The Great Ping Leaf Race of 1928

[rcl27]

I really gotta stop coming up with weird titles lol.

Anyway I just performed a mass leaf pulling on all of my pings this Friday (06/27/14) and thought I would start a development thread incase anyone was interested.



I am too lazy to retype all the pings so I am just copying the description from my photobucket page:
Top Row Left - moranensis "Fraser's Beaut", 6 leaves and 3 plantlets; Top Row Right - kondoi, 3 leaves and plantlets in center; Second Row Left - sp. "Lautner 92/52", 4 leaves and plantlets in center; Second Row Right - "Pirouette", 3 leaves; Third Row Left (top three) - emarginata green, 3 leaves; Third Row Left (center) - potosiensis, 1 leaf; Third Row Left (remainder/U-shape) - jaumavensis - 5 leaves; Third Row Right - ehlersiae albiflora, 3 leaves; Bottom Row Left - agnata true blue, 2 fresh leaves and 1 about one month old with multiple plantlets; Bottom Row Right - cyclocecta, 9 leaves

Almost all of the leaves were pulled that night except for a few plantlets that were started anywhere from a month to a couple months ago. My soil mix is a slight variation of Eric Patrat's mix. For reference each "part" = one red solo cup. This mix contained roughly 3 perlite, 2 vermiculite, 1 "small" black lava rock (less than 1 cm diameter), 2 crushed black lava rock sand, 2 pool filter silica sand from lowes, 1/2 Carib Sea Live Sand (aragonite) for calcium, 2 peat (great if you can establish springtails), 1 Orchiata pine bark, 1/2 finely chopped Chilean long fibered sphagnum moss.

I have recently become a huge fan of the crushed black lava rock sand. I will sift large bags of lava rocks down to large, medium, and small sized rocks. As I rinse the rocks I slowly collect the precipitate that settles in the bottom of the bucket and use this as my "sand". I then wash the sand to the point that even pouring water directly into it will not cause the sand to move for more than a second or two. Just a heads up I spent almost 5 hours washing about 8 gallons worth of lava rocks to get all of this, it's not for the faint of heart lol.

I will add a few more close up shots a little later. My month old agnata pulling looks pretty awesome with around 6 plantlets forming at the base. I'm just to lazy to post them at the moment. Hope you guys enjoy!

 

[rcl27]

A quick update:

At 2 weeks 2 days I have lost 3 leaves but have plantlets forming on all of the others.

An ehlersiae went down at the very beginning (bottom leaf) but ironically the one next to it (center) was the very first ping leaf to form a new plant.

The agnata leaf on the right is basically kaput but it was an older leaf. The one already forming a plant is now about an inch tall with two small ones forming underneath it.

Finally the Lautner in the upper right bit the dust. I have noticed the Lautner species tends to take it's time. It can be almost a month before if finally sends out plantlets.

One observation I noticed on this round of leaf pulls is that the smaller leaves tend to produce plantlets first. Not sure if this is related to species or the size of the leaf per say but something I would like to look into more. I could just imagine the cells in the leaf lounging back like, "Well looks like we better make a new plant. Go ask Steve how our reserve supplies are doing." You then see Steve the cell running in "It's almost gone guys! **** we are all going to die!!! We gotta get to work now!" Then you see the other cells in a huge leaf like "Screw it guys, we got all the time in the world to make this new plant. Call me in a week when you actually need me." lol

I took some pictures but am about to go grab a drink with a few friends so don't have time to post those. When I get back I will make sure to upload them.

 

[Plant Mother]

Omg the steve cell scenario

I think you should do a pulling experiment to see if you're right about the smaller leaves hypothesis.

 

[limeslide]

This is interesting, good growing : )

 

[rcl27]

I'm glad my "Steve" story was appreciated lol. Here's the pictures I promised.

