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D lusitanicum new start

  • #21
mass, they probably wouldnt do to good. They like deserty conditions, hot, and really bright light.
 
  • #22
Actually I think they would do well in HL conditions. They enjoy cool weather and can even take a light frost. They are Mediterranean, not tropical.
Gary Kong in SF, who gets seed from his plants every year, recommends sowing in the Fall with temps between 40-60. The ICPS site also says germination seems to occur better in cool temps.


Cheers,

Joe
 
  • #23
I could take more photos. I have a few nice plants left. I had a hard time keeping them alive during the summer for some reason.

I would either keep them too dry or too wet :-(
 
  • #24
ah lets see it's been about 16 days since the last update and roughly 6 weeks since they have germinated
The plant in the small pot is suffering and may be on it's way out. A bit of a bummer since survival is usually pretty good for me once they get past the first week or two. The base is brownish, the growth is weak and the color is not right.. although it is still growing. I have been watering carefully and trying to keep it on the drier side. Today I gave it a systemic fungicide drench. The fungicide might kill it but without it I suspect it will continue to decline. So if the fungicide doesn't nail the coffin closed there is a chance it might recover.

Photos in reverse order today starting with the plant in the small pot:
You can see the dried oldest leaves and the yellowing tips of the next set, as well as the weak new leaf unfurling.
DlB112811a.jpg


close up of the brownish color at the base.
DlB112811b.jpg


Now for the plant in the big pot which is still chugging along nicely (fingers crossed)
The differences between the two should be quite obvious..
DlA112811.jpg


Tony
 
  • #25
Could it be they just do better in bigger pots and cooler temperatures to start? The ones I started in big pots did fine, the ones in little pots perished by 3 weeks after germination, and the seeds in peat pots did not even germinate. The ones in the small pots and peat pots were in the house under lights with temps in the 70s. The ones in the big pots were next to a south-facing window in the garage with cool temperatures, not under lights, and not only germinated the fastest at 14-16 days, but thrived to adulthood (all sown in December). Based on that experience, I am going to start more seed out in the garage where the temps are mid 40s to upper 50s, 10" and 12" terra cotta pots, and no supplemental lighting until a few inches tall.

Looking at your pictures, I think there is hope for the sad ones with what you are doing. When mine failed, it was almost overnight and they looked a lot worse.
 
  • #26
Keeping my fingers crossed! It is different than the usual black mushy rot of instadeath they are highly prone to getting hit with when very young.

They are both side by side under the same lights so I don't think it is a temperature thing. I have had to water the smaller pot more frequently, but on the same token it dries alot faster too so I don't really know if it can be boiled down to small vs large pot at this stage of the game.

We shall see! I think I have a few seed left so if this one goes belly up I may try to start another so I can have more than one. Now if I could just get one to flower for me so I can restock my seed supply!
 
  • #27
Just a thought, but do you think the one turning yellow could be suffering from nitrogen burn from catching too many insects? I know that leaves turning yellow starting at the tips can be a symptom of that. The sickly looking plant does have many more insects on it than the green one. I think the same thing happened to my plant when I put it next to a dead deer to catch some flies - it ended up catching a lot more than I expected, to the point where almost every leaf had like 10+ flies on it. After that, the plant seemed to be in a hurry to replace those leaves. Even the ones near the center of the plant turned yellow beginning from the tips and died, and were replaced by short, thick, dark green leaves that looked really weird (like it didn't want to catch insects). The plant's growth was always very vigorous though, so I never worried about the entire plant dying. After a month or so all the short leaves grew out and were replaced by normal growth, and now the plant looks better than ever.
 
  • #28
Keeping my fingers crossed! It is different than the usual black mushy rot of instadeath they are highly prone to getting hit with when very young.

They are both side by side under the same lights so I don't think it is a temperature thing. I have had to water the smaller pot more frequently, but on the same token it dries alot faster too so I don't really know if it can be boiled down to small vs large pot at this stage of the game.

We shall see! I think I have a few seed left so if this one goes belly up I may try to start another so I can have more than one. Now if I could just get one to flower for me so I can restock my seed supply!

Very interesting. I did not think it looked like the typical rot either, so may be fine. I have not seen what Natalie saw on mine when they were choked with bugs as mine were large when catching that many, but certainly something to consider. Keep us posted as this is a good learning experience trying to figure these things out. I am hoping mine flowers next year. If yours don't and mine do, I will send you some seed.
 
