Some question about satrifiction of seeds?

[allenphoon]

Question about carnivorous plant
1)Does the germination will still occur if i put all of the seeds inside a sealed water and put it in the refrigerator(vegetable place) for 4 weeks?

2)After the cold satrification, i put all of the seeds(drosera, sarracenia, nepenthes nd bla bla bla) in a container full with water, can germination occur?
3)During the seeds germination, hmm..i mean while waiting, if some of the sphaagnum moss becoming green(growing algae), becoming watery(starting to decay by some fungus, perhaps? and it smell smelly, colour change to brown colour), and revive, what will you do?

4)What will happen to carnivorous plant if i use some coal inside it as media, it was alkali in pH, as i know.....?

5)Can i collect the Carnivorous plant pollen inside a ziplock bag and store in refrigerator, how long can it store?

6) Can drosera still produce dew even in a very low humidity place?

7)What difference between using peat moss and sphagnum moss as media for carnivorous plant?

8)How does the humidity level affect carnivorous plant?

9)Which species of Drosera can grow larger than 10cm diameter?


So far these are what i curious about them, hope any of you in here can answer it....thanks....

[edwardyeeks]

Allen, thats a lot of questions! But we will answer it with all that we know.....

Q1-I doubt seeds will germinate in the refrigerator, my good friend.

Q2-I have never stratified my seeds before, so I am not sure. However, DO NOT plant nep seeds in pure water or even stratify them. Since they are tropical plants, seeds of neps should be sown as soon as possible without any need of stratification or process (except watering it of course )

Q3-Unless you are using tap water with lots of minerals, extremely low sunlight levels or lots of fertilizer, sphagnum moss doesn't usually get fungus or brown. And when it becomes green, it's not because of algae, it's because it has *sort of revived*, I am not sure. I can guarantee you that green sphagnum moss has no ill effects on CPs and their seedlings.

Q4-Technically, CHARCOAL, is mainly used for nepenthes. Charcoal absorbs chlorine and may have other good effects. It is also used for aerating the soil. However, it is not suitable for most CPs. I only know that nepenthes don't mind charcoal.

Q5-I've never tried this before so maybe other members can enlight you on this. Maybe 1 year?

Q6-Droseras can produce dew as long there is lots of water in the soil and sunlight. But if you want a healthy amount of dew, keep it fairly humid. Otherwise, there's nothing to worry too much about droseras.

Q7-Sphagnum moss is a LIVING moss that grows in bogs. Over time, the moss grows into layers. Around a few feet deep, the moss that has been buried under a mass of GROWING moss starts to decompose and eventually turn into PEAT moss. However, the moss that is buried just beneath the surface of the live sphagnum simply stops growing, but remains undisturbed. This is where LONG FIBERED SPHAGNUM is harvested. There isn't much difference between using both peat moss and sphagnum moss as a media. Sphagnum moss retains LOTS of water, but is more airier than peat moss. However, peat moss has no *gaps* when used in potting compared to sphagnum, therefore, I prefer using peat moss for growing seeds. Also, sphagnum moss is not as common as peat moss when trying to obtain it commercially.

Q8-Lack of humidity stops nepenthes from pitchering, and causes some other problems to other species of CPs. Based on what I learnt in my science this year....., lack of humidity causes the plant to transpire more a.k.a lose more water to it's surrounding. So it's bad to plants that need high humidity. The plants will have to sacrifice in some aspects to prevent too much loss of water.

Q9-Erm....drosera regia, most forked-leafed sundews, tuberous sundews (although they grow like a vine...). Most rosetted sundews grow in compact sizes. I'm not very sure, leave it to the droseras masters in this forum to give you a detailed list of species that grow 10 inches in diameter or more

Good luck in your CPs!

[allenphoon]

edward, what do you mean in "sort of life“?
Oh...but my place will find it uncommon to find sphagnum moss and peat moss, just get a lot of sphagnum moss from a forumer, but now searching peat moss, haha...
About the drosera, i hope to get some of the drosera that at least larger then D.capensis...i just figured the true size of them recently, kinda dissapointing, haha, do anyone got seeds of Drosera that will eventually grow larger then 10cm in diameter?Can spare some for me to satisfy me desire?haha
But isn't the charcoal is alkali for Carnivorous plant? Carnivorous plant not suppose to grow in acidic condition?
For growing seedlings, i found that mould and fungus will grow, i was using rain water but giving it bright sunlight....still got effect? So far, i did not have any successful germination of seeds, now i out of seeds, just hoping my sarracenia seeds will able to harvest soon, so that i can do more experiment....but just had to wait for looooong period,haizzzz....hehe

[plantlover]

He meant the moss will come back to life(regrow again). Also, most drosera are small and the larger ones are usually harder to find, expensive or harder to grow.

Carnivorous plants prefer ACIDIC conditions, NOT ALKALINE conditions, so it may kill CPs.

Maybe the moss you used was not sterile(still contains spores of moss/fern/bacteria) and the moment you provided water,etc they grew!

Carnivorous plants seeds can take months to germinate so be patient.

[allenphoon]

ya...still got a bit patience on them, just hoping just one will germinate then i will greatly satisfied...haha

[edwardyeeks]

Technically, there are neps that grow in alkaline soil. Also, some pinguicula from Mexico like to have calcium and some minerals.

[allenphoon]

Ooo.....understand....thanks

[plantlover]

I was talking about other CPs (VFT, drosera, sarracenia, etc) and most neps prefer acidic too.(i know northiana and a few likes alkaline instead).

But remember that almost all CPs prefer acidic soil so always use that unless stated otherwise.