FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Decided to do a little experiment with newly saved Dionaea. The pot had two nearly identical plants. Hopefully they have the same genes!

Here we are testing to see differences resulting from repotting bareroot vs keeping some of the original soil around the roots.

•Left pot, "O", was planted in freshly mixed media with previous soil still attached to most of rootball. This pot also contains a smaller plant, kept original soil on roots.
•The pot on the right, "X", was a bareroot repot. Rinsed the roots off completely, then placed in fresh mix.

Media contains 4:2:2 peat, perlite, sand. They have been given the same watering schedule. Hasn't been had fed or managed to catch anything since repotting.

Progress 10 days later...
•Pot "O" shows signs of continued growth, still holding original traps. New traps popping up and a flower that I never noticed gradually emerging. Smaller plant traps are coming out as well.

•Pot "X" no signs of visible growth. Still holding original traps.

Less root disturbance with pot"O", which means less transplant shock. I plant in NZLFS.
Wonder how much it would affect changing from Potting Mix you use to what I use would affect?

No root disturbance will allow the plant to continue growing, bare root repotting has to cause a check in growth whilst the roots adjust to their new environment. They normally catch up quickly though, it will be interesting to see how quickly, or are they going into dormancy?
Cheers
Steve

PitBulMom wrote:Less root disturbance with pot"O", which means less transplant shock. I plant in NZLFS.
Wonder how much it would affect changing from Potting Mix you use to what I use would affect?

Makes sense! I wanted to observe recovery time and changes (if any) with new growth. I've always done a straight bareroot repot with those I've saved from their cubes! Only on a couple new additions that had a straight plug I left alone. Hoping in doing so their original pitchers hold on. Granted, I have experienced two Sarracenia bareroot repots that kept theirs and have been slowly pushing out new one maybe a couple weeks after the fact.

Perhaps when I have many more plants to experiment with I will try that one. I'm a fan of peat, all my plants are peat based. I guess at this point I've come to discover a watering schedule that works for us. There are many benefits to using LFS, I like what I like tho! Haha. I see myself using it more with Sarracenia and Nepenthes (live moss) so far. Still learning the preferred conditions of my plants with hands on experience and research!

steve booth wrote:No root disturbance will allow the plant to continue growing, bare root repotting has to cause a check in growth whilst the roots adjust to their new environment. They normally catch up quickly though, it will be interesting to see how quickly, or are they going into dormancy?
Cheers
Steve

Glad to hear from you again, Steve! Well, as stated above I've always done bareroot so I really wanted to observe the changes. Although, you brought a good point up about dormancy. They are growing as if they aren't entering it yet. I could take them inside. Except I have no lights to trick them to continue growing... They've been in my conditions/ acclimating for almost a month now so I'm not sure what they're up to in terms of "cycle". One has a flower creeping up so it seems they have no idea what season it is. Haha. Pointless experiment due to it being winter and I grow outdoors?