Polination of VFT flowers

[David]

By Zak
Re: Flytrap Flowering!
« Reply #11 on Apr 1, 2007, 11:59pm »

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Ah Brad (who is like a super expert of flytraps haha) says this when I asked him about pollination of flytraps :

"The day a flower opens is the best day to use the pollen as it is freshest. But even the 2nd day it should still be good.

Anyway you need to put the pollen on top of the stigma in the center of the flower. The stigma becomes receptive on the 2-3 day after the flower opens. The day it opens the stigma looks like a point, but when receptive it will splay apart some and look fuzzy, kinda hairy, this is on the 2-3rd day.

So when you have a 3 day old flower, take the pollen from another first day bloom and put or rub the pollen on the 3 day old flowers stigma. In about 6 weeks time you will have seeds.

I use tweezers to pull a first day bloom pollen anther off the flower, and then rub the anther on a 3 day old stigma. Many growers just rub (two flowers together) the new pollen flower against the old stigma flower to transfer the pollen. "

[David]

By cactustts
Re: Akai ryu PURCHASE
?Reply #10 on Mar 5, 2007, 7:04pm ?

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Flowering actually exhaust the plant, if you have more then one plant, by all mean go ahead and let it flower. Anything goes wrong during the 'recovering' period may kill the plant easily as the plant is too weak for any harm.
What is your purpose of getting seeds? If you just wanna see VFTs grow up from seeds to maturity, then it's fine. Or else you will risk the plant to death.

The character of the mother plant don't pass down to the offspring, you may just endup with a common form of VFT after a few years of growing. (In some cases, there are plants bore same trait as parent, then I should congratulate you). The fastest way of getting a same form or cultivar is by division or leaf cutting. You can't call the offspring (from seeds) the same name for instance 'akai ryu' as parent plant eventhough it looks almost the same as akai ryu. Plants sold in the market are clones of the same cultivar.