FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Do VFTs grow at night at all? If so, do they do that as much as other plants?

There's no difference between a VFT and any given other plant capable of photosynthesis regarding their light-independent metabolism

So do VFTs and other plants grow at night?

Yes,
They continue metabolizing sugar at night. During the day, a plant focuses on building up a stock of CO2 from the air. At night the focus shifts towards glucose production from H2O and CO2.

Some biosynthesis pathways of cellular material do not require light and these will also continue during the night.

In fact, during the night a plant actually consumes more O2 than it takes up CO2 from the air, so at night, the plant is "breathing" just as we humans, only in a lot smaller volumes of O2 and CO2 gas..

So is the plant growth rate constant through the 24 hours?

No, at night you'll see a significant decrease in metabolism rate the longer it's dark.
The plant is on it's slowest just before sunrise.

Is that a function of temperature? What if the temperature and humidity was kept constant?

No that's a function of light.
The function of temperature is catalytic inside the plant.
Some metabolic reactions will go a lot faster at their optimal temperature, which in human metabolism is 37C or 98F, but i don't know the optimum for a VFT metabolism

I'm guessing that bringing plants in for the night would help them grow then?

Yea i guess it is

Haven't thought of that myself...

I live in a similar climate to yours, Niels. Here is my revised plan for growing my plants to extend their growing season and get flower stalks starting in Feb hopefully:

May - November: grow plants outside 24/7 rain or shine.
December - January: bring indoors*
February - April: put outside into sunshine on warm** days otherwise keep inside off the ground so temps get over 20 degrees.

* this will be in a south facing large window on the floor where temps range from 5 - 10 celcius due to a draft.
** 12 celcius or higher