FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I get 30 seeds from a friend and he got those seeds of his typical VFTs, they were very fresh and I got over 90% germination success, but they all look exactly like typical VFTs. This makes me happy and sad at same time

But that makes me wonder, if with 30 seeds i didnt get any different quality or mutation, how much seeds from a typical VFTs i must need to get one like the photos that are posted here (The FTS Seed Grown VFT Thread)? Probably 200 to get 1 uncommon exemplar.

Is there any article or experiment done to get some rates like percentages and chances of "mutations" happening? I really like numbers

Tell your experiences and successes.

Yeah, grow them and find out. Those seed growns on the thread didn’t all come from magical VFTs

I heard VFTs have a lot more mutations than other plants. I sowed nearly 500 capensis seeds and all of them look exactly like clones of the mother.

If you want to increase genetic mutations, there is a whole list of mutagens (UVC, Gamma Rays, X-Rays, and a lot of chemicals) that can increase mutation.

I'm going to experiment with putting capensis seeds in TC and shining UVC light on them. I hope that will make mutations.

Lots of the “mutations” like short, triangular teeth or all red plants are genetic traits that carry from generation to generation. If the seeds came from typical flytraps, they’re unlikely to show up. But if they’re from red flytraps or short-toothed ones, they’re quite likely to show up.

My casual observations suggest that red coloration can be carried in a recessive fashion from green flytraps: I’ve got a few typical-colored flytraps that, when selfed, produce almost exactly 1/4 red plants (which you’d expect from a single-gene recessive trait).

Like most plants, if you use high-quality parents, you’re likely gonna get high quality offspring.

Copper2 wrote:Yeah, grow them and find out. Those seed growns on the thread didn’t all come from magical VFTs

Yeah, thats exactly what i have done. They are not adult plants with 3~4 years old, but it's 10 months old

Nepenthes0260 wrote:I heard VFTs have a lot more mutations than other plants. I sowed nearly 500 capensis seeds and all of them look exactly like clones of the mother.

If you want to increase genetic mutations, there is a whole list of mutagens (UVC, Gamma Rays, X-Rays, and a lot of chemicals) that can increase mutation.

I'm going to experiment with putting capensis seeds in TC and shining UVC light on them. I hope that will make mutations.

That can be very interesting, good lucky and please share the results

bananaman wrote:Lots of the “mutations” like short, triangular teeth or all red plants are genetic traits that carry from generation to generation. If the seeds came from typical flytraps, they’re unlikely to show up. But if they’re from red flytraps or short-toothed ones, they’re quite likely to show up.

My casual observations suggest that red coloration can be carried in a recessive fashion from green flytraps: I’ve got a few typical-colored flytraps that, when selfed, produce almost exactly 1/4 red plants (which you’d expect from a single-gene recessive trait).

Like most plants, if you use high-quality parents, you’re likely gonna get high quality offspring.

Thats what i was talking about, almost everywhere says that its complety random, but i think the same way as you, that some mutations can be carried by the DNA

Im from Brazil, and we have a poor carnivorous plant community, the kind that will laugh in your face if you say that you bought some seeds from VFTs cultivars and paid a few more cents for it
Its a small community, if u consider the size of the country, and very closed-minded, that makes me really sad

Nepenthes0260 wrote:If you want to increase genetic mutations, there is a whole list of mutagens (UVC, Gamma Rays, X-Rays, and a lot of chemicals) that can increase mutation.

Cool, like they did on Gilligan's Island! Maybe we'll get a venus squirreltrap...

bananaman wrote: My casual observations suggest that red coloration can be carried in a recessive fashion from green flytraps: I’ve got a few typical-colored flytraps that, when selfed, produce almost exactly 1/4 red plants (which you’d expect from a single-gene recessive trait).

Interesting. I guess my Maroon Monster x Typical experiment is going to lead to some one sided result...

_-SphagnumFromHell-_ wrote: Interesting. I guess my Maroon Monster x Typical experiment is going to lead to some one sided result...

I’m certain it is more complicated than a single recessive gene — I just believe parts of it may be inherited that way. IIRC, 'Akai Ryu' came from a cross between a red flytrap and a green one. Also, there’s a good variety of different "red" colors that can show up. Some are more purpley than others. And there’s variation in the location of the red. That’ll be an interesting cross!

Likely a handful of both dominant and recessive genes control the redness of a flytrap. So there would be a gene for the color of the inside of the trap, another for the rim of the trap, and then another gene for the outside color of the trap. And we haven’t even got to the color of the actual leaf! Remember each gene has its own alleles. Then genes can be partly dominant so you could be seeing a mix of two different genes expressing themselves at the same time.

You could watch your flytraps and see which parts color up independently from each other. You then could assign a gene to each area, and research what different crosses between plants produce. Then you can guess which colors are recessive, dominant, and so on. This would allow you to sort of predict hybrid offspring color

All this talk about genetics is making want to brush up on my 9th grade biology.