FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hey guys, pardon the long introduction.

I was inspired by Aquis31's Burmannii "Perlata" and jumped on the chance to grow some of them. Idk if it was lighting or the fact they were SG (seed grown) but my plants (all 2 of them) didn't turn out with same coloring as the parent. Still, it was a stunning plant and it had a color reminiscent of a sunburst finish on a guitar. Still awesome but it had me inspired to try to shoot for something similar here. I'm hoping to get some interesting stuff going forward and perhaps some different kind of variation.

I don't know about you guys but I suck at growing Burmannii. For some, it's like any other dew but for me personally, I've had terrible germination rates (For some reason exactly 2 out of each pack, 5 separate times ) both with and without Gib. Acid (GA3). I feel like everyone belongs in one category or the other. I'm also doing this for the challenge.

I've done a fair amount of research but don't consider myself anything close to an expert on these so I went with past experience as well as information online to land on how I went about it. This'll be a log of my experience from conditions, germination rates, and crosses (hopefully) as well as what sort of progeny they turn out. Maybe it'll help someone down the line. For this I started with 4 types and I'll probably add some more if the opportunity presents itself.

Types:

D. Burmannii "Perlata" (Hong Kong x. Red (Humpty Doo?)) leftovers
D. Burmannii Giant Red Form
A pack labelled as Green plant Pink Flower
D. Burmannii Nowra NSW

I also have some Humpty Doo and a Typical provided they survived the repot. Damn hitchhiking Utrics :/

Media: Approximately equal parts chopped live sphagnum, peat, and silica sand. Some perlite thrown in for extra drainage. I've tried this before and the Burmannii seemed to really like it. Just have to make sure it doesn't overtake. My repots practically had a stem On the surface, I used a thin layer of milled sphagnum to keep moisture around the seeds. In my experience, I've had much better germination on top of sphagnum. If all goes as it should, the germinated plants should have enough time to sprout and grow a bit. Over time, the live moss should begin to grow and "revive" the dead moss, creating a nice ground layer for the plants as they get older. We'll see.

I've heard Burmannii does well with germination in warmer temperatures. Last time I used a heat mat but this time I threw the plants under the Mars Hydro which gives me better germination overall but also raises the temperature below to about 82+. I enclosed the tray with a humidity dome.

At this point, the goal is to try to get more than two plants Some seeds are older, while some there were very few of. Also since I had leftover media, I decided to plant some other seeds in similar conditions. I'll update this thread periodically in case anyone is interested in how it plays out.

Spark notes/TL; DR

Date Sown: 9/21/21
Media: 30/30/30/10 Live Sphagnum/Peat/Perlite/Silica Sand. Milled sphagnum seed bed
Temperature: 85/70 F
Humidity: 90%+

Experiments! When you get some sprouts, I would love to trade for a small one!

Hmmm, I've never heard of putting live sphag in the potting mix itself before. I'm really interested to see how that goes, In theory its sound like a great idea. Best of luck, yay science!

Rammplins wrote:Hmmm, I've never heard of putting live sphag in the potting mix itself before. I'm really interested to see how that goes, In theory its sound like a great idea. Best of luck, yay science!

I read this once and thought it was a good idea at the time so I went ahead and did it. In theory it sounded great. Providing extra moisture from sphagnum moss while also providing some antibiotic properties to keep the plants healthy. That's how I interpreted it anyway. What ended up happening last time because the ground layer was uncovered, the bits that were resting on the surface grew to create a ground layer of moss. It was nice but it almost overtook the plants. Hence another reason I made a layer of LFS. I wanted the moss layer to be there but I wanted to give it some time before it appeared so my *hope* is that it'll revive the dead stuff over time.

Do you chop up the live stuff before you throw it in the mix, or throw in the live strands/heads and then let the mixing of the media break them up? I want to try this on my next couple seed pots.

Rammplins wrote:Do you chop up the live stuff before you throw it in the mix, or throw in the live strands/heads and then let the mixing of the media break them up? I want to try this on my next couple seed pots.

I chopped the stuff up before I threw in. live version of milled and then I let the mixing disperse it throughout the media. You could probably do either way but I wanted to make it more "compact" and dispersed throughout the entire mix

Good luck friend, I recently made crosses between Venusta, Natalensis, Filiformis and Collinsiae Faryland with Capensis big pink x Hercules x self, I hope to get something interesting, and that you will too.