  • #29
I have seen them overloaded with insects of all sorts. Did not see a tip burn effect either. But I cant get them grow past a certain point so maybe they are eating them selves to death? I have suspected that they might have issues with intense UV light causing grow proliferation and side shoots to all start growing. My plants have all ended up way more bushy than most I have seen . Will test this spring inside greenhouse to block UV....


DSC_00040001_12.jpg


DSC_00530008.jpg
 
  • #30
Interesting... That's a lot of insects! I just mentioned the nitrogen thing because I remembered in this popular article about Drosophyllum, it's stated that that plants in the wild typically only have a fraction of the insects attached to them as do cultivated plants. And that seems to be correct, judging by the photos in the article - it's hard to spot a single insect on the leaves of those plants! I'd say that Drosophyllum is the most effective at catching insects of all carnivorous plants (IMO), and perhaps that is an adaptation to living in an area where insect abundance is relatively low, so they need to catch whatever they can. However, for those of us who grow plants in areas where there are tons of insects, the leaves become smothered. Now whether that's beneficial or deleterious to the plant's health, I'm not sure... But when my plant got covered in insects, it certainly acted like it had had enough to eat for a while.
 
  • #31
Huh! Interesting discussion. Nice pics too Mach. Mine would never be that loaded with prey but it was certainly catching plenty of food and during its first Summer several side growths broke dormancy. I figured it just meant it was happy and able to support several active growth points. I don't recall any issues though with leaves dying off or changing morphology.

Hard to dismiss the brownish color at the base of the sickly seedling, odds are whatever is causing it is also causing the premature leaf death. Since it seems to have affected the outer leaves first, whatever it is must be working it's way inward. Hopefully the fungicide halts it without causing any damage. Will keep you posted.
 
  • #32
any idea the daytime temperatures theyre getting under those spot lights?
 
  • #33
any idea the daytime temperatures theyre getting under those spot lights?

Hmm well I just checked with my thermometer. Room temperature is about 65 these days. The thermometer was reading about 75 an inch from the bulb. It could be a little warmer than that as it feels warmer than room temperature but it's not uncomfortable in the slightest to keep my hand there. It's only a 26w spiral CFL
 
  • #34
Update time! (oops couple of the files are a bit larger than I thought they were.)

I made some adjustments in the last couple weeks:
I have had to move the lights higher as the plants have grown. I also swapped the lights around. The larger plant in the larger pot now has the 42w CFL light over it. The 26w CFL spotlight is a bit weak and I had to move the light higher as the tips of a few leaves were bumping into the glass and browning at that point. I moved the 26w CFL to the plant that was suffering. It's a little cooler since it doesn't have any foil around the fixture, just incase one of the problems was heat buildup close to the top of the plant. I also gave the smaller plant a fungicide drench and have been careful about watering and keeping it on the dry side incase it was a root rot issue. Watering just a bit from the bottom until I could just see a tad bit of moisture (color change) in the peat bits at the surface.

So here are the updates after 2 weeks since the last photos.
Small plant first..
Overall shot. Looking healthier and it has resumed growth and the new leaves are a nice green color and are increasing in size again. The longest leaf is 7cm and has a tiny bit more to unroll.
DlB121111a.jpg


Close up of the base. You can see the improvement in color as well as the much better looking new leaves, and the continued production of new leaves in the center. Still not entirely sure if it was a pathogen or environmental .. or both?
DlB121111b.jpg


The plant in the larger pot. Largest leaf about 15cm now. You can see the tips of a few leaves that got fried against the glass.. Rather have a few tips get a bit toasted though than not give the plant enough light. The plant is also large enough to hang onto houseflies all on it's own. They grow up so fast /sniffle
DlA121111a.jpg


Close up of the base. Just to note the increasing rapidity of leaf production. It's interesting when they first grow the newest leaves don't start unrolling into the previous leaf is nearly all extended. As they gain size the leaves emerge at a quicker and quicker pace. So much so that each subsequent leaf is only slightly behind the previous leaf. Note the leaf only a few cm. unrolled so far and 2 new leaves now emerging one right behind the other.
DlA121111b.jpg
 
  • #35
Thanks for the update Tony.

That's interesting how the leaves on the more mature plant has picked up in production speed, basically just putting up new growth before the previous leaves are completely unfurled. :cool:

And that was a nice save there on the smaller specimen.

I notice that you have that one growing in a smaller plastic pot at the moment.

