FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I have several leaf pullings and flower stalks under a 24 hour photoperiod. I was curious if that photoperiod is fine until the aformentioned parts strike or at least until they get a tiny leaf going?

I've never tried 24/7 lights on pullings or flower stalks, but what would concern me is not enough downtime to process the light (which occurs at night); I'm not sure if pullings/stalks have this requirement, so I'm a little wary on that front. If you don't get a reply from someone who has done it successfully, you may consider using a 16/8 cycle to be safe.

If you do keep the light on your pullings/stalk 24/7, yes switch to 16 hours on/8 off when you see the plantlet(s) start coming up, and please let us know how it goes (e.g. time taken to see plantlets).

Edited: I found this thread, which contains a discussion with the following quote from Matt, which points towards sticking with 16/8 rather than 24 hours:

Matt wrote: ...If you treat your pullings the same as your plant, they will take. There's really not any reason to do much of anything special to them and certainly putting them in pure water is nothing more than novel, and it certainly won't increase your chances to get a strike. It helps to put them in sphagnum, but pure water isn't necessary at all.

If you want to keep the humidity high, use a ziplock bag or a plastic container with a lid that you can close. Pullings seem to strike well even with ambient humidity if you use sphagnum.

Good luck

Thank you for the thorough answer. I decided to keep the 24 hour photoperiod for now and the light source is a GlowPanel 45, for reference. I will let you know of any change or strikes when they occur.

Right on, I was kinda hoping you would. I'm curious if there's any difference in time to strike, etc.

What medium are they in? LFS, peat?

Peat and sand @ 60:40. Plastic pots topped with ziploc bags. Poked holes in bags for air exchange.

I sometimes use straight long-fibered sphagnum to root pullings/stalks and have had good success. You just need to be wary of the LFS being kept too wet after plantlets emerge.

Otherwise I use peat/sand like you. I've never tried bagging the pot, though.

These plantlets are a few months old: B52 left, Low Giant right, and the little one in the middle is a couple-week-old Big Mouth.

Whoa! Seems like you have great success with leaf pullings. I decided with peat and sand because I was aware of LFS setups becoming soggy when the parts strike, especially when roots begin to develop. The bags compensate for the drier medium being utilized and keeps humidity levels pretty high.

I kept them under a 125W CFL (6500K). Having more light to work with helps flytraps deal with wetter soil better.

I'm actually getting ready to cut a few flower stalks myself; three of my flytraps that I got from Flytrap Store less than a month ago are already flowering. BZ Razorback and both of my A2's.

I'm now trying to decide if I want to go with LFS, or peat/sand and a poked-up Ziploc. I think the peat/sand/bag method would probably be faster in the end due to the humidity. I just don't like acclimating them back to ambient RH.

LFS is also easier to "mix up" into a pot: grab, soak, drop, done. Not sure if lazy or impatient. lol

Indeed. Peat/sand mix requires a few more steps to setup and as you mentioned, the eventual acclimation to ambient RH. If I were you, I'd stick to LFS since you know it works and have done it firsthand. It's not being lazy or impatient, it's all about convenience.

It's also easy to peek at whether or not I'm getting calluses when using LFS (I just carefully move a top-layer piece aside and look, then put it back). It's easy to get away with this without disturbing the pullings/stalks.

That sounds simple enough. I will wait 2 months out for progress and maybe toss out my setup if I don't see any growth after that.

You should get plantlets; your method is sound.

Thanks for the support, Veronis! I will update when I see change!

Update:

I noticed a "calloused" spot on the Justina Davis leaf pulling today. JD leaf pulling was set on March 5th. Will update in the next few days with pics. No activity on stalks, as of yet.

Awesome, glad they're doing well. Impressive you're already seeing callouses.

I've always wondered if removing and re-inserting pullings/stalks could cause a higher risk of failure with the pulling/stalk. Callouses are very soft, delicate plant tissue. It's entirely possible that disturbing them could interrupt them, kind of like if you repotted a plant several times while it's trying to grow/flower.

Then again, it's also possible that I'm just needlessly spewing untested theories into someone else's thread.