First seeds of the season!

[jhaluska]

I check this afternoon and see some shiny black seeds on my self polinated blood red that I got last year.

I quick snip of the scissors off the first one and you can see I placed it on a sheet of paper.

I cleared it out and you can see how they are packed in.  Two seeds have already popped out.

When popping the seeds off make sure you raise the edges of the paper as they can fly pretty far!  Overall I got at least 20 seeds off the largest bud.  There are still 4 buds left on that plant that could give me seeds.  

I'm contemplating whether to plant them tonight or wait for the rest of the seeds to mature.   I think tonight is going to win cause that means I could have baby VFTs even sooner.  

 

[uglypho]

Congrats on the seeds!

Mine will be ripening in about a month or so. My cuttings of VFT Bigmouth now has several leaves!

 

[VTPTFATHAVFT]

Coolio! What was your method to fertilize them?

 

[jhaluska]

To fertilize I just ripped off a piece of paper towel and rolled it around my fingers to kinda make a point.  My theory was the paper fibers are about the same as hairs on a bee.  I then touched the point to each anther and then the stigma.  I did that a couple times each day going around each to each open flower to increase the chance of pollination.  I also reused the paper towel each time to increase the pollen count.  It looks like it worked on 5 out of the 7 buds, but only time will tell.

 

[BobZ]

Quote[/b] ]What was your method to fertilize them?

I have found it easer to simply rub the anther gently on the receptive stigma. The pollen is thereby transferred directly. However, the plants (flowers) need to be sufficiently close to one another to accomplish this.

 

[jhaluska]

Ok, I broke down and planted the little suckers! I sunk to a new level of insanity, I actually boiled the soil before putting it in the pot. Sure is a great way to make the soil look pretty tho. Lets see if I can do better than last year where my only seedling got covered from moss due to poor soil and lack of airflow. Live and learn I guess.

 

[jhaluska]

Well, if anybody wants to know how long it takes seeds to sprout, I've noticed the first seedlings ever so slightly pushing their way out of their seeds this morning! So about 17 days!

 

[pond boy]

Congrats! I hope the seed pods on mine grow seeds it looks like only 2 out of 14 will tho ,

 

[Jason Wong]

Quote[/b] (VTPTFATHAVFT @ May 03 2004,7:11)]Coolio! What was your method to fertilize them?

I'm planning to use a paintbrush (maybe) when mine flowers, that is if it flowers? Can anybody state the age of a VFT when it gets into its flowering cycle? Because my typical's already 4 years old and its producing huge trap (3cm), and I'm sure flowering won't take that much energy off it...i'll try post a pic soon as I can (Besides, I don't want the traps to grow too big otherwise the next prey it catches will be my dog...)

 

[Jason Wong]

Anyone ever tried paintbrush pollination? If so, how exactl do you do it...is the only thing to be careful of is not to ram the brush into the anther otherwise you could smah the anther (or get the pollen too deep in the brush and spend the rest of the day picking the pollen out of the paintbrush...?)

 

[Joseph Clemens]

I have had seedling that were less than 12 months old flower. That was rare and I attribute it to the exceptional habitat they were growing in at that time, (Pacific Northwestern USA).

My pollination technique is to grasp a few ripe stamen with forceps and pull them free. Holding them in the forceps I rub the pollen directly to receptive stigma. Hasn't failed yet.

 

[Snugulz]

Being the 1st time I've tried letting my VFTs flower, I found that the paintbrush method works great - as long as the brush is small and soft.  I just take the end of the brush and twirl it on the ends of the anthers to collect the pollen on the end of the brush.  You can easily see how much pollen you got off if your brush is black.

Then, I go to a different flower and lightly dab the end of the brush on the stigma until most of the pollen has fallen off of the brush (and hopefully into the stigma).  I did this repeatedly over about a week or so (until the flowers turned black) because different flowers kept popping up at different times and also to increase the chance of successful pollination.

Now, about 2 weeks later, I can begin to see lots of little black seeds being developed in most of the flower pods.  I got an excellent success rate with this method.

BTW, how does one exactly know when the seeds are ripe for gathering?  I thought it took about a month, but I'm seeing seeds after only 2 weeks.