Do you have a plan for how you will move it into a larger pot without disturbing the roots too much, or is that a concern for you?

dvg
 
  • #36
Thanks for the update Tony.

I notice that you have that one growing in a smaller plastic pot at the moment.

Do you have a plan for how you will move it into a larger pot without disturbing the roots too much, or is that a concern for you?

dvg

I DO!!! I DO have a plan! hehe
Well it was sort of a suprise that both seeds germinated. I would have been happy with just one and was figuring that there would be a good chance neither would. In the past I would just plant the seed in their pot they would stay in but was intrigued by people actually getting them through the mail and planting them into bigger pots. Granted the peat pots which would reduce replanting difficulties. There was also a post somewhere on repotting a mature plant and it seemed to work.. SO I figured I would try starting my seed in a small pot and let a seedling grow there and try repotting later. Much to my surprise though both sprouted and I was left with a bit of a dilemma.. Letting both grow in a small pot was a bad plan I figured. That left me with moving one sprouting seed to the large pot that was going to be used later and leaving the other to go with my original plan for the small pot, OR move both sprouting seeds to big pots. Past experience has always met with bad results trying to move a newly sprouting seed.. any damage to the root tip is usually death for the tiny sprout. So I decided to move one seed to the large pot and leave the other in the small pot to deal with later as I had originally intended.
Fortunately they did not sprout at the same time. The first one to sprout I left alone and fortunately I spotted the other sprouting just as it was starting to emerge. I moved it very quickly to the big pot before the root could extend much beyond the end of the seed and fortunately it settled in as if nothing happened.

As for my original plan and the small pot. My intention was to let a single plant grow there and let it stay for a while so that the roots hold the sand/peat mix fairly securely. I think it can be moved at that point carefully. The biggest danger I suspect is from doing it too soon and having the soil mix fall apart and break roots and expose them. It will be a bit of an experiment to see how it all works out! Mostly likely it will be a few months yet before I try to move it to a larger pot. I am thinking early Spring would be good to let it adjust and settle in and make some new roots before the Summer heat starts to build.

Tony
 
  • #37
As for my original plan and the small pot. My intention was to let a single plant grow there and let it stay for a while so that the roots hold the sand/peat mix fairly securely. I think it can be moved at that point carefully. The biggest danger I suspect is from doing it too soon and having the soil mix fall apart and break roots and expose them.

I pressed my luck one too many times doing that.
 
  • #38
As for my original plan and the small pot. My intention was to let a single plant grow there and let it stay for a while so that the roots hold the sand/peat mix fairly securely. I think it can be moved at that point carefully. The biggest danger I suspect is from doing it too soon and having the soil mix fall apart and break roots and expose them.

I pressed my luck one too many times doing that.


I've just used small peat pots to grow the seedlings, which you can then transplant dirrectly into the larger pot and the peat pot will disintegrate. This allows you to just totally bypass that problem.
 
  • #39
Due for an update! Lets see.. my 42w bulb blew, so I had to switch back to both 26w cfl. Rather than replace the one bulb which was a tad big for the clip on reflector light. I decided a new setup was in order. I also would like to keep one indoors permenantly. We get alot of .... bugs... since we live in the middle of nowhere and during the warmer months they wouldn't stand a chance with one of these guys sitting on the counter with the light shining down! Natural pest control at it's finest ;>
Long story short, the 42w cfl isn't really strong enough for a full time resident Droso indoors, unless it's smack on top of the leaf tips.

I am going to give this a whirl and see how it goes.

new bulb: 105w, 5000k 6600 lumens
bulb.jpg


Reflector for the bulb: (big enough that the bulb is all inside the reflector with some room to spare)
bulbreflector1.jpg


It's a simple set up.. the reflector just slips over the top of the bulb and with the slightly smaller opening at the top of the reflector it fits over and sits on the bulb. You then screw the bulb into whatever fixture you want and let it hang down. I tested it with the clip on fixture and it seemed to work fine. I just need something to clip onto now that is the right height...
(there are slots in the bulb housing and in the reflector so I guess you could put some sort of clip in there if you wanted to secure the two more snuggly)
bulbreflector2.jpg


I actually ended up buying 2 bulbs and 2 reflectors, unsure if one would be enough for both plants. Guess we will see.
 
  • #40
Your plants are going to like the substantial increase in light, in going from 2800 lumens using the 42 watt cfl up to 6600 lumens, Tony.

Have your plants grown quite a bit more for you since your last update?

dvg
 
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