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acclimatizing Tuberous Drosera

Hello. I have just got some tuberous drosera from the southern hemisphere. Now i have done some reading on how to grow them soil temp and all that but i would like to get some advise on how to acclimatize them to the northen part. Any one any experiance with that?
The temps were i live now are about +- 20 C at day time and about 5C less at nihgt and the temps are riseing as we go into summer.
Should i give them direct sunlight at all now? for how long should i water them.? What would be the most stressless soil mix i can use for them? Pot size? Material?
Any adivese is very much apriciated.

Thanks
Yoav
 
Check out Pyro's post for growing tuberous sundews. He knows what's up. I don't think it has anything on acclimation, but I might be remembering incorrectly.

xvart.
 
Pyro should see this tomorrow morning when he gets to work.................he'll chime in then
 
So much faith in me LOL.

Acclimization can be a bit of a pain if you are new to the group. All I can offer up is what I do but I have a few advantages that you might not have so that may change the way you do things.

The main goal here is to do everything in your power to keep the plants cool.

So, as xvart said, check my other thread for media and pot recommendations potting up and the like. I will add a small thing here though, after talking with another very successfull grower about his setup you might consider adding up to 2 additional parts perlite to your media. I have not tried this yet so I can not swear by it.

If you are only able to grow outside then you may have difficulties as I am assuming that your tubers have not even started growing. So if you can grow them inside, especially in a place like a cool basement or the like, then you will probably do better.

Basically what I do is pot up my new tubers in pre-prepared media that is barely damp (my method for doing this is to wet the LFS component of my media and wring it out till no water squeezes out, the minimal moisture left is all you really want.) I pot up the tubers and place them in my sunroom grow area where nights tend to stay below 10C till mid-late March. Once nights start to break the 10 degree mark I move the pots down to my crawlspace which is set up for highland plants. The temps in there do not break 25 even during the hottest part of summer but nights tend to stay right about 10-15C.

I keep the pots dry but in ziplock baggies until I see above ground growth. When growth breaks surface the pots go in a shallow tray, no more than 1cm water. Wait till the water is gone before adding more.

Keep them under as bright a light as possible without raising temps and the light cycle should be no more than 12 hours on preferably 10 hours on. Grow the plants like this for as long as possible. You are shoting for a truncated season since you want them to go down and come back up again for your winter but this rarely happens in a single season so be patient and keep cycling to fit the plants needs. I have also had rare occasions where a plant will go through an extended season growing all the way through the summer and into the winter. This does not happen often but when it does just move the plant to your winter area when winter comes and keep an eye on it.

So again, the goal is to keep the plant as cool as you can. If you have a highland area then this is probably your best bet. If not then try for a basement. Failing that then use light coloured pots and grow near a swamp cooler or some such.

Hope this helps
 
Barry Rice in his FAQs cautions:
If you start with tubers, it would be best if you had tubers from the same hemisphere as you. That means that if you are in Europe, try to get tubers from other northern hemisphereans. If you start with tubers imported from Australia, expect a high failure rate as the tubers try to acclimate to the 6-month jet lag.​

You have your work cut out for you. Good Luck and Good Growing.
 
Pyro. Thanks for your answer. Yes i am new to this group thought that if i can aclimate them they would grow well here since the winter are rainy and cool and summer hot and dry.
I allready planted the tubers and watered once since i got some of them with a relativly long growing stolon. I planted them with the tip of the Stolon just abit the surface as i think i read in a thread you wrote. Now i dont have the posibility of using arteficial light,
I planted them in a mix of mostly sand and peat in a white glazed clay pot to help keep the soil cool. It is out side receiving morning direct sunlight .Temp now are about 15C low and 20C high and it will climbe to be a steady warm temp of +20C at night to +30C at day. I am planing of puting every eavning small ice pack around the pot to get the temp low.
So was it a mistake to water? Should i now wait till something emerges above the soil surface? Should i give it any direct sunlight in summer conditions?

Thanks Yoav
 
Yaov,

A single watering should be okay if the plants had stolons growing on them. You might even be able to safely put them on the shallow tray if the stolons were substantial. I would aim to keep the media minimally moist until you see above ground growth though, just to be on the safe side.

I failed to ask what species you have, this might make a difference in how things go for you as well as some species are very forgiving of high heat.

The ice pack idea might work but make sure it is not going to freeze anything that comes up out of the media.

Cheers
 
Pyro thanks very much. hopefully i will succed in making them go threw the summer.

I have:
D.erythrorhiza
D.humilis
D.macrophylla
D.stolonifera

I also thought if you give them winter like conditions during the summer why would they ever aclimatize to the northern hemesphiere winter?
 
  • #10
Yaov,

The goal it to give them winter conditions for a truncated period during summer. Long enough for them to form a tuber but short enough that they can start to synch up with your hemisphere. As I mentione, it can take a couple years to synch them because they do not always grow when/how you want them to.

As for your species... ery and stolon are a bit forgiving of higher temps so they might do okay for you this round. I can not say about the others though as I have only just aquired them myself.
 
  • #11
Pyro thanks very much for helping hopefully they will somehow survive to the next winter. Also a D. aff macrantha i have has started to grow but i am not sure if it is a flower scape that comes before the leafs or it is the growing stolon. It is a very small red stolon with some like flower buds on its end. What is the growth habit of this Drosera? Does it sends out its flower before leafs appear? Also if it is the flower scape should i cut it down so the plant would have more energy for leaf growth and this way increase its chances for surviving this summer.???
 
  • #12
Hey Yaov,

D. macrantha does not bloom until the plant reaches full height (whatever that may be depending on subspecies/form) so anything you are seeing now is going to be plant growth so do not cut it.
 
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