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Grafting Nepenthes?

I by no means know anything about grafting. All I know one plant can be attached to another and they both grow.

Could a Nepenthes be grafted to another species, or even a completely different type of plant?\
Could grafting a slow Nepenthes to a quick one speed growth?
What are your thoughts?
 
I by no means know anything about grafting. All I know one plant can be attached to another and they both grow.

Could a Nepenthes be grafted to another species, or even a completely different type of plant?\
Could grafting a slow Nepenthes to a quick one speed growth?
What are your thoughts?

An old question. The answer is no, no, and no. Notice three answers. You forgot to ask whether Nepenthes can be grafted on to their own species, and I took the liberty of answering that too.
 
I saw young grafted plants in Japan, back in the nineties; though I never had a chance to see the pitchers . . .
 
Very cool. I graft my own tomato plants; and regardless of what the haters say, the weak heirlooms DO do better on a hybrid rootstock. Zero disease, even when planted in a bed that had verticilium wilt in it.

I would be interested to see how many people would consider it an "abomination". There are a lot of people who think that grafted plants are evil.

I wonder how much growth would be affected. And something that would be really cool (as I did with my tomatoes) is to get a good rootstock, and graft multiple scions onto it. Franken-mato! It really is funny to see four different types of fruit coming from one tomato plant, let me tell you. Would be even better with Nepenthes, if such a thing were possible.
 
id be curious to try this with a large ventricosa root stock with a small lowii rosette


And something that would be really cool (as I did with my tomatoes) is to get a good rootstock, and graft multiple scions onto it. Franken-mato! It really is funny to see four different types of fruit coming from one tomato plant, let me tell you. Would be even better with Nepenthes, if such a thing were possible.


can you imagine a trinity of edwardsiana, macropylla and villosa all in one plant...whoa.
 
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  • #10
I graft my own tomato plants; and regardless of what the haters say, the weak heirlooms DO do better on a hybrid rootstock.

Interesting! How difficult was it to do?
 
  • #11
Not terribly for tomatoes. I suspect doing Nepenthes would be substantially more difficult. The key things are: 100% humidity, darkness, warmth, with a bit of airflow. The graft union CANNOT get dry under any circumstances; it must be kept in high humidity at all times until the plant has put out new growth. But don't think you can just wrap a wet paper towel around the union and cover it with plastic wrap, if you do that roots will grow and it won't work. Hence the airflow statement. The union has to fuse.


Failure to keep the union humid until new growth has been put out will result in immediate death. But if you keep the union wrapped (no peeking!) for 10 days or so and then acclimate the plant to plant-out conditions, you're golden.

It is easier than it sounds, but expect to lose several plants the first time around. Once you have a little experience, you can pretty much get 90% success every time.
 
  • #12
this is very interesting especially xcplants thread on proaboards. the growth increase is phenomenal! from 1" to a foot on the next leaf is insane! makes me wanna do some Villosa on a huge hybrid just to see the findings.
 
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  • #13
Assuming frequency of publications are any guide, grafting Nepenthes was very popular in the late 80s through early 90s. After that period, it fell out of fashion most places. There are a few older guides to Nepenthes grafting which indicate, generally, that grafting is successful when the two plants have the same growth pattern (woody or not woody). Of course, most of those older guides were created before a lot of species were discovered and before a lot of species had entered cultivation, so any advice from them should be taken with a grain of salt.
 
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