VFT pullings and seeds

[adymitruk]

Wow,

After an unsuccessful year of doing pullings, it seems all are striking now! The difference is having the right light and moisture for the pullings - at least for me. I even threw in a scronny, elongated leaf with hardly any white at the bottom and it has now struck!

To recap,

I bought a really bright compact fluorescent (says 14,000K on it and is 100W or something like that). At first I had it too close to the media and was boiling anything in the media. Having a lot of media with a lot of water in the bowl around it helped keep the moisture at really good levels between the twice a week refill. The temperature issue was easily solved by moving the light to be 6 inches above the surface of the media. I've kept things bright by putting aluminum foil on the ceiling of the shelf where this sits and hung more foil to the back front and sides as well.

Of the 60 or so seeds, 4 have germinated now after being exposed to temperatures that were considered too high. The first one has now opened it's first trap.

I also don't keep any cover over the container. The humidity (or lack there of) does not seem to have an effect on the number of strikes for the pullings or the seedlings' ability to grow. Although the exposed leaves of the pullings seem to stop growing once they are in the direct light.. We'll see what happens.

Thanks to everyone for the great insightful feedback and material!

Adam

 

[mmlr38]

Congrats Adam! It sounds like you're on your way to having an army of VFTs.

 

[seedjar]

Glad to hear you're having success. Another great way to get clones is to snap off and plant the not-quite-dead nubs of last year's leaves when repotting. I've got 3-4 plantlets per little chunk of leafless rhizome (er, I guess it's corm, but that word is really awkward) after repotting my collection earlier this summer. You're doing seeds, too? I have respect for seed-growing since you get unique plants that way, but I don't have the patience for it - I much prefer cuttings.
~Joe

 

[adymitruk]

I want some plants in the winter so I did some seeds too. See how fast I can get them to grow. The record seems to be 2 years as posted by someone here earlier.

 

[jimscott]

This sort of setup, with a good lot of LFS (dead material that became alive) on top, under a Grolite, does very well by VFT seeds, VFT leaves, Cobra Lily seeds, Ceph leaves, D. binata leaves, D. filiformis leaves, and probably other things as well:

You can even make out the little black seedcoats on the VFT seedlings.