Coming out of dormancy

[jimscott]

Last year I had my plants outside until mid-November (SE Pa) and when we were about to get our first frost, I brought the collection to the lab, where they resided in 60-something temps. By mid-January, my D. binata & filiformis, which had gone dormant, woke up. This year, due to the move to WNY, I had the plants split up. I had D. binata & filiformis in buckets of minibog put up in the attic, at a window, where it would be cold but not frigid. The idea in mind is that when the photoperiod increases, they will wake up in response to the light. I also have a pot of binata at a window sill. The plants that were at the warmer sill woke up in January, while the ones in the attic woke up in February. Bottom line: it appears that photoperiod is the dominant variable, but temperature is also important.

 

[Est]

I've come to similar conclusions with Sarracenia. We had a very warm start to winter, but despite the fact that the temperatures were staying warm, the reduced photoperiod (or, rather, the increased in night length) was enough to initiate dormancy. Later when cooler temps came in to play, then they seemed to enter dormancy fully.

Good to see other people come to a similar conclusion.

 

[vft guy in SJ]

My experience with D. filiformis is that it tends to be the first down and the first up. My D. filiformis plants all started to break dormancy in mid-January and are all well on their way to normal growth now.

D. binata does not go dormant for me at all. I have several forms and although there is a definate slowed growth period in winter, none of them go "dormant".

Here in California we have had a very unusual warm trend the last couple weeks and the majority of my plants took that to mean its time to wake up. Looks like I have a busy week of repotting duty to tend to this week lol...

Steve

 

[dewy]

Quote[/b] (vft guy in SJ @ Feb. 20 2006,6:40)]My experience with D. filiformis is that it tends to be the first down and the first up. My D. filiformis plants all started to break dormancy in mid-January and are all well on their way to normal growth now.

[/QUOTE]
Lucky you

Mine got blown over by the wind, and I didn't find this out for about 2 days. The soil they were in was completely dried up, so I put them back into some fresh peat moss. Hopefully they will recover as they were still green.

 

[Gawd_oOo]

Quote[/b] ]The plants that were at the warmer sill woke up in January, while the ones in the attic woke up in February. Bottom line: it appears that photoperiod is the dominant variable, but temperature is also important.

To me those two statements contradict each other..

My experience with D. filiformis was that photo period had little affect (effect?), I had them at temps in the low 60's and they stayed dormant under floresent lights with a 17 hour photo period. Until the temp increased into the 80's, only then did they break dormancy.

 

[jimscott]

Quote[/b] (Gawd_oOo @ Feb. 20 2006,9:34)]

Quote[/b] ]The plants that were at the warmer sill woke up in January, while the ones in the attic woke up in February. Bottom line: it appears that photoperiod is the dominant variable, but temperature is also important.

To me those two statements contradict each other..

My experience with D. filiformis was that photo period had little affect (effect?), I had them at temps in the low 60's and they stayed dormant under floresent lights with a 17 hour photo period. Until the temp increased into the 80's, only then did they break dormancy.

I see what you are saying. Perhaps I shouldn't have brought the photoperiod into the conclusion as I had. I was imply a "ceteris paribus" thing, whereby the "all other things being equal" is the photoperiod, but temperature being the changing variable, resulted in different times of waking up. Warmer temps on the same plants, seems to cause them to awaken a little earlier than those with colder temps - not unlike seeing crocus emerging in late December if December was particularly warmer.

 

[mabudon]

When I first got D.filiformis in mid summer, I took some cuttings to keep inside under my lights with my tropical stuff.... the cuttings looked fine for a bit, but when september/october came, they mysteriously "died"... the only thing that changed in their environment was the fact that the temps no longer got much above 20 degrees Celsius, the photoperiod and minimum temps didn't hardly change, it was almost as if something invisible took 'em out...

I moved 'em to a cold window and they were fine the next spring...

so yeah, I would go with the "temps must be the most important" schol of thought on them- everything else I grow needs s LOT stronger cues from both the temp and photoperiod (for instance VFTs- in my experience, 12 or less hours of liight a day puts them pretty much right to sleep, with low temps being not as important)

Why can't these plants all agree on one book to follow?!?!?!

 

[jimscott]

According to Bugweed, these plants are notoriously illiterate and just don't read our books. They're almost as unpredictible as.....