FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Today while I was at grocery shopping at Aldi I noticed a rack of Rocket Farms VFT death tubes. So, I took a peek. Most of the plants were already dying off except for one, so I snagged it.

I figured a repot would do it some good, and I can always pass it off to someone else if it springs back. It was packed in 100% peat, and appeared to only have 1-2 dead traps. Initially anyways. I am assuming it is some NOID hybrid, which is just fine by me.

After pulling it out, it was worse than I thought, but still overall in good shape. I pulled as much old peat off, then the old peat plug. The old plug didn't want to come off super cleanly so I gave it a wash off in a dish of distilled water.

Well, lucky me, when I was cleaning off the old peat plug in water, two small VFTs came free. One may have been a portion of the rhizome that peeled off, but I'm not entirely certain. I trimmed everything dead off, and then potted each one up.

Everything got potted up into a mix of 2 parts sterilized peat, to 1 part sand, and 1 part perlite. So I ended up with one well established plant, one super tiny plant, and one small but better established plant. Fingers crossed that they all pull through! I'd love to put the little ones outside next summer to help cut down on some bugs a bit.

The two smaller ones are now in a climate controlled Ikea greenhouse under several t5 LED lights, the larger one is in my kitchen under a much stronger repurposed Aerogarden grow light that provides about 2x the PPFD of the t5's.

I'm still new to VFTs so let me know your thoughts!

With Rocket Farms VFT's, expect them to go wild while they still have the TC juices flowing through them. You'll likely get a bunch of divisions over the next year, and they'll likely stay small for a while as well. My RF VFT that I got last year stayed at a trap size of +/- 1/2 inch until about a month ago, and put out around four dozen divisions this year, but mine was in better shape that yours sounds. You should still get a good number of divisions over the next year.
Nice score.

Those guys are buried a little too deep. For good measure you should only put the soil up to the point where the white on the rhizome turns green, no more than that.

ChefDean wrote:With Rocket Farms VFT's, expect them to go wild while they still have the TC juices flowing through them. You'll likely get a bunch of divisions over the next year, and they'll likely stay small for a while as well. My RF VFT that I got last year stayed at a trap size of +/- 1/2 inch until about a month ago, and put out around four dozen divisions this year, but mine was in better shape that yours sounds. You should still get a good number of divisions over the next year.
Nice score.

Thank you! I figured it would be a chance at scoring a few plants, so I'm happy with how it rolled out. I'll keep an eye out for divisions! I think I may actually see another one forming that I missed, but it is super tiny still.

TC is a hormone I take it?

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MaxVft wrote:Those guys are buried a little too deep. For good measure you should only put the soil up to the point where the white on the rhizome turns green, no more than that.

Rad! Thank you for the tip, I was able to give each of them a tug and spritz with distilled water to about the right level.

Does burying too deep tend to cause stem rot?

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msarro wrote: ↑Sat Oct 30, 2021 11:04 pm

MaxVft wrote:Those guys are buried a little too deep. For good measure you should only put the soil up to the point where the white on the rhizome turns green, no more than that.

Rad! Thank you for the tip, I was able to give each of them a tug and spritz with distilled water to about the right level.

Does burying too deep tend to cause stem rot?

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Yeah crown rot tends to occur, and the growth point(middle of the plant) won't be able to push out new leaves from under the soil.

msarro wrote: ↑Sat Oct 30, 2021 11:02 pm TC is a hormone I take it?

TC = Tissue Culture. It's a method for rapidly cloning plants. The chemicals in this process can linger in the plant's tissues, often causing it to produce lots of divisions. The flytraps from Rocket Farms Nursery are famous for this.