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Crissytal

What is and what should never be
I've been meaning to start feeding my Drosera and Pinguicula. I kept putting it off, but also kept reading how it can benefit the plants. So I finally dug out my freeze dried blood worms and some sun dried gammarus (baby shrimp) that I had. I put some bloodworm and shrimp in a bowl and crushed them all up together. The shrimp were a bit tricky, but finally got them ground down.

I think my sundews enjoyed their dinner, what do you think?

D. sessilifolia or is it D. burmannii?
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D. trinervia
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D. oblanceolata Sunset Peak, Hong Kong
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D. admirabilis
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It's quite a dramatic affect that's lasted for a few days. Some of my other Drosera have already completely unfurled their leaves and made dew again. The Pings are a bit less greedy with their food.

Crystal
 
one thing for sure they sure look hungry
 
God what gluttonous little piggies you are growing! :) They must be so happy getting some extra food! Beautiful droseras Crystal! :)
 
Thanks for the comments guys! :)

They are hungry little piggies. I plan to start feeding them once every 2-3 weeks to once a month if things go well.
 
Great dews as always! :)
 
Yes, feeding works wonders with sundews! I don't know why this fact isn't stressed more in cultivation.

I had 3 small D. dielsiana plantlets I received in a trade that didn't grow for 6+ months. A month after feeding them Beta fish food pellets, they grew 10x the size and are sending up flower spikes. I will post some pics by the end of the week.

After observing the effects of feeding on my Dielsiana, I tried it on my larger D. admirabilis plants. They are also sending up flower stalks now. It seems that feeding triggers flowering and exponentially increases growth.

Thanks for sharing, Crissytal!
 
Thanks for the information CPlantaholic! It sounds like it makes a big difference with their growth. I'd imagine if they suddenly became happy, they'd have plenty of energy to spare on making new leaves and flowers. I'd love to see your pictures! Please do post them. How often do you fertilize yours? I'm deciding if I want to try it every two weeks, or just go once a month like I do my Nepenthes.

Crystal
 
Yeah, you will probably notice larger leaves are being produced in a few weeks- and most likely flowers! They seem to "pour out" leaves rather than putting one out every 4 days or so...
I feed mine every 2 weeks. I give them the extra week to "recover". They tend to grow so fast that they turn green when fed every week). I wait until they start to develop red coloration on the leaves again and load up with dew.
Feeding is tedious work, but well worth it. I'm trying to come up with a fast way to feed them, rather than placing individual pellets on each leaf- when you have 100 sundews or so, that's a lot of leaves to feed!

Yeah, my camera is back at home, so I'll upload them from the camera this weekend when I go home (spring break! ya! :) )
 
mm mm that some good leaf movement going down. They looked pretty hungry. Strange though, I always thought that constant struggle from an insect was what tripped movement. Guess Im wrong! My D. prolifera was starting to slow down, and put shorter leaves out, so I finally got around to finding some ants. I fed them a few ants and they mowed them down. Now their growth is definitely pronounced!

Hope to get a flower sometime.
 
  • #10
I feed my droseras sometimes, especially in the winter time when there is not enough prey (or no prey at all). I observe that mainly tuberous drosera seedlings do much much better and grow many times faster when they are properly fed ! The difference is astonishing! Well, they are not called carnivorous for nothing I guess;-)
 
  • #11
CPlantaholic,

Nice! I have a website in the works. I will certainly attempt to document my findings on this. I know fertilizing is recommended for both Nepenthes (both fish food and liquid orchid ferts) and Pings (powdered fish food) but I'm yet to really find anything on Drosera. I've found a few little snippets talking about the requirement of a food source for some Drosera seedlings to survive; that's been about it. Thanks for the information on your feeding schedule. I think I'll probably do mine every two weeks as well. That's pretty crazy that they can grow so fast they don't have time to make color. The way I have been feeding is with powdered blood worms and those baby shrimp I mentioned. I crush them up as fine as I can get them, then sprinkle over the dews. I believe it's a bit easier than having to place the betta pellets in each leaf. The powered form might be a little easier for the plant to deal with too. I'll be looking forward to your pictures :). Yay for spring break! :D

Dexenthes,

Thanks :). I was quite surprised to see so much movement. I'm with you, I thought it only happened when something alive was caught and the movement caused the leaves to curl over it. I fed my D. prolifera a few days ago when I fed the rest. I'm already seeing an increase in growth. It's putting up a flower stalk (which it was doing before I fed it) and two new leaves at once. This has always been a slow plant for me, two leaves at once are certainly something! Mine took quite awhile to flower for me. My mother plant died unfortunately. Luckily I was able to get a leaf cutting to strike, I guess it has just now matured enough to flower. When you do get flowers, remember to lay it down in some media. That's an easy way to get more plants :).

klasac,

That is very true! They are carnivores aren't they? :) I haven't really tried tuberous Drosera yet. My conditions are pretty warm, even in the winter. Maybe I'll give it a try next fall.

