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Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Sun May 22, 2022 2:48 am
by davinstewart
I thought this year I'd share my experiences with vft flower stalk cuttings.
Here are pics of my current setup and progress. Most of my flower stalks were from Maroon Monster and B-52 flytraps and it's pretty easy to tell them apart.
They're planted in 1 peat : 1 fine perlite and are sitting in ~1 inch of distilled water under a bank of 8 led tubes. I measured the light level and with my 16 hour day it's coming in at 15 DLI, which should be plenty bright to satisfy even the maroon monster cuttings.
All of the cuttings were 1-2" and planted vertically about 1/4" deep into the media. I've had good success with this approach in the past and it's very space efficient.
Sadly, I've already noticed some fungus on the maroon monster cuttings and may need to cull them and spray with a fungicide to prevent further infection. The tray of B-52's seem ok for now.
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Sun May 22, 2022 3:25 am
by thepitchergrower
You're gonna have a flytrap forest...
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Sun May 22, 2022 5:39 am
by WONE
Holy smokes
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Sun May 22, 2022 11:32 am
by Intheswamp
Wow, that's a lot of cuttings (and a lot of work)!!! What is your usual successful propagation rate with this method?
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Sun May 22, 2022 12:02 pm
by davinstewart
Last year it was fairly low at around 25% but I made a few mistakes ... like not providing enough light early on in the process. Even then, though, I had so many flytrap babies it was stretching my capacity. This year I'm mostly interested in getting the process refined and improving my strike rating. I'd also love to nail down how quickly I can get these flytrap babies to marketable size.
I'm also wondering what effect azoxystrobin has on flytrap cuttings. Since it's a systemic fungicide it should improve the strike rate, I think. Just by accident I'd watered a few of the flytraps with azostrylobin a couple days before cutting the flower stalks. I've marked the affected stalks with "A" on the label so I can keep track of them and so far they're looking strong.
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 2:48 am
by Intheswamp
Thanks for the info. I've subscribed so I can keep up with your (and the cuttings) progress.
I watched a Youtube video this afternoon with a fellow speaking well of the Scott's DiseaseEX (I think that's the stuff). If what he showed was actual it's good stuff! He had some poor looking plants and in about 1-1/2 months they looked like entirely different plants. I'll definitely be watching how the "A" stalks progress! That will be very interesting.
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 3:46 am
by Dan V
Subscribed - thanks for sharing!
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 12:52 pm
by davinstewart
The problem with the "experiment" from HelixPlants was that he had no control group so you couldn't do a side-by-side comparison to see what difference azoxystrobin made. So it's really just anecdotal evidence, which is unreliable at best.
If you give me half dead plants in the early season and put them in good growing conditions then they'll look much better in 1-2 months as well.
Hopefully my experiment with azoxystrobin (using a control group for comparison) will be able to validate his findings.
Intheswamp wrote:Thanks for the info. I've subscribed so I can keep up with your (and the cuttings) progress.
I watched a Youtube video this afternoon with a fellow speaking well of the Scott's DiseaseEX (I think that's the stuff). If what he showed was actual it's good stuff! He had some poor looking plants and in about 1-1/2 months they looked like entirely different plants. I'll definitely be watching how the "A" stalks progress! That will be very interesting.
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 12:56 pm
by davinstewart
Btw, I had to cull about 10% of the maroon monster cuttings today since they were being attacked by a grey fungus.
Since I have some extra room under the grow lights, though, I'm going to make lemonade out of lemons and move ~5/6 of the remaining maroon monster cuttings to their own tray and drench them with azoxystrobin. The remaining 1/6 of the cuttings I'll leave as is and use them as a control group for comparison purposes later.
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 1:25 pm
by Intheswamp
Indeed, I believe it was HelixPlants' video that I watched and I did wonder whether improving growing conditions was a major factor in the improvement of the traps' health and looks. You are correct, no control group was shown. The guy in the video seemed really young (sorry, but the older I get the more young adults look like kids
)...and he seemed to be really putting effort into sounding "authoritative".
At least he's put some effort into making some videos...which I haven't.
I noticed that your cuttings all have nicely cut ends...what did you cut them with?
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 1:51 pm
by davinstewart
Just a really sharp pocket knife. I didn't want to use scissors since that could crush the ends. Many of them just broke clean before being cut through. One suggestion is to water the plants thoroughly 1-2 days before harvesting the flower stalks to make sure stalks are nice and turgid and have topped off their stored moisture.
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 1:59 pm
by Intheswamp
I figured it had to be a sharp blade, scissors do crush things badly. Good tip on the pre-watering! Thanks.
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Mon May 23, 2022 3:03 pm
by Dan V
I wonder what a lite application of maxsea to the stalks would do - just thinking out loud as I have applied maxsea to cuttings after strikes which seemed to boost growth, but I had no control group to test.
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2022 12:41 pm
by davinstewart
I'd be concerned about adding fertilizer to an enclosed container which will likely stay enclosed for several months. Algae and moss are already going to be a problem. Fertilizer would likely just make that worse.
Dan V wrote:I wonder what a lite application of maxsea to the stalks would do - just thinking out loud as I have applied maxsea to cuttings after strikes which seemed to boost growth, but I had no control group to test.
Re: Flytrap flower stalk cuttings
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2022 12:54 pm
by davinstewart
2 Week Update
The grey mold continues to affect the maroon monster cuttings way more than the B-52 cuttings. No idea why. This is even after I watered the maroon monster cuttings with azoxystrobin.
The flower buds of both varieties seem especially susceptible.
I'll probably want to step up my fungus control game for flower stalk cuttings in the future.
At this stage, it seems pointless to keep culling the cuttings since the mold is now well established. I'm just going to let it run its course and see what happens.