FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

This year I actually know that you need to reduce the photoperiod to get pygmy sundews to make gemmae, so i set my lights to 10 hours-ish and now I'm waiting to see if my scorpioides get the picture.

They've been making a ton of leaves now that it's cooler, and recently I'm seeing something that I'm not sure if it's more leaves or gemmae:
Does this look gemmae-like to you guys who have had gemmae before?

100% Gemmae. You can tell because of how they cluster like that, new leaves still hold some sort of pattern when they are developing!

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Yay! Success! Thank you

They'll basically just fall off at any touch when they're ready, right?

NO! NEVER! I made this mistake once. Waited until they were massive and touched, then "poof" and the gemmae scattered on the floor within a 2m radius. The trick is to get them a bit before that happens, so once they look fairly large, remove the outer few, trade 'em off. Then, more will grow, and keep removing the outside. Remember to plant more gemmae to succeed your pygmy sundews. No such thing as an "immature" gemma or "too small", as it's just a bag of undifferentiated cells that differentiate into meristematic tissue and roots.

I'd probably do some goofy thing like poke a hole in a cup to slide a small stick through, cover the plant and brush the gemmae to let them launch and let the cup catch and bring them back down. Can I ask what temps you guys have for your pygmies? I've personally been having bad luck with most of them. I dropped the photoperiod down to about 11 hours now so I'm hoping that'll induce some gemmae, but I also had to fight some aphids. They've seen better days.

hungry carnivores wrote: ↑Wed Nov 18, 2020 3:29 am NO! NEVER! I made this mistake once. Waited until they were massive and touched, then "poof" and the gemmae scattered on the floor within a 2m radius.

Thanks for the warning; sounds like I was way underestimating how far they can throw them! I'll harvest them a few at a time, then.

Apollyon wrote:Can I ask what temps you guys have for your pygmies? I've personally been having bad luck with most of them.

Over the past month or so, the temps in front of my south-facing window dropped from like 80-something to high 60s (night) - mid 70s (day). I have lights to supplement short days/spots that don't get direct sun year-round, and I have them set to 10 hours currently.