FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey all, I decided to attempt a water germination experiment of my own in the tropics. I started this experiment on 11/02 going off of Shadowtski's previous water germination experiments. I originally had a batch of multiple species of seed that sat in water for over two months and with absolutely no germination. I determined this failure to be due to the poor quality of overseas seed; technically making this experiment "part II".

Materials
4-inch 13x100mm glass test tubes
Distilled water
Petri dishes
Seeds (species below)

-Shoutout to Smooter80 for some of these species
-Seeds were placed in water according to when they arrived (couldn't resist starting)

Conditions:
T-8 Lighting - 16 hour photoperiod 12 inches from test tubes
Temperature - 79F lows - 84F highs

Procedure:
1. Cleaned all test tubes in boiling water
2. Placed following species in tubes on 11/02:

D. capensis 'giant form'
D. intermedia 'tropical'
D. tokaiensis
D. spatulata 'Lantau Island'


-Species in tubes 11/07:
D. finlaysoniana 'pink flower'
D. filiformis 'Florida red'
D. spatulata 'Fraser Island'
D. capensis 'red leaf'
D. binata 'Waihonu NZ'

3. Placed 5-10 seeds of a species in a test tube
4. Labeled each tube with name and date
5. Added 5mL of distilled water to each test tube
6. Capped and placed under the light over a white sheet of paper
-figured this would help reflect some light back into the tubes and better see the seed
7. Germinated seedlings were pipetted and potted up

Side notes:
-for drosera binata, a petri dish was preferred as they tend to float and stick together on the surface
-I placed a couple of capensis giant seed in a small mason jar an sphagnum to do a comparison
Results (days to germination)
D. capensis 'giant form' - germinated on sphagnum 12 days.
D. intermedia 'tropical' - TBD
D. tokaiensis - TBD
D. spatulata 'Lantau Island' - 5 days
D. finlaysoniana 'pink flower' - 9 days
D. filiformis 'Florida red' - TBD
D. spatulata 'Fraser Island' - TBD
D. capensis 'red leaf' - 11 days
D. binata 'Waihonu NZ' - 10 days

D. natalensis - 6 days
D. aliciae - 9 days

D. longiscapa - 7 days
D. tomentosa 'hairy scape' - 5 days
D. capensis giant from Zimbabwe - 7 days

D. anglica - 12 days

D. riparia - 21 days

+/- 1 day, as these were placed in test tubes at different times of the day when I had free time available

I will update this regularly.

Overall, pretty fast germination in comparison to what I am used to. I will attempt to germinate more species this way as I obtain them.

Interesting! I'll follow this thread. Thanks!

Update - 11/26/16

D. natalensis - 6 days to germination
D. aliciae - 9 days to germination

Thanks to Hollyhock for the seed.

D. finlaysoniana update -12/3
(formerly known as D. indica from ICPS)

Update 12/15

D. burmanii 'humpty doo' - 5 day water germination

Interesting. But everytime I try is algae invades the water

HeliamphoraWalnut wrote:Interesting. But everytime I try is algae invades the water

I boil my test tubes and caps. I have sterile syringes from Amazon and I buy bottled distilled water in hopes that everything remains sterile. I have yet to see algae. I currently have about 15 tubes with seed.

I did however encounter some fuzzy mold at some point in my previous attempts.

At this time I have:

D. Longiscapa, riparia, giant capensis from Zimbabwe, and tomentosa that I have recently started in water germination. I will post the results here.

Update 12/24/16 - water germination time

D. longiscapa - 7 days
D. tomentosa 'hairy scape' - 5 days
D. capensis giant from Zimbabwe - 7 days

All were placed on media today.

New Year's update! 01/02/17

D. anglica 'Alakai swamp' water germination time - 12 days
-shoutout to Hollyhock for the seed

Photos of d. neocalidonica progress and d. finlaysoniana after repot.

Some of the plants are larger than others due to catching their own prey.

Update 01/18/17

D. Riparia water germination - 21 days
Thanks to Benurmanii for the seed.

D. Finlaysoniana from original experiment are now outside and about 3-4 inches tall. Total bug slayers.

Looking good! I tried germinating VFT seeds this year in RO water and the seeds were taken over with a black fuzzy mold. I didn't take many precautions to sterilize and that probably was the cause.

Branmuffin wrote:Looking good! I tried germinating VFT seeds this year in RO water and the seeds were taken over with a black fuzzy mold. I didn't take many precautions to sterilize and that probably was the cause.

I have yet to try VFT seeds in water germination. I think I will get around to it eventually. The mold could have come from the RO or even on the seeds itself. For larger seeds I like to do a H2O2 "dip" or wash. I have no experience with VFTs so I don't know if it would have a beneficial or harmful effect.

I have encountered fuzzy mold in some of my drosera test tubes, they ended up never germinating

This is really interesting, I tried a few methods of cold stratifying this year to see what I liked best and when I tried to move the drosera seeds off the paper towel I couldn't really get them to move. Probably a combo of the paper towel swelling with the water and the tiny seeds getting kinda sucked in. I left the paper towel in a bag and left it under the light next to the rest of the potted seeds and I had a really good number of them begin to grow. Once they were big enough to see well I moved them by touching them with one side of the tweezers and they stuck. I might try it again, it was nice because I was able to see the growth really well against the white paper towel.

UnbracingCube wrote:This is really interesting, I tried a few methods of cold stratifying this year to see what I liked best and when I tried to move the drosera seeds off the paper towel I couldn't really get them to move. Probably a combo of the paper towel swelling with the water and the tiny seeds getting kinda sucked in. I left the paper towel in a bag and left it under the light next to the rest of the potted seeds and I had a really good number of them begin to grow. Once they were big enough to see well I moved them by touching them with one side of the tweezers and they stuck. I might try it again, it was nice because I was able to see the growth really well against the white paper towel.

I have yet to try stratifying in a tube of water. But then again I don't grow temperate drosera because I can't provide much of a dormancy without a lot of work. The nice thing is that the concave of glass tubes really magnify the growth making even Pygmy drosera seeds easy to see in water.