FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

So I seem to have an issue with my Alien cultivar. It seems to have just split itself up into a bunch of smaller plantlets. I now have like 20+ growth points but they're all very tiny, I'd rather have a larger single plant instead.

Any suggestions or ideas on why? I remember reading about this for this cultivar once but I can't seem to find it anymore so I'm not sure if I imagined it.

Was it from the seller Crazy Craig’s Carnivorous Plants? He sells (relatively) freshly deflasked specimens so they may still have some clumping TC hormones on them.

Ah no, I actually haven't had an issue with craigs vfts. This plant was actually from flytrapstore, but I don't think it was any TC thing since it was doing fine for a whole year. I do think maybe some of the problems started during dormancy when I dosed once with BioAdvanced 3-in-1 and noticed that in a lot of my vfts I got those mutated super curved traps.

I do notice that my other pot of Phalanx from fts might also look like it has the same issue. I'm wondering if the densely packed sphagnum is maybe holding onto some leftover BioAdvanced chemicals or something, or maybe the density of the moss is preventing root growth and causing divisions.

Z_Y wrote: ↑Sun Oct 10, 2021 7:09 pm Ah no, I actually haven't had an issue with craigs vfts. This plant was actually from flytrapstore, but I don't think it was any TC thing since it was doing fine for a whole year. I do think maybe some of the problems started during dormancy when I dosed once with BioAdvanced 3-in-1 and noticed that in a lot of my vfts I got those mutated super curved traps.

I do notice that my other pot of Phalanx from fts might also look like it has the same issue. I'm wondering if the densely packed sphagnum is maybe holding onto some leftover BioAdvanced chemicals or something, or maybe the density of the moss is preventing root growth and causing divisions.

Interesting! I would recommend dividing the plant and then fertilizing all the small divisions regularly, as they seem to grow faster separated rather than attached. Not sure why it would be dividing so much though. The sphagnum moss strands wrapped around the rhizome may be a possibility.

Gleaned some useful knowledge from this thread. I had a horrible season on my end and I think the way I potted them this time was a factor. Thanks!

As far as the question goes, I've also experienced something similar to this when my rhizome began to rot. I think what happened were the leaves became a series of individual "cuttings" and burst into several plants. Had a pinguicula do something like this as well. Do you keep high water tables on your VFTs or did it show any decline before you noticed the divisions?

Some of my flytraps did this when their soil went "sour" (they were planted in a peat moss/perlite/sand mix). Each plant acted like a collection of leaf pulls and produced a bunch of small divisions. After I separated them and repotted in fresh soil, they were fine.

I use BioAdvanced 3-in-1 to knock out aphids, and my plants don't respond with any weird growth.

Hmm you know what, maybe rot would explain it, since it did go through dormancy. Perhaps it was just too moist during the cold period. I'll have to keep an eye on it, I'm guessing the pure sphagnum held way more water than my other pots of peat/perlite.

In the meantime, I've divided up all the plantlets. I now have some in sphagnum, some in peat/perlite, and some in peat/sand. I'll be putting some on my windowsill, some under LEDs, and some in my highland grow chamber (has higher humidity) just to see what will happen.

I notice with my plants that this happen when I unintentionally let a big rhizome rot to mush. The main rhizome will die but many little plants will form around it.

This is interesting, I didn't know that it could be a problem when flytraps produce tons of little divisions. I just thought maybe its just what the type of cultivator did, so is this always a problem? I recently noticed this with my maroon monster when I was repotting it the other day. It had tons of divisions but a lot of them were quite small.

frankgrimes087 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 14, 2021 8:26 pm I recently noticed this with my maroon monster when I was repotting it the other day. It had tons of divisions but a lot of them were quite small.

Your Maroon Monster is supposed to clump up, it is normal for them to produce several divisions at a time(I got like 12 this season).