Rooting Hormone Dionaea Muscipula

[italoamericano]

Does anyone have any experience doing VFT leaf cuttings using Rooting Hormone?
I tried it on all my VFT leaf cuttings and none took.
Now, after reading several articles some experts say not to use it as it really does not help when doing VFT leaf cuttings.
I also read another experiment with African Violet leaf cuttings stating that the cuttings treated with Rooting Hormone did worse than the ones without.
Thank you in advance for any useful information!

Giovanni

[arvin555]

Giovanni,

I wasn't inclined to reply to your post because my experience and usage is not scientific enough and I really can't be sure about sucess rate. I use a rooting hormone that is locally available called "hormex" and reason for my comment about that it is not "sceintific" are these:

1. I don't use this often and when I do I just take a few drops and put in a bit of RO water and dip a leaf cutting in and then the leaf goes on a pot of sphagnum moss (dried).

2. I have so far only been able to sucessfully make one out of maybe 10 leaf cuttings to actually grow into Baby VFTs. And to make matters worse, I don't even remember if this was treated or not with Hormex.

So there, unfortunately my experience is not so useful. However I probably am in a position in the near future to do some experiments. Because I have a bit of Peat moss already, which I heard was the best medium. And I have noticed that I can get away with plucking off the not so good looking leaves from my adult VFT. Unfortunately I have a feeling that because I do leaf cuttings on the leaves that have dead traps already, that it might be a big factor in my sucess. (Is there a topic about how to do leaf cuttings?) For example I just did 2 leaf cuttings today just coz I took off two leaves that didn't really look well, the cuttings have the white rhizome portion. I noticed that the white area actually stays green or whitish the longest, compared to the rest of the leaves which usually turn black quite quickly.

Will post in future if I get to start to try Hormones again. I will probably try full strength solution just to see if there is a difference.

TTFN
Arvin

[italoamericano]

Hi Arvin,

Thank you for your post!

Just like you I have tried several VFT leaf cutting and have gotten zero results.

This is what I'm going to try next. Please correct me if you feel there is a better way to do it. I will be taking cuttings from my Pink VFT and placing them in a McDonald's Sunday cup because it has a dome. The cuttings will be from a 2 years old plant, thus it may not work but all my plants are 1 to 2 years old. I will be using 50% Peat Moss and Perlite and punch several holes in the dome and bottom of the cup. I will bury all of the cutting except the white rhizome and leave it in standing distiled water and put the cup out in the sun all day long.
What do you think?

[arvin555]

The thing is I am not an expert with leaf cuttings, I have only had 1 sucess And I don't even remember what I did with that one. But this is what I have been doing:

1. Getting the leaf with a bit of the white stuff (rhizome)
2. Using potting mix (your mix will do, or maybe try pure peat moss).
3. Your container will do, I am not sure if you need to punch holes on the bottom, maybe a bit only for drainage.
4. I suggest you leave them in the same place where the parent plants are now, and water them the same way.

The biggest difference from what you said and from what I am doing and have read is this:

1. I thought that you basically don't bury the whole cutting, in fact you only bury the white rhizome part or at least part of the white stuff. The rest of the leaves are on top of the medium.

At least for the one time that I was sucessful the leaf was on the surface of the sphagnum moss, I noticed some nodules growing on it and just left it there, eventually they became leaves, maybe took 1 month total.

TTFN
Arvin