FlyTrapCare Forums

Open to all,
My plants just set FRESH seed. They are the typical form and robust growers, (Image below are the plants and seed scape's). I tried to remove the flower scape's this spring but more than a dozen made it to flowering stage. It appears that cross pollination from plants in the growing container has lead to large healthy seed pods, (maybe a few hundred seeds from the group). They are free to those that want to try there hand at starting plants from fresh healthy seeds. I would bet that all will germinate and I would like for them to have a nice happy home. Let me know if any one has any interest.

Best regards
Curtis

That is very generous of you Curtis. I too will likely have quite a bit of seed. I'm not sure how much just yet, but I will likely have some to give away as well.

Nice photo by the way. I love your flytrap collection. What do you have them planted in? I was thinking about putting a bunch in a big container...just looking for ideas.

Good morning Matt,

Thank you for the kind words. I have planted a 70 gallon watering container, the same used for feeding and supplying water for smaller farm animals. It was low cost and durable. I filled it to the top with perlite and peat moss. Let it sit for 4 months filled with rain water to let it settle and then planted it in the spring. I have all my carnivores into to make it easy to maintain. I have placed it near a peach tree to give it some protection during the high noon hours. This cuts down on the evaporation during the heat of the day and gives the plants a short rest. The light level seems to be adequate for them. I am attaching an image of what the container looks like but I found one in marble grey. This keeps the container from getting to warm in direct sunlight. In the winter I will drill some drainage holes that can be plugged to control flooding from rain. I can send you a photo of the whole planter if you wish. I found that it was easy to maintain and looks nice in the yard. Slugs and snails love to live underneath the trough so you must bait them from time to time. I wish you the best of luck with your planting.

Best regards,
Curtis

It appears that there are no takers on the free VFT seed. Wow, does this surprise me. I will collect them from the plants over the next few days and put them into cold storage. Its not too late to request the fresh seed from these plants.

Best regards to all,
Curtis

Yes, this is surprising. No one wants to try growing some baby VFTs? It's usually quite hard to find free seed.

I may possibly look into it if the seed can hang on for a few months while I get the VFT I'll be getting soon settled.

I was just wondering how on earth I missed this thread, until I noticed it was for USA, I'm am not sure what the price for shipping would be for sending to the UK, and what they would think of sending 'SEEDS' air mail lol

For all that are interested, I have fortunately found a home for the VFT, (typical form) seed that ripened this year. Some I planted in August and the other bags of seed have found a new home. The seed that I planted this summer have all germinated. I have the seedlings outside, with the parents, to harden off during the winter. I may release some of these youngsters to experienced growers living the states next summer. I just want the species to flourish. I live in Northern California so the winters are not too difficult with only a few light frosts each year, (enough to build character). Over the years I have found that cross pollination between mature plants have created strong and genetically sound offspring.

I inspected the sprouting plants this weekend and found many seedlings already have traps. I will post an image or two of the babies a little later.

Best regards,
Curtis

It's been a while Curtis! Good to see you back on the forum.

I'm happy to hear that you found a home for all of your VFT seed. Actually I was hoping that you hadn't because I am going to start trying some tissue culture experiments and I was looking for some Dionaea seed. I ordered some from the ICPS seed bank though, so that should be ok.

I too had a ton of seed this year and ended up sowing much of it myself (before I realized that I might be interested in TC).

I'll be looking for your photos of the babies soon.

thank you for the offer. i just received a bunch of new plants a month or two ago. and it's my first year of having a REAL setup. or atleast i know how to take care of them now. so ill be plenty busy with my 6 little plants.

nice pic, too. i would love to see more

Good evening Matt,

Sorry about releasing all the seed. I am happy to see that you have ventured into the interesting field of tissue culture. I am extremely interested in your results. I was thinking about kicking the tires on this subject also. I am thinking about crossing some B-52 with red next piranha spring. Could be a very interesting cross if successful and tissue culture may help insure viable plants. Keep me posted on your efforts and I wish you the best of luck with this effort.

I wanted to share an observation with you concerning the seedpods from this past summer’s seed production. I let four flower stocks remain attached to the plant to see how and when the seed would be naturally release from the open seedpods. Much to my surprise the seed did not eject from the seedpods. Instead, the flower stocks slowly arched over to one side until they touched the soil surface. Within a few days, the seedpod germinated like an upside down umbrella. This may, (or may not) be typical for VFT in the field. Any rate, all four stocks did the exact same thing and now I am wondering if this is a natural “self preservation” act. Keep in touch.

Best regards,
Curtis

Dear Grant,

Maybe next year, once the little ones are ready to be release to new homes, you will feel comfortable in expanding your collection with "one" year olds. Even though it may take 5 plus years to become fully mature, these little snappers are fun to watch. These little guys are awesome at catching small ants. Good luck with your new hobby and your six plants.

Best regards,
Curtis

Curtis,

I too let some of my flower stalks stay up for a while without harvesting the seed, but not as long as you did. Some of them dropped seed into the parent plant's pot. I just did some fall trimming a couple days ago and found about a dozen seedlings growing amongst my plants. It's interesting that the flower stalks bend over and touch the ground if you let them go without cutting them. I was kind of wondering how the little plants actually get away from the parent plant. It seems like it wouldn't be advantageous to germinate right under the parent plant. I guess the flower stalk can get them a little ways away when it arches over.

I'll definitely keep you posted with any tissue culture results. I'll probably open a tissue culture forum. I'm going to start with seed and then try plant material (called explants) soon. I don't know if I'll be able to get much good material until spring time because I've read the easiest tissue to sterilize is newly growing tissue and this time of year my Dionaea aren't growing much.

Hey all, I'm interested in growing a bog bowl of Dionaea Muscipula, and am interested in doing so with seed. If anyone should come into a fair amount of seed that they are not prepared to sow I would greatly appreciate them. I'm very interested in collecting different phenotypes and breeding them for their desirable traits. However, as I'm only fairly recently into this venture, my collection is small and not very diverse. Any seed is of interest. More diversity the better!