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Catching flies for your plants.

All of my CPs are going to have a non-normal season this year..
due to my current living situation.

Up until last September, I had a great balcony where my plants lived outdoors all season..(except for winter, when they were in the fridge)

then I got married last September!
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and my new wife and I are renting an apartment for a year, while we look for a house..
we moved last September, just before the plants were ready to go into the fridge..

All the plants came out of the fridge the last few weeks..everyone lived! they are doing great.
but...all my plants have to grow indoors..at work..this entire summer, because our current apartment has no suitable outdoor space for them.
I hate to keep them indoors, but I have no option for this year.

so! they are in a bright south window..light is ok.
but they will get no food!
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they are in an empty office, by themselves..so I got to thinking..
I could collect a bunch of flies, release them in the room, and let the plants catch them!
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how to collect flies then??
perhaps something like a lobster trap..with a small opening they can crawl through, then into a big chamber, and they wont easily find their way back out..
im thinking maybe a funnel stuck in the opening of a milk jug..laid on its side..
that trap part should work!
but then...what to use for bait??
what would attract flies?
I dont want to use anything messy like old meat or cat food or something like that..
because I would have to seal up the trap, with the bait still inside, then carry the jug into work, with the flies and bait inside...

any ideas for a good way to catch a bunch of flies??
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Here is my temporary set-up..for this season only.
Hopefully we will have a house by this August!
and the plants can then go outdoors to prepare for dormancy again..
I dont mind leaving them indoors until august..but they *need* to be outdoors for at least all of Sepember & October so they can go dormany naturally before hey go into the fridge again..

thanks!
Scot

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Very impressive setup! Not sure if this is feasible for you, but when I had my plants in an otherwise ignored room at the lab, I set up containers with rotting fruit. While it didn't attract the typical housefly, it sure garnered fruitflies. A tap on the container rattled their cage, as it were and they jettisoned the container. This worked well for my sundews. Probably shoulda done that for the Mexi-pings (woulda coulda had flowers by now!) But I digress...

Hey, when are ya coming out to East Aurora again? Maybe we can get together!
 
Neat setup!!!!!

What kind of plants do you have?

Could you also get some close ups of yor dionaea?

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If you really want, there are pet stores or places online that sell live tiny worms or larvae. They are juicy and soft so plants can easily digest them, yet are alive, so dionaeas will seal their traps around them.

I haven't done this yet but I'd rather do that than feeding my VFTs hard roly poly's (the traps refuse to open because the shells are so hard)
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (jimscott @ Mar. 07 2006,12:49)]I set up containers with rotting fruit. While it didn't attract the typical housefly, it sure garnered fruitflies. A tap on the container rattled their cage, as it were and they jettisoned the container. This worked well for my sundews. Probably shoulda done that for the Mexi-pings (woulda coulda had flowers by now!)
Jim, slap a cap on the fruit fly container, slip it in the freezer for 5 minutes, then sprinkle the flies on your pings. Or go a little higher tech and grow the wingless fruit flies. Or, and this way you can make a little money, rent your fruit fly daughter to him every couple weeks
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Steve, Oooooh, I like all of those suggestions! Now why didn't I think of slowing down the metabolism? (That was a rhetorical question!)

Um... "fruitflygurl" just moved out and took an apartment nearby. Funny, 99% of her stuff is still here and so is she, half the time!
 
The important question is: Did she take her fruit flies with her?
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Sadly, yes! I have to cultivate my own.
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Just steel a few of hers! What is the expence of cultivating youre own? Couldnt be much harder than mushrooms am i right?

Cheers
 
Have you ever smelled a mushroom factory? I have!
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Then there's the grossout factor of rotting fruit and fruitflies.
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  • #10
wow! nice setup, I wish I had that much space, unfortunately trying to bring my Sarras out of dormancy on my window in colorado witout humidity seems impossible so I have to resort to glass cages for my plants
 
  • #11
Thanks everyone!
but actually, I consider it a very bad setup..
it might look cool, but its bad for my plants.

Its less light than outdoors..even though they are in a "bright south window" its still a lot less light than outdoors.
Its climate-conrtolled indoor air..
too warm when its cool outside,
and too cool when its warm outside.
they get no sense of seasonal changes..no cool spring changing to hot summer then back to cool autumn..its virtually the same every day of the season. They will get no dormancy ques for temp.
and they cant catch any bugs!
the only "good" thing is the light levels will change with the seasons.

Im a firm believer in NEVER growing VFT's or Sarracenia indoors if you can avoid it. they do SOOOOOOO much better outdoors.
there is no comparision..
IMO, no one should ever grow a VFT or Sarr indoors..ever..unless they have absolutely no where to keep it outside.

but..like I said, this is a temporary setup for this year only!
hopefully they will be fine..

Here is my current growlist:

Sarracenia X moorei  'Leah Wilkerson' (1)
Sarracenia rubra ssp. alabamensis AL-02 (1)
Sarracenia X 'Judith Hindle' (7)
Sarracenia leucophylla (1)
Sarracenia leucophylla 'Tarnoc' (5)
Sarracenia leucophylla 'Red' (2)
Sarracenia leucophylla 'Titan' (2) (in mini bog)
Sarracenia X 'excellens' (2)
Sarracenia flava (1)
Sarracenia flava 'veinless' (1)
Sarracenia purpurea (1)
Sarracenia X wrigleyana 'Scarlet Belle'  (1) (In mini bog)
Sarracenia X 'dixie lace'

Mixed sarracenia hybrids, unknown parentage (7)

Sarracenia seedlings, 2 years old, grown from ICPS seed packs,
sprouted Spring 2004:
'Judith Hindle' X 'Ladies in Waiting' (11)
Sarracenia leucophylla (25)
Sarracenia flava, Walton Co. Florida (2)
Sarracenia purpurea ssp. purpurea (1)

Dionaea muscipula, mixed varieties, (50) (in mini bog)

Drosera capensis (15) in 3 pots
Drosera Binata (1)

Pinguicula agnata (1)

Nepenthes X chelsonii (3)
 
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