- Sun Jul 18, 2021 3:43 am
#385148
Hello everyone!
So I’ve never grown any carnivorous plants from seed before I joined this forum but the awesome seedbank here gave me a chance. Being new at this, I wanted to see what others are doing and experiment with some methods myself… So here is my first seed germination experiment and it involves Drosera spatulata seeds from the Seedbank.
(Please note, none of what I’m doing is an original idea but things I remembered from reading somewhere. Unfortunately, because of the hours and hours of google-ing, I can’t exactly remember where each tip came from so I’m sorry I can’t reference anything!)
I used seed germination trays that I had which have drainage holes and humidity domes and set up three trays each with three types of soil mix:
Bottom layer is LFSM (just to keep the peat moss and sand from escaping through the drainage hole)
Middle layer is 50/50 rinsed peat moss and silica sand
Top layer for 1st row is sifted and rinsed peat moss, 2nd row is peat moss/silica sand, and 3rd row is chopped up LFSM All three trays were placed in the same location for better control and had humidity domes over them.
Week 1: No sprouts yet but grass-like things from LFSM are appearing.
Week 2: What looks like algae appearing in LFSM and peat/sand layer but first sprout noted in sifted peat moss layer! Week 3: Algae growth and white mold now in all three layers (guess I needed to rinse things more), also fungus gnat larvae! Picked out any larvae I could find with tweezers.
Week 4: Sprouts in all 3 layers and noticing first initial sprouts from sifted peat moss layer now have carnivorous leaves! Skipping to Week 8: All layers had sprouts eventually with the LFSM layer being the last to produce sprouts which was surprising since I thought it would perform the best.
Although it was more work prepping the sifted peat moss layer, it was my personal favorite since it produced sprouts the fastest and it was much easier to see sprouts or unwanted pests versus the others.
I highly recommend everyone to try their own experiments too! It was so much fun to see what worked for me and what didn’t. Let me know if anyone else has other experiment ideas, I would love to give them a try (if I have all the needed materials, of course).
My second experiment has already started and it involves the use of Neem oil, diluted isopropyl alcohol, vs. nothing for controlling mold growth and unwanted pests to see what is effective.
So I’ve never grown any carnivorous plants from seed before I joined this forum but the awesome seedbank here gave me a chance. Being new at this, I wanted to see what others are doing and experiment with some methods myself… So here is my first seed germination experiment and it involves Drosera spatulata seeds from the Seedbank.
(Please note, none of what I’m doing is an original idea but things I remembered from reading somewhere. Unfortunately, because of the hours and hours of google-ing, I can’t exactly remember where each tip came from so I’m sorry I can’t reference anything!)
I used seed germination trays that I had which have drainage holes and humidity domes and set up three trays each with three types of soil mix:
Bottom layer is LFSM (just to keep the peat moss and sand from escaping through the drainage hole)
Middle layer is 50/50 rinsed peat moss and silica sand
Top layer for 1st row is sifted and rinsed peat moss, 2nd row is peat moss/silica sand, and 3rd row is chopped up LFSM All three trays were placed in the same location for better control and had humidity domes over them.
Week 1: No sprouts yet but grass-like things from LFSM are appearing.
Week 2: What looks like algae appearing in LFSM and peat/sand layer but first sprout noted in sifted peat moss layer! Week 3: Algae growth and white mold now in all three layers (guess I needed to rinse things more), also fungus gnat larvae! Picked out any larvae I could find with tweezers.
Week 4: Sprouts in all 3 layers and noticing first initial sprouts from sifted peat moss layer now have carnivorous leaves! Skipping to Week 8: All layers had sprouts eventually with the LFSM layer being the last to produce sprouts which was surprising since I thought it would perform the best.
Although it was more work prepping the sifted peat moss layer, it was my personal favorite since it produced sprouts the fastest and it was much easier to see sprouts or unwanted pests versus the others.
I highly recommend everyone to try their own experiments too! It was so much fun to see what worked for me and what didn’t. Let me know if anyone else has other experiment ideas, I would love to give them a try (if I have all the needed materials, of course).
My second experiment has already started and it involves the use of Neem oil, diluted isopropyl alcohol, vs. nothing for controlling mold growth and unwanted pests to see what is effective.