FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi all, I've got my first batch of "mixed VFT" seeds from ebay and has started 3 of them in water. Previously in another thread here. I intend to start this thread to take down the growth of my VFT. I have also bought 2 more packet of VFT seeds from "Royal Red" and "Saw Tooth UK #1" cultivars hoping they will grow up with similar traits to their parent.

Here at the photos from my previous Thread:

VFT Seeds bought from Ebay advertise as "Mixed VFT Seeds"


They are really small using a ruler to measure, approx 1mm


Randomly picked 3 seeds intended to sow


Water Germination : Using a transparent container and distill water with sterilized cotton
This is the first batch and I call them Mixed Batch, started 21th Nov 2012


EDITED: Some info in my region: Singapore
March 2013 Humidity 57-73%
Temperature 28.6 - 36.2 ºc or 83.4 - 97 ºf

A few days later, the other batch of VTF seeds came, and I too had them in distill water the same as the mixed batch. Ever since that day, I've been looking at them everyday, sometimes twice a day to make sure I do not miss out the miracle of germination.

So now I had 3 batches

Nov 21th : Mixed VFT Batch - 3 VFT seed (Indonesia - Mixture cultivar 10 seed)
Nov 25th : RR DR Batch - 3 Drosera Rotundifolia and 2 Royal Red VFT cultivar seeds (Germany)
Nov 25th : ST DA Batch - 3 Drosera Anglica and 2 Saw Tooth UK #1 VFT cultivar seeds (Germany)



The Packet of various CP along with 2 other VFT cultivars' seeds



The other VFT seeds look almost exactly the same



Some Sundew seeds that came together in the batch




Drosera anglica


Drosera rotundifolia

I'm quite happy today, when I took up the mixed batch to take a good look, I realized one of the seed had something pointing out of it's tip. I took my Camera and snap on a magnification lens and I see 1 seed had germinated. This is my first experience on VFT and water germinating them.

Mixed batch Day 10: 1 seed germinated in distill water


Here's a closed up

great photo res.

prpl_trtl wrote:great photo res.

Stratofortress wrote:Nifty! What's your photo setup?

Thanks guys! My hobby is Macro photography.For 90% of these photos, I was using a Nikon D90 on nikkor 85mm F3.5 lens, I had a snap-on magnification 24X lens on top of the nikkor 85mm. External flash SB900 1/2 -1/4 flash power w DIY diffuser.

Setting: ISO 200. Aperture f/25-32. Shutter speed 1/160.

Hope my details are useful

While I was looking at the seeds yesterday, I already suspected some were germinating, but I couldn' confirm as there wasnt much light at night. This morning I went to inspect each of the VFT seed, what looks like to me are the early stage of germination.


Some of the seeds from the 3 batches I suspected has already started germinating



Here a seed from the ST DA Batch which I have been suspecting if it had germinated, because it look like a fungus head. If someone could confirm for me. But since it came up from the tip of the seed, I would 90% say it has germinated.
Day 7


2 Seeds from RR DR Batch which I highly suspected has germinated as well
Day 7

Another one from RR DR Batch


And Day 11 from the Mixed Batch, the same one I've posted earlier yesterday has grown so much over a night

Great pictures!

pieguy452 wrote:Great pictures!

Thank you so much pieguy452. It's kinda weird how they pop out differently glad to share with everyone here

A little update from before, all the seeds I thought had germinated, stood in the same state. So it turns out that I was wrong. Even the one with the fungus head didn't grow anymore that before. It just stood there the same way. The only one that had progressed was the sole seed from Mixed batch.

Day 17

That's great to see these up close and get a real look at the stages of see growth. Thanks for the great pictures!

BoothEatsBUGS wrote:That's great to see these up close and get a real look at the stages of see growth. Thanks for the great pictures!

Hi BoothEatsBUGS, thanks for viewing, I hope you'd enjoyed the pictures Thank you

As I was trying to figure out why was the tip of the VFT so hairy and pinkish. Little did I guess it was actually the roots of the VFT, now it kinda make sense that the roots would be the first to develop since water is 1 of the main source for it's growth. The tip that push the seed shell out were leaf.

BTW: It was a bad idea to use sterilized cotton as a backdrop for my photo taking, they tangled up with the roots so I had problem removing the ones in the roots, I had to leave a small portion in there. Not to mention I had some trouble untangling them from the leaves too.

edited
Day 23: Mixed Batch sole seed to rise out of all 3 batches.
HELLO WORLD! I AM "FITTEST" thats what I'll name this VFT.
First 2 non-carnivore leaves (cotyledons)

Made "Fittest" into a time lapse video, focus point has been moving around due to water evaporating and refilling, seed growth etc. Hope you'll enjoy it.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/55704361[/vimeo]


edited : 16 Dec 2012 - made an improved version and uploaded in youtube and vimeo
p/s: Thank you Stratofortress for some encouraging words.

The link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFkJJ5tYYBs

Older version:
http://vimeo.com/55653702

That's AWESOME!