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D. falconeri leaf cutting

I took 3 D. falconeri leaf cuttings back on September 9th, and after a few weeks on the heating pad, they looked like they were getting cooked alive, so I removed them from the heating pad onto another shelf with the rest of my Drosera.

I gave it about a month on the shelf before giving up on them. Of course, I try to adhere to the motto of "never give up on a plant" whenever possible, so instead of throwing the cuttings out, I placed them on the floor "out of the way" with some of my plant supplies.

Today, I "found" these cuttings again. They are floating in RO water btw, that's the method I use. And to my suprise there was a nice green 1/4" diameter falconeri plant, and another 1/8" plantlet!
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I can't repeat what I said that very moment on this forum
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So please, anyone out there with cuttings... a place on the floor with little light is better than the trash can, even for Woolies!

No camera today, so I can't post the pic. Here's a photo of the parent plant though

falconeri.jpg


-Homer
 
Good job Homer.

The Heliamphora heterodoxa x minor is doing great...........Finally!
 
Wow...beautiful plant Homer!

Its too bad falconeri isn't more available. Lots of people would love to have that one in their collections.
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Great job on cuttings. I had success with that method with D. slackii.
 
Hi Homer,
Great job! 2 D. falconeri strikes! How's that for a pleasant surprise when you're not expecting it?

I think JanW is on to something with his propagation method - bright light isn't necessary. I know my 1st large scale effort was with over 100 leaf pullings from more than 9 different plants in high heat (103-105*F) and high light. Zero strikes!
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Wow was that depressing. More recently - got 5/6 strikes with a green D. petiolaris following (or trying to follow) his directions.

Now - where's the pics???
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Oooooh..... aaah! Beautiful plant!
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Its too bad falconeri isn't more available. Lots of people would love to have that one in their collections.

I agree. I would love to have one in my collection but I can never find one anywhere
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[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I think JanW is on to something with his propagation method - bright light isn't necessary. I know my 1st large scale effort was with over 100 leaf pullings from more than 9 different plants in high heat (103-105*F) and high light. Zero strikes!

Hmm, I thought high heat was the trick to these woolies?
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Now I'm confused. What was so different in your setup to get zero strikes to 5 out of 6? The lack of light?

The camera's at work. I pulled about 6 more cuttings last night.. hopefully there will be more falconeri in the future, then I can trade/sell them away
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-Homer
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]hopefully there will be more falconeri in the future, then I can trade/sell them away

I really hope there will be more plants. Keep me in mind for when they come around!
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Now I'm confused. What was so different in your setup to get zero strikes to 5 out of 6? The lack of light?
Zero success setup:
- dedicated tank w temps 103-105*F
- cuttings in distilled H2O in a small plastic multi-compartment box w/ lid approx 5" from lights (all lights are from AHSupply.com)

5/6 strikes setup (attempt to mimic JanW's setup exactly):
- cuttings placed in distilled water in ziplok bags
- ziplok bags placed on cheap (thin) paper plate on one end of fluorescent light fixture (on top)
- light fixture is on top of a tank in an east-facing window (gets a few hours of AM sun) - so the ziplok bags got a few hours of direct sun per day and the rest of the day got diffused light

The bottom line is I'm not sure what changes definitely created better conditions. Less light and lower temps may have been significant but based on a temp probe under the ziploks - the temps peaked at about 107-108*F in the AM sun and later decreased to 93-95*F in the afternoon (difficult profile to duplicate if it's found to be significant).

If I can find the time to create another
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new setup, I'd like to set up a tank under normal (48" dual shoplight fixture) with an easy-to-vary heat setup. With the new setup, I'd like to vary temps and light intensity and attempt to optimize propagation parameters for these plants. Forbes has had tremendous success propagating almost all species in this complex (both glabrous and pubescent). We need to incorporate his knowledge / experience into this process.

In general, these plants can be difficult:
- to grow
- to propagate
- to get thru dormancy
- to get to produce seed

Each step that we can simplify to a step-by-step process will allow more people to grow this group of plants. They are far too diverse and intriguing a group to have so few people growing them
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. If most of the people who now want D. falconeri's got them, most of the plants would be dead in a few months...
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... a travesty...
 
  • #10
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] If most of the people who now want D. falconeri's got them, most of the plants would be dead in a few months... ... a travesty...

So are you saying these sundews are hard to grow? How hard....?
 
  • #11
I forgot to ask...Where did you guys originally get your D. falconeri?

