Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
ilbasso_74

VFT Mortality Rate

ilbasso_74
17 years ago

I've started repotting the outdoor plants and I've been very pleased to see that Sarracenia rhizomes are nice and white when snapped apart. The concern though, is that my VFT population seems to have taken quite a hit. Is this common? Maybe they'll pull through but I was wondering if others lose more VFTs than other plants. They just look much worse than the sarrs.

Comments (10)

  • petiolaris
    17 years ago

    Sarrs do seem to come through dormancy better than VFT's. Give them time. Are they mush or just looking like crap?

  • hunterkiller03
    17 years ago

    My experience is that it depends how your store your VFT during dormancy. I have learned by trial and error and have worked just fine for me storing my VFTs.

    What I do is after uprooting the plant, I wash the bulb and roots with distilled water, gently pull apart and "pup" from the mother bulb and wrap them up with moisten long fiber sphagnum moss (not live and not soggy). Insert them inside Ziploc bags with small holes for the plants to breathe and place them inside a sturdy box and place them all in the fridge where you place your produce. I check the plants every other week and remoisten the moss if gets too dry. I know that some people have dusted the bulb to protect them from fungus but I had never experienced that problem.

    HavenÂt lost a VFT with my little technique, my problem is loosing VFT during the summer here in Arizona.

  • clay_in_iowa
    17 years ago

    Did you leave them outside all winter in pots?

  • ilbasso_74
    Original Author
    17 years ago

    They were in my garage in pots. Some shared a "mini bog" pot with sarrs that seem just fine and although I hvaen't dug up the VFTs in that pot, they don't look so hot.

    Some of the others are mush while some still seem to have white bulbs. I'll just have to wait and see.

  • mutant_hybrid
    16 years ago

    I just used an ice chest with gallon and 20 ounce water containers frozen solid around the pots. I replaced the ice containers every 12 hours and kept the ice chest open, 1 foot from flourescent lights during the day, mostly to aid in discouraging fungus and air them out, for a high of about 50, and closed at night to drop the temperature to about 40. I stratified Sarracenia seeds and put VFT through dormancy this way and all are doing great. I just wish I could put my VFT outside or in a sunny window at the least now. I barely have adequate flourescents for it with 4 40 watt tubes almost touching the upper leaves.

    {{gwi:549163}}

    As you can see, it is flowering. I am using a length of yarn to redirect the scape away from touching the lights. It has slowed in growth some, but the flowers are developing and new leaves are sprouting. The traps have some slight red color inside and are capturing numerous insects and digesting them without difficulty. I only sprayed it once with neem oil extract during its dormancy period just in case.

    Here are my Sarracenia hybrids (unknown crosses) two months after the first germination.

    {{gwi:549164}}

    Hopefully I can get them all outside for some real light in a few months if I can find a better place to move.

  • petiolaris
    16 years ago

    Ya know, I wouldn't be quick to move them outside for their first year. Everytime I have tried that, critters and rain have ruined them. As long as your lighting is good, another year wouldn't hurt them.

  • mutant_hybrid
    16 years ago

    petiolaris:

    Yeah, thats part of the reason why I am waiting to place them outside. Kids and raccoons. I live in a small apartent right now and only have shaded windows, from trees growing outside, and no balcony.

  • joeb004
    16 years ago

    That's funny...I've never lost a flytrap in dormancy...not one. And now that I've been gone through three dormancy periods and many divisions, I've really got too many flytraps. Sarrs seem to always cause problems for me. It seems like I always lose one or two to a fungus attack in the winter. I cut the pitchers off some of them last fall, and that helped a lot.

    Regards,
    Joe

  • petiolaris
    16 years ago

    Watering sparingly seems to prevent mold when in dormancy.

  • joeb004
    16 years ago

    Well, yeah, minimal water is pretty much always the rule in dormancy. The real problem appears to be, "What do you expect a pitcher of rotting insects to produce in a cold basement?" Yep, mold and fungus is a pretty likely outcome. Cutting off the pitchers appears to alleviate that problem. I can't take credit for the idea, I think I got it from Clay in IA.

Sponsored
Bull Run Kitchen and Bath
Average rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars273 Reviews
Virginia's Top Rated Kitchen & Bath Renovation Firm I Best of Houzz