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Sundews from Seed and Choosy Growers

Zath

Enthusiastic Enthusiast
Was just admiring a couple batches of seedlings and had a thought. With plants like Sarracenia and Nepenthes (and I assume others), often specimens are chosen to keep and propagate based on desirable traits, such as vigor, coloration, morphology, etc.

It seems to me, however, that not many people do this with large batches of sundews. Is this because they are more homogeneous than other plants?

A second part of the question (pics are welcome if affirmative), has anyone been selective about specimens from batches of seed, and have you been able to obtain truly spectacular and/or unique variations of certain species?
 
I think we all are a bit choosy at times when going to nurseries or keeping plants we grow from seed, maybe ones got better coloration or bigger or just looks cute :)

Something draws us to keep it or get it for ourselves.. I think most common drosera (at least nursery ones) are just pumped out and not really selected for picky people but it doesn't stop us to weed through them to see if we can find the one in a almost perfect state to bring home with us.
With seed grown droseras i think its the same we may pick through the bunch for one that simply catches our eye (whatever the reason) and find it easier to part with the rest, reguardless if they are just as good as the ones we decided to keep BUT they just didn't catch our eye like the one/s we kept did :)

I'm sure many of us can relate to this.
Though as for breeding i couldn't tell u if the draw of the patent plants is passed off to their offspring or if we select just for beauty of the plant or for the idea that it could make more plants just as eye catching to us when seeded/sowed :D

I'm kinda a attachment person so i easily get attached to something that's been with me for some time even if i were to find one somewhere else of better looks or whatever it may be.. I prob couldn't part with the one I've had for a longer period even if it isn't as pretty or as large..etc that prob explains why i have limited space and have been spending alot of time attempting to renovate the sunporch/greenhouse to make more room for everything :)

Goodluck in yr attempt to find the reason your looking for..hopefully i helped a little lol
 
i easily get attached to something that's been with me for some time even if i were to find one somewhere else of better looks or whatever it may be.. I prob couldn't part with the one I've had for a longer period even if it isn't as pretty or as large..etc

I get the same way, lol. I have a runty lil' darlingtonia seedling that is lagging WAY behind the rest, even though it was planted 5-6 months prior, and I can't let go of it because it was the only plant that germinated out of my very first batch of seed, despite the fact that the darlingtonia seed I bought later had much better germination rates and is outpacing it by leaps and bounds, lol.

That aside, this thread is largely about drosera. I'm curious if anyone has actually noticed "superior specimens" among their sown seed and kept them for themselves while the rest are treated as, "meh".
 
Wouldn't it take a couple years of growth to be able to see the actual differences in the plants? Some D. Capensis seedlings started growing in the pot with their mother, but I would not have been able to tell they were Capensis if it weren't for the fact that that is the only possible type of seed to have dropped onto the substrate. I know that in Beta breeding, we often cull most of the offspring. I'd be interested in trying to actually breed sundews and see whether I can come up with some spectacular specimens.
 
What kind of differences are we talking about? A few months ago I planted some red D. capensis seeds, got seven seedlings out of it but since then one's died, and the smallest living one is about half or 2/3 the size of the largest. So if we're counting vigour as a trait then I'd say I've seen a difference, but not in terms of colour. Not yet at least.

On the topic of capensis though, are the specific variations (red, alba, &c.) due to specific breeding or just natural mutation?
 
Well, now the clones and widespread forms are selected, but the original was a natural genetic mutation. Even if you germinate some red or wide leaf capensis, some of the offspring will have the characteristics of the mother plant.so yes, they were natural The percentage of offspring that inherit the strange characteristics of mother is higher in sarracenia and drosera, but much lower in dionaea and whatnot
 
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