I've been looking everwhere online and I can't seem to find ANYWHERE that sells these plants!
 
  • #12
[b said:
Quote[/b] (LLeopardGGecko @ Nov. 15 2005,12:05)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] ] If most of the people who now want D. falconeri's got them, most of the plants would be dead in a few months... ... a travesty...

So are you saying these sundews are hard to grow? How hard....?
Some people find them 'easy' and others - virtually impossible. I won't pretend to be able to summarize the many posts (here & cpuk) on these plants.

Most of the people here know of Tamlin's ability to grow Drosera. Here's one of his old posts:
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]I find that some bottom heat for germination works well with nearly eveything (exceptions being the Australian tuberous and South African winter growers). Others have said they got good Petiolaris complex seed germination under normal temperatures. It probably all depends on the color of your thumb anyways!

I sure wish they did grow faster. It seems like there is no generalizing about growth rates though. I had a D. ordensis seedling that went from a 3.5 cm baby rosette to a lush full plant filling a 4 inch pot in a matter of a couple of months. My D. dilatato-petiolaris grew huge quickly, then split into 8 plants, then went dormant, and died. Some sit there looking great, but not growing much at all. I have had 3 traps unfold over night in D. darwiniensis, but D. petiolaris shrunk from a full rosette of many arms to a ghost of itself after flowering. Now it is returning with 4 offsets: all of which look small and frail. I find them hard to generalize about. Mine have survived being frozen solid, and baked to where all the arms withered both in the same year.

The longer I grow them, the more I am convinced that they are very locked into a cyclic seasonal growth pattern very much photoperiod related. Their growth is a spiral dance outwards, and then back inwards as the days get shorter. More and more I begin to question the wisdom of forestalling dormancy in these plants although it is true that they will forego it if they have enough light, warmth and moisture. I just feel that they want something more natural, and they sort of "see through" whatever photoperiod I provide. Even with my current 18H photoperiod, the spiral effect is noted in my plants, almost like they were ignoring the puny flourescent lights in favor of the sun. The arms are spiraling downwards, getting smaller and it reminds me very much of pygmy gemmae formation.

I have only grown these plants for 2 years, but this is how they are speaking to me. They seem to be very responsive plants, and they communicate what they do and do not like fairly evidently and quickly unlike some other plants which one moment are great looking and the next withered memories (Heliamphora come to mind here
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)
 
  • #13
[b said:
Quote[/b] (LLeopardGGecko @ Nov. 15 2005,12:14)]I forgot to ask...Where did you guys originally get your D. falconeri?

I've been looking everwhere online and I can't seem to find ANYWHERE that sells these plants!
Trades &/or Lowrie seed. There was a recent group of posts on Omnisterra on this topic. There was one for sale a few weeks ago on eBay and another for sale currently.... get your wallet out...
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btw - I still do not grow this species...
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  • #14
So they're very expensive...
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Oh well, maybe I'll grow them someday.
 
  • #15
[b said:
Quote[/b] (jimscott @ Nov. 14 2005,5:29)]Oooooh..... aaah! Beautiful plant!
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WOW!!!! Droooooooooooling now what a very stunning and beautiful plant...
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  • #16
As an addendum to my previous post on propagation: When I tried to mimic JanW's method and got 5/6 strikes in distilled water - I also set another ziplok next to the distilled water one. Only this one was filled with soggy live sphagnum moss and 10 cuttings. This ziplok only had 1 strike.

While one test is obviously not conclusive, I'll probably focus more effort on the distilled water side than the sphagnum moss side.

Also, just before I wrote the original post, I pulled several leaves from a mature D. paradoxa (3 leaves in one clump and 3 singles) and placed them in a small test tube of distilled water and put them on top of a lower light fixture. While the temps seem to run hotter on this fixture (103-110*F), the only light it gets is residual fluorescent from a tank higher up (and a small amount of window light through other tanks). So far, the clump has one strike and it looks like 2 of the 3 singles also have strikes.
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** edit on 11/28/05 - looks like the 3rd one also sprouted (my 1st 100% group!!)
 
  • #17
A few days ago, I noticed the 3rd leaf budded with a new plantlet. Here's a picture of the 3 young D. falconeri.

falconeriplantlets.jpg



Thanks Ron for the updates on your methods.
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-Homer
 
  • #18
Dang, very cool
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I just love the look of that sundew. It's very unique.
 
  • #19
Awwwwww how sweet is that.. Great pic homer and its fantastic to see the new babies sprouting out from the leaf like that.. Beautiful dews...
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