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If your vft is flowering look here!

  • #61
Peter, are your VFT's kept outside? The closer they mimic "natural" conditions the more likely they will do fine. Kept in terraria, in artificial light, and whatever else a lot of us have done when we were kids with oir erspective first VFT (tap water, no dormancy period, keeping them perpetually covered) adds enough stress to their baseline stress - and puts them over the edge. I did all the afore-mentioned faux pas until I stumbled onto this discussion forum. Mine are kept outside, south-facing, catching their own bugs. They flower... they clump... they live on. Happy ending!
 
  • #62
I agree with peter. This is the plant I allowed to flower this year and there are no ill effects:
Prostrate.jpg
 
  • #63
I agreethe effects of flowering on a healthy plant are negligeable just a slight slow in growth and more of a habit of clumping.

My vft 'typical' wich I allowed to flower and set seed with 2 stalks on ne plant is still doing great and now has like 7-8 growth points! I will let any healthy vft flower for now on I believe. We need more genetic diversity in these plants. I mean all those plants you pick up at home depot type stores are like what 5 different clones in all? Where`s the diversity in that?

But with seed grown plants you get that nice variancey,wich if these plants ever go extinct in the wild we will need for re-introduction.
 
  • #64
I was thinking that maybe the reason a lot of VFTs die when they flower is because of a drain of phosphorus and potasium. Would it help the plant stay vigorous if you fed it something high in potasium like a firefly?
 
  • #65
^hmm interesting, where did you come up with that

how bout a firefly coated in banana flesh?
smile_n_32.gif
 
  • #66
Why you shouldn't let your VFT flower -

When I bought this 'Cupped Trap' it had a flower stalk, which let grow a week or two as I acclimatized the plant to my growing conditions. I clipped the stalk off and shortly after another stalk started to develop (see photo 1). I let that grow a few weeks as I wanted the plant material for Tissue Culture. Note the stunted growth of the leaves - no traps!

Since I clipped the second stalk leaf growth appears to be returning to normal - cupped traps that is.

cupped_trap_f1.jpg

cupped_trap_f2.jpg

cupped_trap_f3.jpg

cupped_trap_f4.jpg


First stalk, soon after I bought it - note the 'normal' cups
cup1.jpg

cup2.jpg
 
  • #67
Wait....You got a cup trap from Walmart?
 
  • #68
Home Depot actually (Gublers)...
 
  • #69
WoW from HD? Were there a number of these cup traps, or just the one?
P.
 
  • #70
Just the one, back in January I think. I saw the flower stalk and deformed looking leaves and almost passed it by. It was fogged up and it was at night so it was kind of dark in the covered nursery section. I didn't believe my eyes and took it into the store for better lighting. I still didn't believe it even when I got home.

I've seen 'Dente' at Lowes - Gublers again. I think they just resell AgriStarts III plants.

I guess it pays to look closely at the VFTs in HD, Wally's or whatever.

The darn thing is putting up another flower stalk. That's number three since Jan/Feb. If it puts out another one after I clip this one I think I'll just let it flower - maybe that will get it out if it's system - or kill the plant!
 
  • #71
Very interesting, one wonders if there was a cup fly trap variety that somehow got into their stock, or if this is a chance mutation that occurred from TC?!

In any case, what a fun find!
I too like to peruse the VFT's stock at my local nurseries, looking for VFT's that might be different. I just picked up one that i thought had fairly large traps, that were bigger than the rest. It was from Nurseryman's Exchange, a wholesaler from California.
Peter.
 
  • #72
I think it just got mixed up in the batch somehow at AgriStarts III. AgriStarts III hasn't been distributing these for sometime from what I gather from Steve Stewart on the ICPS forums.

I've found some nice VFTs from Nurserymans' Exchange at OSH and Home Depot - the one I selected for big traps has about 1.5 inch traps. I suspect they resell AgriStarts III too.
 
  • #73
It's awsome you got a cup trap good job
 
  • #74
One of my friends also had a flowering cuptrap. The flower died though... :-( So Agristarts was distributing cup traps? And they stopped?
 
  • #75
If you do cut the stalks off poke 2" lengths of them into the compost at the side of the pot and just leave alone. Most of the "cuttings" will produce little plants from the stalk. It is not a fast process but it is well worth doing.
 
  • #76
If you do cut the flower stalk as close to the plant as possible and plant it,it will produce a young VFT!
Good luck
34.jpg
 
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