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Why hasn't the D. Regia x Dionaea hybrid been attempted again?
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It's already bee done once but died as seedlings. I have the high confidence that if someone here took a go at this they'd be able to baby the plant through its tough stage.
Oh yes? Who do you know who actually got living offspring - albeit brief-lived - from a cross of Drosera regia and Dionaea? I'm skeptical, very skeptical.
Ugh..............
And they say Photoshop is evil.
I'm just curious
Is it cause Regia is still too hard to grow in general .......
Since when? D. regia is very easy to grow.
I thought it was generally thought of as hard
maybe back in the day...
I think it is more of an issue of availability, since regia is somewhat difficult to acquire. I have it growing on a windowsill and it is doing fine.
I thought another issue was the price and the fact you had to feed it like every 10 seconds or it self-destructs.
I use Osmocote pellets so I don't need to feed it, but the fungus gnats it catches also supplements its diet. It is not that expensive; I bought mine for around $30. Granted, it is not a mature plant.
Yes, some say.
I have personally killed more than I would care to count. I think I have a handle on it now...
Dexenthes
Aristoloingulamata
I find D. regia still quite finicky to grow. I have never gotten one to take off for me yet. Also D. regia and D. muscipula are supposedly closer than not on the genetic tree so it is still an endeavor worth pursuing. I don't know why more people aren't trying it, Kirby. Why not give it a shot!
You really shouldn't listen to myths and legends.
As for price, in the UK you can acquire nursery grown plants for under $15.
As an amateur it's simply not worth my time and greenhouse space to propagate for sale. The last time I did I struggled to sell them at $7.50 for 2 ( each in 3½" pot ). Why the prices are so high in the US is a mystery.
I'll keep to my six 8" squares for my own enjoyment.
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Indeed, US prices are a mystery to me as well. Prices in the SF Bay Area are 2-4× than what they sell for in Southern California. Perhaps there is more demand in the Bay Area. More vendors and more exposure. Some of it is mythology at work - people are told something is difficult to grow or propagate when the truth is something different once some basic parameters are met. Look at all the *RARE* plants for sale in the US on eBay. If it was something truly rare you'd be auctioning it some place like Sotheby's not eBay. Prices reflect what the market will bear - especially when there is an uninformed market to exploit.
There have even been a few cases where growers admitted to keeping plants scarce to keep prices high. But then again for the most part profit margins are razor thin. Bob Hanrahan remarked (at the time) that people wanted plants on the cheap but when he factored in time and labor to propagate plants and run a mail order business he should be getting 10× what he was selling them for. This was before tissue culture mass propagation was readily available.
Another factor is while there are several firms mass propagating Carnivorous Plants there is nothing in the US that approaches the scale of a firm like Carniflora. And there are much less restrictions in shipping live plants between EU nations than there are shipping between States in America.
http://forum.carnivoren.org/index.php?/topic/35231-treffen-bei-carniflora/
http://icps.proboards.com/thread/5009/visit-carnivorous-plant-nurserie-carniflora
