FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hello all, a new member here from Thailand but now in China. I have read a lot of stuff here during the past few months before I decided to get 2 pings which are P. Cyclosecta and P. Esseriana a little over 5 weeks ago. Thanks to what I have learnt here, they currently do very well with tiny dews on their leaves

Both come bare-root (actually they have barely any root :/). Too bad I didn't take a photo when I first got them so I'm not really sure how Esseriana had grown over this period since it kinda looks the same to me

In contrast, Cyclosecta comes in as a very tiny plant in the succulent form that seems to falling apart so it did change a lot and actually provide many babies from its succulent leaves (6-7 I think)

Actually, my indoor setup wasn't really being fully thought out yet when I first got the plant so I did repot them at least 3 times during these 5 weeks -_-

Luckily, they are pretty chill and did produce tiny dews like normal every day and their roots did grow every time I change their setup (this is actually the only change I truly recognized from Esseriana)

Here are some of the picture. They are currently growing under 3 x 10 watt 3000k random Chinese full spectrum grow light.

Esseriana


Cyclosecta 4 days ago (19 Feb)


Cyclosecta now (23 Feb) (Yep, I did repot it 2 days ago)

Looking great! Cyclosecta was the first one I ever bought and it’s still one of my all time favorites!


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Thank Bob Beer, at first, my original goal is to get esseriana as I mainly wanted small plants due to limited space. But ended up with one of the other beginner plant that they have, Cyclosecta, since I need to pay for shipping anyway. Now, I feel so lucky to get this guy

Bonjour

your substrate : just sphaigne ?

you live in china but in what region ?

Hi Jeff,

I live in Shanghai. For media, I use 3-5mm crushed black lava stone with a reused 2-3mm ceramic sand stones about 1:1 and have pretty high water in the tray. I only place moss on top.

OK
no substrate with limestone elements so

then no dormancy period for these 2 ?

is very careful about watering often, too much is too much and the plant ends up dying

do you know chinese ping ?

Oh, I thought adjusting light, temp, and water is sufficient for dormancy. I only know that Cyclosecta grow on limestone in nature but didn’t know that I also need it for dormancy. Thanks!

What is the benefit of dormancy for this species though?

Also thank you, I’ll be careful about water

No idea about Chinese Ping really. Almost if not all result from ‘捕蟲堇屬’ search on Taobao show only typical American-European Pings. I guess they aren’t really commercialized yet? I will read up about them more, sounds interesting.

Ps. This is my first year here though, I’m not really immersed into Chinese society and language yet. Actually, …Je suis étudiant en dernière année à Lille ^^

nicnep wrote:Oh, I thought adjusting light, temp, and water is sufficient for dormancy.

They are.

nicnep wrote:I only know that Cyclosecta grow on limestone in nature but didn’t know that I also need it for dormancy. Thanks!

You don’t. Many people grow cyclosecta and other Mexican Pings on a variety of media and most never use limestone. I have tried adding some lime to my mix in various forms but I’ve noticed no difference. I even took three nearly identical siblings and grew them side by side in my normal mix, pure turface and pure aragonite (a form of limestone often used in the aquarium hobby). I noticed no difference at all. But I have heard from someone who got better growth of P. gigantea when he started adding lime, first as oyster shell, and later as horticultural lime. (Others have better luck with that species when they add some peat or other humusy material.)

If you want to try limestone, by all means do it. It might help, it probably won’t, but it almost certainly can’t hurt!

“nicnep” wrote:What is the benefit of dormancy for this species though?

Dormancy in Mexican Pings is not a true dormancy like that of Sarracenia or Dionaea. The plants keep growing, but in a different form. It’s not a physiological requirement, but some species (like rotundiflora) bloom only or mostly during their succulent winter growth. Others bloom mostly in summer, and some tend to bloom around the transition. My cyclosectas seem to bloom mostly when they wake up and in early summer, but not exclusively; that may be just the time when the temperatures are best where I live (Seattle, US). What I have noticed is that when they don’t get cooler nights, many plants seem to lose vigor.

The main factor in stimulating dormancy seems to be temperature. With higher temps, I have had plants stubbornly refuse to enter dormancy even with drier medium and very short daylengths, and have had them start exiting dormancy and then go back into succulent growth when the weather went cold for several weeks. (gypsicola especially does this!) So try to give them cool nights if you can, and if you want them to go dormant, try and get consistent temperatures of 16-17 or below, and cooler at night. Many can take almost freezing but I’ve never let that happen. (Some species and varieties want it cooler—some moranensis varieties like “J” and ‘Lautner 52/92’ almost never go dormant while almost everything else is dormant!) Right now I have some plants that didn’t go dormant all winter, and only did when I changed my lights to LED, eliminating some of the extra heat.

Aside from giving them shorter day length in the winter and lower temperatures, I would say just let your plants tell you. Don’t try to force them by drying them out; if they aren’t in winter growth, you will just dry and stress them.