The cyclosectas really need to be viewed on the super zoom. It is blurry but you should be able to see small growths on all 9 leaves:
http://i1003.photobucket.com/albums...4-07-15-21-18-26-781_zpsqq4gzg7u.jpg~original

This was the first image I took using the 30x loupe up next to the camera. The lighting is **** but you should be able to see 10ish little bumps where the plants are forming. Most pinguicula leaves will form at max about 3 plantlets and can typically sustain themselves all the way through. My experience with the agnata complex is they typically start out with this over abundance of offspring and then slowly discard of the weaker ones. Believe me I was super excited the first time I saw 10 plantlets on one leaf but they simply aren't that prolific.



Here's the emarginata leaf budding. I was actually excited to see this one do something. I had tried at two other points to take a random leaf off but both shriveled up before anything could come of it. Glad to know I will finally have some backups!



The kondoi popped off rather quickly (again back to my smaller leaves = quicker plants theory). The one in the middle that looks like there are 4-5 plants is about 1 1/2 months old. Still that was only one leaf so it goes to show you how awesome pinguiculas are to practice leaf pullings!



Again a little blurry but you can see all three Pirouette leaves producing plantlets. I am just using my Samsung Note camera on all of these so you have to bear with me.



If you are going to super zoom in on one picture the potosiensis is the one that's worth it. This is about as early of a stage you can get with a pinguicula plantlet forming and it looks awesome actually being in focus and dead center of the leaf base. I was happy this shot actually turned out well!

http://i1003.photobucket.com/albums...4-07-15-21-17-16-360_zpsmtbvohta.jpg~original

I got a few more pictures I need to retake but this at least gives you a pretty good idea of what the first 2 weeks should produce. The ehlersiae (not pictured) formed a plantlet within the first week and is now about 1/8th of an inch across. The Lautner on the other hand (again not pictured) have yet to produce anything. If after one week your leaf looks pretty much exactly the same as when you pulled it off you are doing great. You have to remember pings get the majority of their moisture from the air to begin with; so even when completely separated from the main plant their leaves will survive for quite some time. It is once the new plantlet exhausts most of the stored nutrients will the leaf really disintegrate. At that point though you already have a new plant that can survive on its own so it doesn't even matter!

 

[DroseraLover]

You will have many pings if these keep growing!

 

[rcl27]

So I have been rather busy over the past couple months so I haven't been on the forums and didn't get to take as many pictures as I wanted to. Regardless, here is an update from the past couple months.

This first shot if from 07/27/14 just a couple weeks from the last post. You can see growth is proceeding pretty much as expected. Almost all leaves have produced at least some plantlets excluding the really slow "lautner 92/52". The smaller leaves produce plantlets quicker theory, as fun as it sounded, quickly became overshadowed by the growth of the Pirouette. Granted the smaller leaves did produce more leaves but I take it that has more to do with species than purely size alone.




Fast forward to 09/15/14 a full month and a half later and you get this crappy shot lol. I had been using a cheap lowes shelf for some of the plants but after my second "OMG it is going to fall over incident!" I decided to abort that thing. It was another 1-2 weeks before I could order the PVC parts for my grow room so I had turn the shelf on it's side to try and keep humidity semi decent. It worked for that small period but was more trouble than it was really worth. I wish I had an up close shot but this was the only one I could find. Too bad everything took off during that time but I cant post something I do not have. My bad!!!





The next shot (10/31/14) is actually in my new grow room but I still have yet to order my new LED lighting system so lighting is kind of crap. I literally threw the lights up before I had to go to work so it's pretty ghetto lol. The mother plants can be seen to the right and the mass of pings to the left is my most recent import. I can't wait to get those established. Total species/cultivar/form/hybrid list is up to 57





I took some more shots today but need to do a slightly more indepth writeup on it so will wait til a little later. In the meantime hope the photos are at least something to look at. I plan on starting a new round of pullings with all my new pings too in the next couple weeks so will make sure to document them much more thoroughly.

 

[Joseph Clemens]

Uh oh, all the images from every post except your last post, are now AWOL. What's up with that?

 

[jimscott]

Do ya have any P. gypsicola, laueana, or gracilis?

