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Ok, I give up

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    multifida
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Is there a trick to germinating Utrics? Right now the Utric in question is U. multifida. I planted it on a standard Utric medium in an undrained container, put it in a zip lock bag and left it in a warm bright location. It's been many months and still no sign of anything besides moss and a liverwort or two. Did I do anything wrong?
 
Nope, you did everything exactly right. That is the good news. The bad news is that Utrics are really REALLY REALLY difficult to germinate from seed. Almost all Utric seed is very short lived so unless it is fresh odds are you will get zero germination. I am guessing that you acquired the seeds from a seedbank and if that is the case they are more than likely quite expired.

My only success with Utric seed was with reniformis seed that was 2 weeks old. And I only got 3 germinations out of 20 odd seeds
 
Pyro is right. I have only ever been successful a few times, and that was with really fresh seed.

I realized a while ago that it cost me more per established plant to buy seed than to just buy a plant in the first place.
 
Thanks Pyro and dodecatheon
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I did get the seed from the bank so it probably was expired. How long should I wait? Should I go ahead and dump it in the compost bin?
 
If you are a real diehard and you don't need the pot I guess you could continue waiting. I wouldn't hold you breath but you never know.
 
I never give up on a pot. Here is my trick: take the pot and resow seed of a different genera in it, and mark on the side what was in it. This way if something happens later down the road, and it can and does(&#33
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, you will be able to tell what that second plant is in the pot. I now have an unidentified rosette of Genlisea in a pot I sowed U. bisquamata in. Since the only seed I have ever had was Genlisea aurea, and none of my Genlisea have set seed, I must have recycled the pot. I did not mark the former sowing (we all get lazy, and aurea is supposed to be next to impossible to germinate at it's best, so I really gave up! Shame on me&#33
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so... it is a mystery, but a nice one!
 
Thanks Tamlin! That's a great idea. I hate to give up on a plant but I'm kind of crunched for room. This way I can plant something else and not loose the pot space while giving the utric a second chance. Wonderful!
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Wow! I was going to follow Tamlin's suggestion and plant different seed in the pot so I took it out of the terrarium and set the pot on my desk in it's zip lock bag. Well, I started a new job, was really busy, and totally forgot about it. As I was cleaning papers off my desk today I found the pot and.. they germinated! Poor things were probably terrified in that mess and figured it was the end so they'd better try to sprout before something that was living in the clutter came out and ate them!
 
Cool. I had some seed from that same source germinate for me a couple weeks back.
 
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