FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

after all the buds dried up i opened all of then finding a whopping total of 18 seeds......coming from about 17 buds. i didnt no why the majority of the buds had no seeds at all!! i pollinated all of them. the biggest question i got is wats the main objective of pollinating? to get as much pollen on the stamen as possible? or does it matter?

Some clones don't produce much seed while others, if well pollinated, will produce a plethora of seed. So the fact that you didn't get much seed could be due to a few reasons:
1) The clones you pollinated don't have the genetics to produce much seed.
2) You didn't thoroughly pollinate the stigma (pollen goes on the stigma - the stamen is what produces the pollen). And yes, you should get as much pollen on the stigma as possible. I usually pollinate every stigma twice and thoroughly cover the receptive stigma with pollen.
3) If you grow your plants outside, I've noticed that wind and rain can blow and wash the pollen of the stigma after pollination.
4) The plants were stressed while trying to set seed and aborted the seed pods. This is actually fairly common.

Just to illustrate some clones not producing much seed...one of my "big vigorous" produced nearly 80 seeds from the flowers on one stalk, while my "royal red" produced 5. Seriously. 5.

The two flytraps also live in the same pot, and were planted (repotted after dormancy) on the same day.

Veronis wrote:Just to illustrate some clones not producing much seed...one of my "big vigorous" produced nearly 80 seeds from the flowers on one stalk, while my "royal red" produced 5. Seriously. 5.

Red clones produce far less seed in general than green clones do. Royal Red and Red Dragon are two of the worst seed-producing clones out there in my experience. Red Piranha produces quite a bit of seed for a red clone, as does Pink Venus.

Matt wrote:Some clones don't produce much seed while others, if well pollinated, will produce a plethora of seed. So the fact that you didn't get much seed could be due to a few reasons:
1) The clones you pollinated don't have the genetics to produce much seed.
2) You didn't thoroughly pollinate the stigma (pollen goes on the stigma - the stamen is what produces the pollen). And yes, you should get as much pollen on the stigma as possible. I usually pollinate every stigma twice and thoroughly cover the receptive stigma with pollen.
3) If you grow your plants outside, I've noticed that wind and rain can blow and wash the pollen of the stigma after pollination.
4) The plants were stressed while trying to set seed and aborted the seed pods. This is actually fairly common.

maybe 2 was the problem. maybe next time huh? atleast got some seeds

You didn't thoroughly pollinate the stigma (pollen goes on the stigma - the stamen is what produces the pollen). And yes, you should get as much pollen on the stigma as possible. I usually pollinate every stigma twice and thoroughly cover the receptive stigma with pollen.

Matt,u use 2pollens on a stigma?

HarrisAz wrote:Matt,u use 2pollens on a stigma?

No, I use much more than 2 pollen grains. What I was saying is that I usually pollinate each receptive stigma twice. When my Dionaea are flowering, I usually pollinate once in the morning and once in the evening. If the stigma is receptive in the morning, I pollinate it then and again in the evening. If the stigma is receptive in the evening, but it wasn't in the morning, I pollinate it in the evening and the next morning.

after the stigma had been receptive,how long it takes for the flower too close?


btw thx for the fast answer.your fast

i really only had a full day. for most but a little bit more time for some.

HarrisAz wrote:after the stigma had been receptive,how long it takes for the flower too close?

Usually the flower stalks curling up about 1.5 to 2 days after the stigma becomes receptive.

ummm what if theres a bunch of pollen on the stigma??

sjham16 wrote:ummm what if theres a bunch of pollen on the stigma??

That's a good thing! That's exactly what you're trying to accomplish

hey,what happen if i pollinate it using a hibiscus pollen instead of vft pollen?will it be a new seed grown cultivar or seeding will be fail?

HarrisAz wrote:hey,what happen if i pollinate it using a hibiscus pollen instead of vft pollen?will it be a new seed grown cultivar or seeding will be fail?

Seeding will fail. There are some species in nature that are cross fertile (many species of orchids, tiger and lions, etc.), but I think it's fairly rare. It would be like trying to mate a dog and a cat.

i devoted some of my like to ligers and tigons. (we dont capitalize the names)