FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Also, this thread got totally hijacked...

Thank you very much 209 for your explanation of your watering system and why you prefer mist irrigation to ebb and flow. I'm surprised that the suspended irrigation system has 3% or less variance between the amount of water that falls on every location beneath it. That's great.

Thanks also for the explanation of your region, climate conditions and greenhouse covering.

209 wrote:I have never been to Europe. Is that where you are from?

Hah, no, but there is this thing called the interwebz (I think?) and you can communicate with people from all over the world on it. Sorry...I couldn't help myself

When I first started looking for flytrap varieties to collect back in 2007, I kept finding the ones I wanted on EU sites but only a handful (perhaps 4 or 5 clones I considered worth growing) for sale in the US. So I started trying to obtain various varieties that originated in the EU and clone and propagate them to make them more widely available here.

209 wrote:if it does not look "healthy" to a layman, then they do not put it in their shopping cart.

Yep, I've noticed the same thing when selling to people that have never seen one before. They simply look right past the unusual ones and right at the larger, fuller plants. When I sell in person, I don't even bring named varieties, but just really nice looking seed-grown flytraps and typical-looking flytraps which, somewhat ironically, don't sell all that well at the FlytrapStore.

209 wrote:I breed for bombproof plants which can succeed even when they are abused and ignored.

That's great! We too breed for large, robust plants, but we haven't done any selective breeding for plants that are more tolerant to high mineral levels or anything like that. I wonder where the limit is when breeding for plants that can handle high mineral levels in their water? Have you found that you can actually breed plants to grow in potting soil or to be repeatedly watered with 300 ppm water that's high in calcium and magnesium?

Matt wrote: Have you found that you can actually breed plants to grow in potting soil or to be repeatedly watered with 300 ppm water that's high in calcium and magnesium?

Yes, I have a clone now in production which can survive being irrigated with 0.7 EC water(so cal tap water) indefinitely. It will have some leaf deformations at this level of salts but the traps will still work and the plant will survive.

Why do you guys use TDS instead of EC?

209 wrote:Yes, I have a clone now in production which can survive being irrigated with 0.7 EC water(so cal tap water) indefinitely. It will have some leaf deformations at this level of salts but the traps will still work and the plant will survive.

That sounds impressive, but I have no idea how 0.7 EC water translates to TDS. Do you know the conversion?

209 wrote:Why do you guys use TDS instead of EC?

Good question! I guess because someone once wrote that water under 50 PPM is definitely safe to use on flytraps, and, as often happens, I just assumed that TDS was the thing to check when testing water for CPs because it was the only thing I've ready about. Isn't EC essentially the same as TDS except the numbers are different? I believe that one of the forum members here (95slvrZ28) wrote a formula for converting between EC and TDS of water...but my memory may be faulty.

Matt wrote:That sounds impressive, but I have no idea how 0.7 EC water translates to TDS. Do you know the conversion?

There are multiple conversion scales.
One scale states that EC 1.0 == 640 ppm TDS (most popular I have seen)
Another scale states that EC 1.0 == 500 ppm TDS (less common)
Yet another scale states that EC 1.0 == 700 ppm TDS (less common)
The highest conversion scale I have seen states that EC 1.0 == 750 ppm TDS (somewhat common in older equipment)

Depending on the conversion factor you use, 0.7 EC == 448ppm, 350ppm, 490ppm, or 525ppm
I apologize that I cannot give you a more exact number than that.

Matt wrote: Isn't EC essentially the same as TDS except the numbers are different? I believe that one of the forum members here (95slvrZ28) wrote a formula for converting between EC and TDS of water...but my memory may be faulty.

EC = mS/cm = 1/(resistance across the resistor)

If you want to graph it, it is 1/x with a domain of 0<=x<infinity with 0 being a superconductive magic material with no resistance and infinity being a vacuum.

EC is the universal language. PPM meters read the EC and convert it into TDS. As you can see above, this conversion is rather inconsistent. I do not know why this is the case but a possible reason for this inconsistency could be differences in the electrical hardware. The equipment from each company could respond slightly differently at different ranges and the electrical engineers would have to alter their formula to make their results fall into the TDS standard.

This sort of craziness is why I prefer data in the most raw form that I can manage to understand in order to avoid as many academic "opinions" as possible.

209 wrote:Why do you guys use TDS instead of EC?

I'm guessing because the cheap TDS meters most of us use (like the HM-Digital TDS-EZ), although they measure EC (electro-conductivity), display the result of the measurement numerically as PPM (parts per million) of TDS (total dissolved solids).

209 wrote: I live and work in northern San Diego county in southern California.

Oh wow. I would love to visit your facility! I live in Central SD!

209 wrote:

parker679 wrote:What would you say is the rate of significant mutations you see in your plants? As in how many do you typically throw out versus the total plant count?

This isn't something that I keep hard data on but my gut feeling is a major mutation every 1 in 10,000. This is rather disconcerting as 100% of my production is tissue culture clones.....damn cosmic rays! Mutating my mutant plants!

That's exactly why I was curious. Since you use 100% clones any mutations would be pure genetic mutation as opposed to something caused by cross pollination. Very interesting.

parker679 wrote: That's exactly why I was curious. Since you use 100% clones any mutations would be pure genetic mutation as opposed to something caused by cross pollination. Very interesting.

It just goes to show ya how unstable these little guys are.

Steve_D wrote: I'm guessing because the cheap TDS meters most of us use (like the HM-Digital TDS-EZ), although they measure EC (electro-conductivity), display the result of the measurement numerically as PPM (parts per million) of TDS (total dissolved solids).

Ah I see...
A HM-Digital TDS-EZ costs ~$20.
A MyronL AG-5 costs ~$200.
A FieldScout EC meter costs ~$365.

This is a rather large jump in equipment costs. I'd understand if people skimped in this department.

209 wrote:I live and work in northern San Diego county in southern California.

Where? I live closeby

Nice setup! I picked up a few of your plants at a local Home Depot about two months ago and they have proven to be very vigorous.

Tony C wrote:Nice setup! I picked up a few of your plants at a local Home Depot about two months ago and they have proven to be very vigorous.

Early March? hummm....A lot of people sell venus flytraps to Home Depot & Lowes. I have no idea if the ones you picked up were mine.

209 wrote:

Tony C wrote:Nice setup! I picked up a few of your plants at a local Home Depot about two months ago and they have proven to be very vigorous.

Early March? hummm....A lot of people sell venus flytraps to Home Depot & Lowes. I have no idea if the ones you picked up were mine.

They came in the same pots and media shown in your pics instead of the typical round green pots and LFS. If they aren't yours then somebody is copying your methods. They also had stubs from pinched flower stalks, something I've never seen from other growers. My guess would be that they came in by way of one of the brokers you mentioned earlier in the thread.