Crystal
 
  • #12
Hmm, looks like the Drosera trinervia is from seed. People tend to find this one a tough species to germinate. I haven't tried it myself since I have a pot overflowing with mature plants and seedlings when I got it.

They are supposed to be very slow germinating. Did you warm stratify the seeds first or anything special?

And has anyone germinated any of the seeds I distributed either through trade or the NASC 2008 auction?
 
  • #13
Hey NaN,

I didn't do anything special but sow the seed. They took exactly three months to germinate because of the lack of stratification (I'm assuming). Do they need a smoke treatment or just high temperatures to germinate in a timely manner? Information on the web is quite lacking. When I noticed germination, I sprinkled some crushed blood worms on them. This was one of the species where a food source was recommend for the seedlings to survive. I don't entirely believe it, because I only fed the first few. That may be the result of the much larger plants among the smaller ones. I also believe the seed to be extremely fresh. I received them from Pyro on his seed offer awhile back.

Crystal

EDIT: I should also mention the temperatures stayed fairly consistent. During the day the temperature was between 80-82F. The night time temperatures had very little drop and equalized to whatever the house temperature was (73-78F). Now that it's warming up here, they will have even less of a drop at night. What temperatures do you give your D. trinervia NaN?
 
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  • #14
The only things I found on the web was that they are very slow in germinating and that the seedlings don't tolerate flooding so it is best not to top water.

They're on an east facing window sill. During the winters temperatures locally can go from the mid 50's at night to the low 70s during the day. In the summer night temps can go from the high 60s to mid 80s during the day. More typical are high 70s during the day.

Not all the plants went dormant during the summer, some started to go dormant in the late fall when the others were waking up so it's kind of a crap shoot as to watering them. Fortunately this species appears to tolerate quite a bit of moisture while dormant. The critical period appears to be the first few weeks after coming out of dormancy - too much water and you'll lose them. They also seem to take their sweet time coloring up and producing dew after waking up - maybe a month or two.

Michael Lu says just to put them in the shade when dormant and let the pots pretty much dry out.

Perhaps Pyro will share his observations of this species.
 
  • #15
Ahh thats awesome! In my opinion, the queensland dews have the best flowers on any drosera. What do you mean, lay it down in the media though? Like manipulate the growth of the stalk?

Either way, my two little buggers aren't that big, it will probably be a long time till I see bloom.
 
  • #16
Very interesting information NaN. Thanks for sharing it. I'm not looking forward to dormancy. Somewhat of a scary thought to me. I've read on one forum not to allow it to be any warmer than about 68F. Mine has always experienced temperatures in the 80s. Any idea what temperature triggers dormancy? This might be a silly question, but how do you know when they are dormant or going dormant? Do they slow down in growth, form a resting bud? With dormancy I either go too wet or too dry. Maybe I can find a happy medium with these guys.

Dexenthes, it will produce lateral flower stalks. Just make sure they have contact with something moist and they should produce plantlets. I just put some damp LFS over my flower stalk to help lay it down more. Hopefully I'll wind up with some little ones.
 
  • #17
From what I've read in a few books, D. trinervia just dies back to the roots when the temperatures get to warm. I'm guessing that if the temperatures are always cool enough, then they don't need to (and won't) go dormant. One author wrote that with his "winter-growing" African sundews (i.e D. cuneifolia, D. trinervia, etc) he lets the pots go completely dry during their dormancy and they always come back from the roots.
 
  • #18
Yeah, they just die down to the root when they go dormant. You'll think they are dead because the crash very quickly. I don't know about temperature, it seemed cued more by light than temperatures. I moved one pot from the east window to the west window around this time last year and all of them went dormant within a week.
 
  • #19
Good to know. Thanks guys. I'll probably be better off with the completely 'dry' than trying to keep it slightly moist. 'Slightly' moist never seems to work out. I might try to get a root cutting or two before dormancy so I'll have a back up if something happens. I recently transplanted a couple into a Nep pot on my Nep/Heli shelf. Conditions are a bit cooler there.

Mine will probably go dormant when I start increasing the photoperiod. Still working out on what to do about the humidifier (it barely lasts the 12 hours it's on already before running out of water) so I haven't started yet.

Crystal
 
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