FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

On January 18th, 2018, I received my young, dormant SD Kronos. This is what it looks like today, as it is starting to come out of dormancy and grow new, large traps. One of the small dormant traps was closed several days ago when I got home from work. It opened today and it turns out it caught a fruit fly that was in my apartment. I get fruit flies when I buy bananas. I hope it starts catching silverfish too. They are a real pest in my apartment complex.

Looks great! I've never seen any of mine catch a silverfish. They're quick and sleek!

You must have good lighting for that to grow that fast in 20 days!? Looks awesome. Looks like a few plants in there also. BTW, imho, Silverfish and Camel Crickets are the grossest bugs ever. I'm scared a Silverfish will get in my ear. And a Camel Cricket can hide in your house and keep you awake chirping all night. yeicks!

Fly Trap Hunter wrote:You must have good lighting for that to grow that fast in 20 days!? Looks awesome. Looks like a few plants in there also. BTW, imho, Silverfish and Camel Crickets are the grossest bugs ever. I'm scared a Silverfish will get in my ear. And a Camel Cricket can hide in your house and keep you awake chirping all night. yeicks!

I am growing under two 18 inch Sunblaster LED light strips, approximately 6 inches above the top of the plant. My PAR meter reads 450 PPFD at the top of the plant and 350 at the level of the surface of the long fiber sphagnum it is growing in. I have the plant growing on a 20 hour photoperiod. Past 18 hours photoperiod, some plants will initially grow faster, only to weeks later start to show injuries and deformities due to a lack of enough dark hours per day. The most usual symptom that a long photoperiod is hurting the plant is intervascular leaf chlorosis, which is yellowing in the non-vein parts of the leaf.

Many plant species grow significantly faster under a 20 hour or even 24 hour photoperiod.

Jagasian wrote:

Fly Trap Hunter wrote:You must have good lighting for that to grow that fast in 20 days!? Looks awesome. Looks like a few plants in there also. BTW, imho, Silverfish and Camel Crickets are the grossest bugs ever. I'm scared a Silverfish will get in my ear. And a Camel Cricket can hide in your house and keep you awake chirping all night. yeicks!

I am growing under two 18 inch Sunblaster LED light strips, approximately 6 inches above the top of the plant. My PAR meter reads 450 PPFD at the top of the plant and 350 at the level of the surface of the long fiber sphagnum it is growing in. I have the plant growing on a 20 hour photoperiod. Past 18 hours photoperiod, some plants will initially grow faster, only to weeks later start to show injuries and deformities due to a lack of enough dark hours per day. The most usual symptom that a long photoperiod is hurting the plant is intervascular leaf chlorosis, which is yellowing in the non-vein parts of the leaf.

Many plant species grow significantly faster under a 20 hour or even 24 hour photoperiod.

I was wondering about photoperiod with venus fly traps. I know some plants grow when they sleep.
My sundews dont get a dormancy and can be in LEDs 24 hours a day. I have leaf cuttings that are under LEDs almost 24/7 and are doing great. I have about 1000 lumens over the sundews. They are about to bloom too.

The issue is not growing when it is dark. At the nano scale, plants have antenna-like structures that harvest photons. These structures have to dissipate excess light, heat, etc, while repairing damage, removing free radicals, etc. Some plants lack the genes that are needed for this cleanup and repair process to run at the pace of photosynthesis during daytime... and nighttime is used to catch up.

The domesticated tomato is an example of a plant that develops dramatic leaf injury if photoperiod is above 18 hours per day. The genes were lost during the hundreds of years of inbreeding forced upon the species as a part of domestication. Scientists have identified the missing gene in a close wild relative of the domesticated tomato, and the result is a domesticated tomato cultivar that grows healthy under continuous light and zero darkness. The result is tomatoe plants that are 20% more productive over the same time period:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5549.pdf

I doubt venus fly traps are as severely inbred as the domesticated tomato, but there is still a chance that its wild species does not have the genes required for growing under continuous light.

A picture from the side. The trap looks huge in real life. The small Petsmart live crickets will not be large enough... I will have to start feeding it the large crickets from Petsmart.

A picture from tonight. Is that a flower stalk peeking out?

SD Kronos is a great cultivar to have. Here's a photo of mine from last year.

Here is a time lapse video of the young-sized dormant SD Kronos I purchased 5 weeks ago.
https://twitter.com/lukeevanssimon/stat ... 0566806529

Every new trap it puts up is larger than the previous trap.

Looking awesome!!!

The main growth point’s rosette circle split itself open (big red arrow), and its growth has dramatically shifted to the bottom-right of the photo. The second growth point (small red arrow) continues to grow, but is still producing traps that are small compared to the main growth point. A third growth point popped out beneath one of the large traps (small blue arrow). Due to the shade from the big trap, the growth point is struggling, putting up wide lettuce-like leaves with microscopic traps. It has one trap that is visible and not microscopic, though not yet fully formed.

I am not going to separate the growth points, but instead will let the plant find the architectural layout that works for it.

Jagasian wrote:

0E921C0D-551F-4BC7-8967-72DFCC54EDDC.jpeg

The main growth point’s rosette circle split itself open (big red arrow), and its growth has dramatically shifted to the bottom-right of the photo. The second growth point (small red arrow) continues to grow, but is still producing traps that are small compared to the main growth point. A third growth point popped out beneath one of the large traps (small blue arrow). Due to the shade from the big trap, the growth point is struggling, putting up wide lettuce-like leaves with microscopic traps. It has one trap that is visible and not microscopic, though not yet fully formed.

I am not going to separate the growth points, but instead will let the plant find the architectural layout that works for it.

FTC usually sends a few plants or more in starter pots. They were just waiting for your care to make them grow

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what's it hunting for, king kong?

Jagasian wrote:

0E921C0D-551F-4BC7-8967-72DFCC54EDDC.jpeg

The main growth point’s rosette circle split itself open (big red arrow), and its growth has dramatically shifted to the bottom-right of the photo. The second growth point (small red arrow) continues to grow, but is still producing traps that are small compared to the main growth point. A third growth point popped out beneath one of the large traps (small blue arrow). Due to the shade from the big trap, the growth point is struggling, putting up wide lettuce-like leaves with microscopic traps. It has one trap that is visible and not microscopic, though not yet fully formed.

I am not going to separate the growth points, but instead will let the plant find the architectural layout that works for it.

I didn't see it before but looks like you have a flower starting. I would like to see your light experiment with a notoriously slow Red Dragon. I have one that is flowering. I would let you have it after it flowers if you want to see what it does?

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