'm leaning the same direction as you. There are a few cells containing sprouts, and they are surrounded by this very light mold, and dont' seem bothered. Perhaps this mold is benign, and just feasting on dead material. I used 3% right out of the bottle, didn't bother diluting it, as 3% seems pretty well diluted already. I have heard that 10% will kill plants, so figured 3 was plenty to kill mold. If a light misting of H2O2 doesn't prove effective (It has for a day now), I'll try a little cinnamon in a test cell, and if that doesn't work, I'll just let nature take it's course, as they say.

I have 42 sprouting babies so far, If they make it past the critical stage, whatever that is, I'll be thrilled as this is my first shot at growing from seed.

Jeff

If you read about tissue culture. You know no matter how clean your medium is in the open, mold will still appear if the conditions are good for them. Keep your cell in a good ventilation area. That's usually the cause.

Thank you Tish. I did a lot of research before starting my seeds, and have a nice large fan blowing throughout the room. I can easily feel air flow over the seed trays, and am more worried about the surface drying too much than I am about lacking air movement. So far, so good, though.