Jeff mentioned care about water - yes, especially when you are increasing water as they start growing summer leaves again. I’ve never had the dreaded “brown heart” disease but evidently too much water and heat too quickly can make the conditions where it can attack. (Nematodes like it I guess) But I don’t let my pings sit completely dry in winter. Some people do if they have low temps, and it seems to work fine.

Another nice thing about dormancy/winter growth is that it’s a little easier to propagate with those thick leaves. First, there are a lot of them. Second, because they are succulents, they don’t lose water as quickly. When you take a pulling, it becomes sort of a race against time; the bud needs to develop and route before the leaf dies off. Summer leaves can also root but humidity becomes more of an issue in the thinner leafed.






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Thank you Bob!

I see. Shanghai winter is now ending with outside temp roughly 6-15 during the day and 2-8 during the night. But I am growing it now at 18-21 C with 45-55% humidity during the day and 14-16 with 55-65% humidity during the night inside.

My current plan on substrate/ dormancy is that I now have atleast 5-6 baby Cyclo, if many of them managed to survive into adult plant I will try add limestones on some or have different treatments during the winter to see if which one fit best in my condition.

It will mainly involve moving the plant closer to the window so it get less light from the set up while also colder and I probably will adjust water following its growth as you suggested unless I have multiple of the same plant where I can try different things.

Outside during the deep winter could be as low as -10 and rain a lot while snowing only a few times so I guess a near window inside is more than sufficient to trigger any form of dormancy for most CP. (window is on the northern side, so they not gonna get much light from it)

Hi again

Your temperatures sound good. Like I said, don’t worry too much about trying to trigger dormancy. It will happen, or it won’t. It can also depend on how it was being grown before you got it. But it will find its balance. I have not experimented with adding lime to cyclosecta so let us know if you see a difference!

I think one problem in some of the literature about raising pings is that they take a “one-size-fits-all” approach. Look different people in different parts of the world have differing local conditions to deal with. To really do these experiments the right way, would require a lot more space than I have, or am ever likely to have. But it’s fun to hear what works for people and what doesn’t.


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Ha ha, thank you Bob. I will make sure to update this in the future and when I tried different things.

And yes, it is always interesting to read experience of different people. I used to grow many low-land Nepenthes and Fern (especially Platycerium and Adiantum) which are native to South East Asia and had fun reading and sharing with different people. But those things take too much space while housing in Shanghai is more expensive than France, so no way I’m growing them here haha.

Bonjour

I grow a large part of my Mexican ping and some of my temperate europeans in a mineral limestone substrate without any particular problem whose P.cyclosecta and P.esseriana

the dormancy for the mexican is rather due to the dry period whereas the period of dormancy for the temperate it is rather the winter.

for my mexican here au MANS they are dormant in a cool room (not lower than 5 ° c) 9-12 ° c dry or slightly wet for filiform completely dry.

for me I think the dormancy on the mexican and the temperate is a physiology requirement that is part of their natural cycle.

note that the transition to succulent mode is a way for her to spend the period of quiet drought, feeding on their leaves reserve (water, suc),that's also the reason not to leave them in the water so what are dormant , and no negative temperature that will explode their plant cells

in china 2 temperate ping 'in situ' : P.vulgaris , P.alpina

I see, so do you trigger dormancy by temp & light then follow by water or pull all 3 triggers at the same time? For Mexican, if they are in succulent mode and we give them less water/light and colder then we can say they are dormant right? unlike other CP where all most all leaves die off?

I honestly didn't really read much on Ping from a colder area with a strict dormancy requirement yet since I plan to go with the seemingly simpler species first.

I probably will try limestone in the future still, now I just go with a more 'neutral' media first so I can use it with other plants as well. Does limestone from construction site work? Or I might have I reason to feed myself some oysters

Oh, both of them are the colder species I guess. That's probably why I don't really know much about them haha.

I would say dormancy in pings is definitely a protection against dry weather, but not “due to.” It’s triggered more by lower temperatures than dryness itself, though that may be a factor in some species entering dormancy. Several people have sent photos of pings they have tried to force into dormancy by withholding water, with bad results. On the other hand, my pings do go dormant when the temperatures fall, no matter how wet they are. When I see that, I cut down significantly on the water. But because they are in my house and I can’t give them the kind of cold temperatures they would get in habitat (some around 4C or even almost 0), I mostly don’t let them stay completely dry. When I can afford a cold greenhouse, or have cold winter basement space, maybe I will.

I notice that my pings grow succulent leaves all winter, making significant gains. They only “feed on them” in the early summer when they start making summer leaves.


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Hi Bob

That’s make a lot of sense. Would be wasteful if the plant do not feed on those chubby leaves haha.

It’s also a relief that I can based their transition more on temperature before pulling other triggers. Didn’t want to adjust too many variables at the same time yet since I’m still new to these guys.

What was your temperature during summer though. Here will be around low to mid 30 and really really humid maybe 70-80%+. In my room will be slightly better.