 

[rcl27]

I fixed the links. I created a sub folder for the thread and moved the old pictures so TF got angry with me.

@Jim: No gypsicola yet but I plan on getting it. I do have the Sierra Mixe laueana and holotype gracilis. Here's my total grow list:

Pinguicula acuminata - BCP
Pinguicula agnata - BCP
Pinguicula agnata (El Lobo) - BCP
Pinguicula agnata (true blue) - Robert Zeimer (BobZ)
Pinguicula 'Aphrodite' - elgecko
Pinguicula 'BCP Crystal' - BCP
Pinguicula 'BCP Golden Eye' - BCP
Pinguicula calderoniae - BCP
Pinguicula spec. Ciudad Victoria (coll. Lautner, 90-14) - BCP
Pinguicula colimensis - BCP
XXX Pinguicula crassifolia - BCP XXX (Died - Did not survive mold infection from shipping)
Pinguicula cyclocecta x4- Cascade Carnivores
Pinguicula debbertiana (white flower) - BCP
Pinguicula ehlersiae albiflora - Robert Zeimer (BobZ)
Pinguicula ehlersiae (Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo, Mex., BG Linz # 006) - BCP
Pinguicula spec. El Mirador - BCP
Pinguicula elizabethiae - BCP
Pinguicula emarginata - BCP
Pinguicula emarginata (green) - Cascade Carnivores
Pinguicula emarginata (red coloured and big rosette) - BCP
Pinguicula esseriana (light pink flw, Giant) - BCP
Pinguicula 'Florian' - BCP
Pinguicula spec. Guatemala (L91-10, Guatemala) - BCP
Pinguicula gigantea - BCP
Pinguicula gracilis - BCP
Pinguicula hemiepiphytica - BCP
Pinguicula hemiepiphytica (near Ixtlan de Juarez, Oaxaca, Mexico, 2209-2535 m) - BCP
Pinguicula ibarrae (= P spec. agnata, Tlanchinol; Mexico) - BCP
Pinguicula immaculata - BCP
Pinguicula jaumavensis - Cascade Carnivores
Pinguicula spec. Koehres - BCP
Pinguicula kondoi - Robert Zeimer (BobZ)
Pinguicula kondoi (=P. reticulata, Aramberii, Nuevo Leon, Mex.) - BCP
Pinguicula kondoi (giant plant) - BCP
Pinguicula laueana {Sierre Mixe) - BCP
Pinguicula spec. "Lautner 92/52" - Cascade Carnivores
XXX Pinguicula macrophylla - BCP XXX (Died - Did not survive mold infection from shipping)
Pinguicula mirandae {white and pink flower mix) - BCP
Pinguicula moctezumae - BCP
Pinguicula moranensis (Chichicastenago, Guatemala, 2200 m) - BCP
Pinguicula moranensis (El Chico) - BCP
Pinguicula moranensis cv. "Fraser's Beaut" - Cascade Carnivores
Pinguicula moranensis (near Santiago Juxtlahuaca, Oaxaca, Mexico, 1851 m) - BCP
Pinguicula moranensis var. alba (pure white flower; 25 km from San Cristobal, Mexico) - BCP
Pinguicula moranensis var. neovolcanica (Guererro) - BCP
Pinguicula orchidioides (=P. stolonifera, true) - BCP
XXX Pinguicula parviflora - BCP XXX (Died - Did not survive mold infection from shipping)
Pinguicula pilosa (=P. spec. Tamaulipas) - BCP
Pinguicula potosienis (red) - Robert Zeimer (BobZ)
Pinguicula 'Pirouette' - Robert Zeimer (BobZ)
Pinguicula planifolia - Cook Carnivores
Pinguicula primuliflora - California Carnivores
Pinguicula primuliflora "Rose" - Robert Zeimer (BobZ)
Pinguicula rectifolia (near Huajuapan, Oaxaca, Mexico) - BCP
Pinguicula rotundiflora - BCP
Pinguicula spec. Sumidero I - BCP
Pinguicula spec. Sumidero II - BCP