FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

A few weeks ago I decided to do some experiments with growing a few of the capensis in a different media: cotton. My first reason for picking this material is that it fit a few of the criteria for a good media. It is clean, retains water well, and would promote rooting. My source of choice was untreated makeup remover pads. They're just a convenient size, and are in good supply (thanks to my sister). They also provide a level surface I can place the little plantlets on, as well as seeds. I do not expect this to be a permanent media, and should probably not be used as one (but I'll test that eventually ).

The first thing I noticed was the water retention. I did not have to add any additional water for two weeks! If I used a proportionate amount of LFSM, it would have dried up by then. The cotton pads also wick the water up to the plant very well. The plantlets also showed approval, and put up leaves much larger than previously, and produced healthy amounts of dew from each tentacle. Having had success with the original two plantlets, I recently decided to move in 7 more plantlets from their sphagnum nursery. The new arrivals were of various sizes, three average and two under average size, and one very small one, but all had carnivorous leaves. So far, they are each putting up what will likely be large leaves compared to their previous growth.

Two original test plantlets

The overall group, only one plant out of shot. As you can see, the new arrivals are considerably smaller than the original plants. Yes, this is partially due to less intensive care in their previous environment, but I see this as a good sign regardless.

So far, I have only run into one problem. It seems that they will do fine as long as they have some growth prior to introduction to the cotton media. When I transferred seeds from water germination to the cotton media, they grew slowly, unfolded their non carnivorous leaves, then died. I suspect that this is partially due to a contaminated water germination, which had some kind of fungus or algae growing. it's more hassle, so I do not really see an advantage to water then cotton growing. It's easier to germinate them in sphagnum, wait till they have some more leaves, then transfer them with the piece of sphagnum they started to form roots in. I'll detail this later if the experiment is successful.

My reasoning for trying this is that with extremely small plants, lfsm can be extremely irritating. sometimes a piece will roll over when you try to water it, or will form crevasses that small plants can not root in easily. The cotton is cool too, because I can see the roots growing, and do not have to water as much.
To wrap this up, here is my tokaiensis. It's forming a flower stalk!

What do you guys think?

cool experiment. My first thought was something in the cotton killed the seeds. Maybe if the media was rinsed more. I also wonder is it really cotton or some other fiber? Seems to me cotton would be more likely to mold where plastic would not. I believe you could grow in plastic fibers or plastic chunks. imho

Fly Trap Hunter wrote:cool experiment. My first thought was something in the cotton killed the seeds. Maybe if the media was rinsed more. I also wonder is it really cotton or some other fiber? Seems to me cotton would be more likely to mold where plastic would not. I believe you could grow in plastic fibers or plastic chunks. imho

Maybe. I keep an eye out for mold, but I think there might have been residue in the container of the cotton. There was some type of stringy algae growing with them during their water germination, so I blame that. The only mold problems I have had are when I feed them and they do not finish it, so mold explodes only on that leaf, usually killing the leaf but not the plant. In fact, I have had more mold problems with the sphagnum than the cotton! I think it's partially because the cotton does not touch the leaves as much as the sphagnum. Whenever I fed a leaf that touched sphagnum, there was almost always mold the next day. Instead of the bloodworms, I have been feeding my plants nutritional yeast. The yeast has more nutritional value than bloodworm powder, and is digested much faster by the plants. It digests almost completely,unlike the worms.
I have not seen mold in the cotton yet. It is pretty clean, and I made sure that all of the other containers were clean before planting these current ones. As long as I do not spill food on the cotton, it will probably be mold free. the problem with using plastic is that it tends to break down over time. This process is sometimes slow,but is accelerated by sunlight and water. If anyone wants to try it though, it would be interesting!
Thanks for the feedback!

Update time! The new arrivals are growing very nicely, and the first two have put up nice deep red colored leaves. These plants look extremely healthy! The older ones are starting to root into the cotton, their roots are visible inside.
I might implement this in a larger scale once my shelves arrive.

A potential disadvantage to doing this could be damage to the root hairs during transplantation into its final growth media. The majority of root hairs are microscopic and removal of the cotton could result in transplant stress. The question is if the pros you've found in using cotton as a germination medium outweigh the possible cons.

fattytuna wrote:A potential disadvantage to doing this could be damage to the root hairs during transplantation into its final growth media. The majority of root hairs are microscopic and removal of the cotton could result in transplant stress. The question is if the pros you've found in using cotton as a germination medium outweigh the possible cons.

Yeah, I thought that might be a potential problem. I think that I will have to carefully cut around the roots when that time comes. VERY carefully. Unless the cotton molds for some reason, I think it will be ok, and the plant will root into the final media just fine (I might test if cotton could work as a permanent media, but I digress as usual). We will see when that time comes. Now that I think about it, that might prevent the plant from experiencing as bad of a shock after transplantation (as long as no roots are cut).

What about just placing the cotton peace with the plantlet directly on new media? It will degrade over time and break down, but the roots can go directly through it into the new media. It would make propagation a lot easier

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YaronR wrote:What about just placing the cotton peace with the plantlet directly on new media? It will degrade over time and break down, but the roots can go directly through it into the new media. It would make propagation a lot easier

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That's another technique I was thinking of. If I cut some away, leaving enough room for the roots to avoid damage, it could work great. After I do some more extensive tests with these, this could be a good technique for nurseries. It speeds up the transplantation process, and prevents the plantlets from experiencing as much shock. Since it holds water for a long time and does not break up/ make a mess, it could be used for mailing or shipping the young plants. I have seen that others have tried this for VFT's but not with drosera. Here's some pictures



Lotsa dew visible, as well as some roots.