Joseph has recently shared a lot of very interesting information with us. His 16-month study is really showing just how hardy most Mexican Pinguicula are. The frustrating thing for most of us is the "your mileage may vary" effect with Mexipings. Joseph is able to sprout and continuously maintain leaf pullings and plantlets with no water at all, whereas I've struggled and struggled to keep leaf pullings and small plantlets alive.
I'm growing in 100% Schultz APS with 30 to 50% humidity. In my conditions, I've found that plantlets seem to have a magic size. They struggle to reach this size, then grow exponentially afterwards. I've conducted a few studies, and found that the key ingredient for my plantlets seems to be moisture. Until they reach the magic point, they need to be constantly moist. Afterwards, they can handle a good dry stretch without issue. What I've started doing is sprouting leaf pullings on the exposed media in my Heliamphora pots. The Helis are all growing in damp, mostly live LFS. The plantlets seem to take off under these conditions, and can then be hardened off to the APS medium once they've got some moisture buffer (stored in their tissues) behind them. In fact, I've transferred a few struggling plantlets from the APS to LFS and noticed growth pick-up within a day or so. The LFS may also help with small plantlets because it's supposed to have anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties.
For those of you who are curious, the magic size for plantlets seems to be around 1/2" in diameter. I'm not 100% sure if this is due to moisture retention, or if they just build a good root network at around that size, and are better able to intake moisture from the air and substrate.
I just found it interesting how different things work for different conditions. Wonder if anyone else has seen anything similar?
Somebody needs to write a book about Mexipings. A couple thousand pages ought to do it.....
Oh, and PS: This is definitely not a post to try to argue with JC. His posts have been fantastic and oh so educational. They just really caught my attention, and happened to come around right as I was accumulating some good hard evidence that the LFS vs. APS thing was for real. I just wanted to share some of my observations, too. In fact, he may chime in and say he's observed similar results. Hopefully we can all share and discuss without arguing? Much love!
I'm growing in 100% Schultz APS with 30 to 50% humidity. In my conditions, I've found that plantlets seem to have a magic size. They struggle to reach this size, then grow exponentially afterwards. I've conducted a few studies, and found that the key ingredient for my plantlets seems to be moisture. Until they reach the magic point, they need to be constantly moist. Afterwards, they can handle a good dry stretch without issue. What I've started doing is sprouting leaf pullings on the exposed media in my Heliamphora pots. The Helis are all growing in damp, mostly live LFS. The plantlets seem to take off under these conditions, and can then be hardened off to the APS medium once they've got some moisture buffer (stored in their tissues) behind them. In fact, I've transferred a few struggling plantlets from the APS to LFS and noticed growth pick-up within a day or so. The LFS may also help with small plantlets because it's supposed to have anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties.
For those of you who are curious, the magic size for plantlets seems to be around 1/2" in diameter. I'm not 100% sure if this is due to moisture retention, or if they just build a good root network at around that size, and are better able to intake moisture from the air and substrate.
I just found it interesting how different things work for different conditions. Wonder if anyone else has seen anything similar?
Somebody needs to write a book about Mexipings. A couple thousand pages ought to do it.....
Oh, and PS: This is definitely not a post to try to argue with JC. His posts have been fantastic and oh so educational. They just really caught my attention, and happened to come around right as I was accumulating some good hard evidence that the LFS vs. APS thing was for real. I just wanted to share some of my observations, too. In fact, he may chime in and say he's observed similar results. Hopefully we can all share and discuss without arguing? Much love!