FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

What are the optimum cold stratification periods for these species?

Im planning to sow them on the peat mix in the fridge in a zip lock bag.(around 3-4 degrees C).

For the droseras ive read 2-3 months
the sarracenia 1 month
and Dionaea at least 1 month.

Im planning to check for mould 2x a week(quick visual inspection) .

And how moist should the soil be?

Sry to bother you guys once AGAIN, but thx in advance.
Ps. i placed it here cause i didnt know where else to put it and its about 2 D.'s

Drosera rotundifolia / Drosera intermedia: 2-6 weeks (I'd go with 4 weeks for both). Trust this guy: http://www.growsundews.com/sundews/Germ ... ON_PROCESS

Sarracenia purpurea: 6 weeks. http://www.amjbot.org/content/88/3/429.full

Dionaea: Do not cold stratify. Harvest and sow immediately. Go here and do a search for the word stratification: http://www.flytrapcare.com/growing-venu ... seeds.html


Soil Dampness:

Moist but not wet. If you can hold the pot and it drips, it's too wet. What I do is pot up some soil like I was going to put a plant in it, put it in a water tray, and let it drain. Once the worst is out, I move it to a paper towel and let it drip out onto that for ten minutes or so.

Then I get a ziploc bag, spray the inside of it once with distilled water to throw droplets all over the inside (but not so much it allows water to pool at the bottom), toss the pot inside the bag, drop seeds on the damp soil, seal it up with as much air inside as I can allow, and stick it in the fridge.

Veronis wrote:Drosera rotundifolia / Drosera intermedia: 2-6 weeks (I'd go with 4 weeks for both). Trust this guy: http://www.growsundews.com/sundews/Germ ... ON_PROCESS

Sarracenia purpurea: 6 weeks. http://www.amjbot.org/content/88/3/429.full

Dionaea: Do not cold stratify. Harvest and sow immediately. Go here and do a search for the word stratification: http://www.flytrapcare.com/growing-venu ... seeds.html

Hey thanks for the reply, ill do it in the weekend.
One more thing, doesnt cold stratification with FVT increase germination rate?(i bought the seeds online)

Nope. Flytrap seeds should be sown as soon as possible. Anyone who tells you that flyrtap seeds require cold stratification is incorrect.

1. Flytrap seeds don't have a chemical germination inhibitor that needs to be broken down by cold wet weather, like that which occurs in Sarr seeds. Cold stratifying flytrap seeds offers no benefit.
2. In nature, most flytraps flower in the Spring and drop seed in the same season's Spring or Summer. The seeds will germinate during the same growing season and get around half a season or so of growing time prior to going dormant in the same season's Winter.
3. The only reason to stick flytrap seeds in the fridge is if you aren't sowing them right away, because they'll "keep" longer in the fridge than on a shelf at room temp.
   
   You can store freshly harvested flytrap seeds in the fridge for years - store them dry. I've stored seeds for 2.5 years and still got 60-70% germination rate - they were in the crisper drawer, literally just dumped into a ziploc bag.
   
   The flytrap seeds that I sow during the same season I harvested them germinate at around 80-90%.