Indoor Grown Nepenthes

[mksmith]

Haven't posted in a while.

Here are some pics of some seedlings.

Nepenthes jamban - cotyledon, germinating these on some sphagnum compactum. You can see one dead middle of the pic and there is another pressed next to it.

Nepenthes murudensis - 7 months old. I only had 10 seeds, luckily a couple germinated.

Nepenthes spectabilis - hard to see in the moss, but growing fast

Nepenthes villosa - 7 month old seedlings, 4 in this pot.

unknown Nepenthes - 6 month old seedling, we will see what happens.

Nepenthes lavicola - cutie seedling

Nepenthes izumiae x veitchii - pretty dark, and this one just opened yesterday.

Heliamphora tatei - Finally getting a flower on this plant. Hard to tell in the pic, will post an updated pic soon.

Graham, sorry for delayed response.... yea macfarlanei is starting to look good, not good enough for a pic yet...

 

[lance]

Nice Pics!
Several questions:
How do you tell if a seed is dead?
How old is the N. lavicola seedling?

 

[thez_yo]

Cool! Hey did you end up getting a tentac outta that place in half moon bay? I'm wondering what color the pitchers are .. though I did end up finding a maroon spotted one fo sho.

 

[meka]

Adorable seedlings, mk. Keep us updated as they grow.

 

[robthered]

Hey man,

Awesome setup I love it! kinda like mine except that I rigged my AC cooling rad to fit right into the tank. The RH was fine for the most part. It would drop to 65-70% but then rise when my control unit would turn on the humidifier.

The A/C unit is positioned on a plastic crate overtop of a platic tub that collects access water from the A/C.

I you want to get rid of the tray below the AC you can remove the eval fan from behind the cooling rad. If you do this the AC will no longer collect water and should run dry. Just a suggestion if you dont like the tray under it, or find it a pain having to empty it ever so often. If you want some more specific details on how to do this, it's pretty easy and I can walk you through it. Send me a PM if you like.

Amazing plants BTW, very awesome .

 

[Wire Man]

Excellent to hear! Is that the Sphagnum compactum we found in Surry? Those seedlings are tiny!

 

[ellisonk001]

Wow, everything is looking great!

Thanks for sharing!

 

[mksmith]

How do you tell if a seed is dead?
How old is the N. lavicola seedling?

Lance,

I am not sure there is any absolute way to tell if seed is not viable. Germination will usually occur in 60 days, but I have seen and heard longer. It often depends on how fresh the seed is but 60 days seems to be the average for highland species I have grown. I have experimented with using a tetrazolium chloride solution on seedlings to test viability, but Nepenthes seeds are so small it was hard to deduct one way or another. I think that testing viability may be fruit-less and the true test is simply if they germinate or not. Sometimes I have seen seed develop fungus or rot away, that combined with several months of waiting I can assume they are probably not going to germinate. The Nepenthes lavicola seedlings are 20 months old.

 Hey did you end up getting a tentac outta that place in half moon bay?

Forgot about that tentaculata. I am only growing Gungung Murud BE-3192 clone and a couple seedlings. I had some seed from Sulawesi that got mold.

Adorable seedlings, mk. Keep us updated as they grow.

Thanks Meka, they are cute!

I you want to get rid of the tray below the AC you can remove the eval fan from behind the cooling rad. If you do this the AC will no longer collect water and should run dry. Just a suggestion if you dont like the tray under it, or find it a pain having to empty it ever so often. If you want some more specific details on how to do this, it's pretty easy and I can walk you through it. Send me a PM if you like.

robthered, I actually recycle the water that is collected in the tub that sits under the A/C. It fills up quickly, almost in a couple days and I reuse the water that it is pulling out of the air to refill the humidifier, that system has been working pretty well. I took a reading with a TDS meter and found the water to be less then 15 PPM so I have been using that to refill the humidifier. I would be interested maybe in the future to modify the A/C, but right now I am getting really good numbers. I can get the temperature inside the chamber/box down to 46-49° at night, which is amazing.

Excellent to hear! Is that the Sphagnum compactum we found in Surry? Those seedlings are tiny!

Graham, Yea that is the sphagnum compactum that was collected. It had a really dry piece that was white and frail, I rehydrated it over a month or so. It is a really slow growing sphagnum and the tight heads make a nice bed for seedlings. I think this is going to be the start of the new way I will be germinating seeds. Yes they are tiny and stay that way for a while.

Wow, everything is looking great!

Thanks, I appreciate it.

 

[robthered]

robthered, I actually recycle the water that is collected in the tub that sits under the A/C. It fills up quickly, almost in a couple days and I reuse the water that it is pulling out of the air to refill the humidifier, that system has been working pretty well. I took a reading with a TDS meter and found the water to be less then 15 PPM so I have been using that to refill the humidifier. I would be interested maybe in the future to modify the A/C, but right now I am getting really good numbers. I can get the temperature inside the chamber/box down to 46-49° at night, which is amazing.

Wow that's an amazing idea. I think I might look into doing something like that instead of my current setup.

 

[Devon]

woooaahhh....

 

[Wire Man]

That's exactly why we collected that Sphagnum. We need to work on some serious propagation efforts with it.
The N. lavicola are going to be interesting.

 

[Dexenthes]

Excellent seedlings, of course, it will be great to see them mature.

Also I am extremely interested in that compact Sphagnum species. very nice!

 

[vraev]

Amazing pics Michael. Man! I love that sphagnum. If I could, I would grow a nice collection of sphagnum varities on its own. lol! I love that compactumm.

 

[Physalaemus]

Sorry to thread hijack,

but Amph....why u no keep same avatar for longer than a week?

 

[mksmith]

Here are some updated pics.

Nepenthes trusmadiensis - Kinda furry and red

Nepenthes lowii x truncata - I am pleased with the coloration, newest leaf is scary big, typical truncata characteristic.

Nepenthes fusca... or could it be Nepenthes hurreliana?

Nepenthes eymae x jacqulineae - How sick are the uppers going to be on this cross?

Nepenthes lavicola - This is my biggest of a few dozen seedlings. Finally getting the darker coloration.

Nepenthes macrophylla - 4 year old plant hitting a growth spurt.

Nepenthes naga seedlings - finally looking like a nepnethes. These are a year old. Can you make out that seedling just getting started in the front, proof that sometimes it take a while to germinate a seed.

Nepenthes edwardsiana - Just made a jump in pitcher size. Doubled the last produced pitcher. This particular plant last year was producing dark red pitchers, then green with red peristomes, now kinda yellow looking. I wonder if this the typical progression?

 

[thez_yo]

I think you got some technical difficulties posting pics.. I tried to look on that server for photos too and nothing

 

[mksmith]

@Thez

Thanks for the info. I have been doing some domain consolidation this morning and messing around with DNS records. It should be fine now if you do a hard refresh.

Sorry for the technical problems.

 

[thez_yo]

Nope, I still don't see anything, and I don't see anything at the domain either

 

[mksmith]

LOL. Ok moved all the images to another server... should be good now.

 

[Smitty]

Wicked! Great looking pitchers Mksmith!