Hello everyone! I have tried to germinate Drosophyllum probably 4 times over the years and have never had any success at all. I was kindly given another batch of seeds recently to try yet again. This time I decided to trash the "lightly sand and soak" method and I moved onto cutting a tiny tiny sliver of the seed coat off of the thick side of the seed and soaking. I had intended to soak only 8 hours or so but had forgotten about them till the next morning (since I had set them on my router in hopes of it keeping the water a tad warmer than it would just sitting in a glass on my desk) so lets say they soaked for about about 16 hours. They were then sown on top of pure vermiculite in a 6" terracotta pot constantly sitting on a tray of water (I won't lie, it did dry out a couple times but the vermiculite was definitely still wet.) This pot was set on a second shelf in the heated greenhouse (55-60f night and 85-90 day) but it was in almost direct current of the cooler. So I would contest that the daytime temps were often as low as night (or close to) except when the cooler was not running.
I had used colored tooth picks to mark which seeds were treated how (just soaked, cut and soaked, not pre treated at all) but unfortunately I cannot find that sheet! I'm pretty sure red was cut and soaked, black was just soaked and plain was no special treatment... But at this point I cannot say for sure. I think one of the kids walked off with it to color on it.
Anyway! 3 weeks to under 1 month of sowing the seeds I came to find this
I was super excited and so go the camera to take pictures! While taking pictures I found something else... did you see it? Top left corner by the black tooth pick?
Ahhh two successes! and by two different germination methods even. Then next day I grabbed the extra pots I had purchased just in case I had success so I could pot them up and made up the media (2 parts perlite, 1 part silica sand, half part vermiculite, half part peat) and created the slack pot (6" inner pot and 10" outer pot I believe) and I tossed both of the seedlings in their new homes by making tiny holes in the media, and transplanting the seeds with the little "scoop" of media from the seedling pot. They looked like this 6e days after the move.
Two days after that, I finally get in contact with the kind fella that gave me the seeds and got him up to date on what I had done. It is then that he informed me he had read that it's probably not a good idea to have them together... but they'll probably be fine. Well, I didn't want to take a risk on that (and I would prefer have one in the middle of their own pot anyway and how big could their roots be anyway?!) The next day I bought a new pot (picked up a 12" outer and a 6" inner) and made up the same media and began my careful move of both plants. One to the center of the current pot, and one to the center of the new setup. It turns out the small plant of the two still did not have much of a root system, but the larger one had a root that had to be 3/4 of an inch long already (much longer than the height of the plant).
As of yesterday, both plants are growing VERY well I think. I am (obviously) super happy to see that they're both still in growth and seem to be doing great. Hopefully I can keep it up
And lastly, I'll share with you my whole Drosophyllum set up. Again, this is in my heated greenhouse but where the cooler hits so there is not anything else in the general area (since all the cold stuff is over in the unheated greenhouse and all the stuff in here wants to be warm) but this is the south side of the greenhouse so there is really good light. I have decided to keep the water level a bit higher for the sprouted plants until they get to their next set of leaves but the water level is still below where the inner pot is. the pot on the right is the seedling pot and the white cup above that is another thing I was trying... an untreated seed sitting on top of water logged perlite. It has not sprouted yet but is also not mushy nor does it have any fungal issues that I can see.
Thanks for sharing this experience with me! Hopefully the information is a tiny bit entertaining or maybe even helps someone else (finally) be successful with these guys!
Andrew
I had used colored tooth picks to mark which seeds were treated how (just soaked, cut and soaked, not pre treated at all) but unfortunately I cannot find that sheet! I'm pretty sure red was cut and soaked, black was just soaked and plain was no special treatment... But at this point I cannot say for sure. I think one of the kids walked off with it to color on it.
Anyway! 3 weeks to under 1 month of sowing the seeds I came to find this
I was super excited and so go the camera to take pictures! While taking pictures I found something else... did you see it? Top left corner by the black tooth pick?
Ahhh two successes! and by two different germination methods even. Then next day I grabbed the extra pots I had purchased just in case I had success so I could pot them up and made up the media (2 parts perlite, 1 part silica sand, half part vermiculite, half part peat) and created the slack pot (6" inner pot and 10" outer pot I believe) and I tossed both of the seedlings in their new homes by making tiny holes in the media, and transplanting the seeds with the little "scoop" of media from the seedling pot. They looked like this 6e days after the move.
Two days after that, I finally get in contact with the kind fella that gave me the seeds and got him up to date on what I had done. It is then that he informed me he had read that it's probably not a good idea to have them together... but they'll probably be fine. Well, I didn't want to take a risk on that (and I would prefer have one in the middle of their own pot anyway and how big could their roots be anyway?!) The next day I bought a new pot (picked up a 12" outer and a 6" inner) and made up the same media and began my careful move of both plants. One to the center of the current pot, and one to the center of the new setup. It turns out the small plant of the two still did not have much of a root system, but the larger one had a root that had to be 3/4 of an inch long already (much longer than the height of the plant).
As of yesterday, both plants are growing VERY well I think. I am (obviously) super happy to see that they're both still in growth and seem to be doing great. Hopefully I can keep it up
And lastly, I'll share with you my whole Drosophyllum set up. Again, this is in my heated greenhouse but where the cooler hits so there is not anything else in the general area (since all the cold stuff is over in the unheated greenhouse and all the stuff in here wants to be warm) but this is the south side of the greenhouse so there is really good light. I have decided to keep the water level a bit higher for the sprouted plants until they get to their next set of leaves but the water level is still below where the inner pot is. the pot on the right is the seedling pot and the white cup above that is another thing I was trying... an untreated seed sitting on top of water logged perlite. It has not sprouted yet but is also not mushy nor does it have any fungal issues that I can see.
Thanks for sharing this experience with me! Hopefully the information is a tiny bit entertaining or maybe even helps someone else (finally) be successful with these guys!
Andrew