Summer Batch leaf cuttings success rate

Back about six weeks ago I started some leaf cuttings and seeds – a propagation effort I've dubbed the Summer Batch. Earlier today I decided to take the plastic wrap off the tray where the leaf cuttings are growing briefly in order to take some good pictures for the blog. Things are going well over all!

First of all, here's what they all looked like on 7-10-2014, the day I got this round of propagation going:

Oh for the halcyon days of leaf cuttings and hopeful beginnings.

I started the cuttings in 6-cell seed starter units. Drosera adelae and Drosera anglica CA x HI each had 6 cells, and Drosera venusta and Drosera madagascariensis each had three. This is the D. venusta/D madagascariensis unit.

D. madagascariensis and D. venusta bunking together like bros.

The cell in the bottom-left is the only successful D. venusta cutting. The one in the center got moldy, and the one of the right actually was dislodged at some point and has dried out on the side of the unit. The top-left and top-right cells of D. madagascariensis have struck, though the plantlets are quite tiny (in part because D. madagascariensis is a smaller plant over all).

My D. adelae starts did much worse than I expected.

That one productive cutting (almost) makes up for the 5 failures.

It's such a prolific plant, I expected the cuttings to have a much higher success rate. I'll still get a couple new plants out of the deal, but I was hoping to be totally awash.

The D. anglica CA x HI cuttings, however, are totally going gangbusters.

This is one of the most vigorous plants in my whole collection. Total beast.

A full 5 of the 6 cells have had strikes (look closely at bottom-center) and the plantlets are already quite large. I'm going to leave the humidity cover on for a few more weeks at least while the other plantlets catch up, but I'm super excited to have more of this clone in my collection.

As you can see, I'll at least have a few new plants to mess around with in the coming months. Maybe I'll even be able to grow a few of them out enough to donate at the BACPS meeting in fall.

Besides the summer batch, one of my current propagation efforts is this pot of Drosera natalensis, the seed for which I received in a trade with Natch Greyes several months ago. Check these two pictures and then see below for how little they've grown in almost 3 months.

Tiny, jewel-like seedings. So red!

 The seeds germinated back in mid-May, but because of the arrangement of my collection they weren't super accessible for a while. As a result I wasn't able to feed them very much, and as I learned from Grow Sundews (and personal experience), unfed seedlings grow very, very slowly. I just recently gave some food to some of the largest seedlings. Hopefully in the next couple weeks I'll get a growth spurt. I've seen it before!

I remember when I first started with carnivores I thought of taking 4 months to get mature plants as super long time. Now that I have a bigger collection though I feel like I have more patience.

The Summer Batch

Sown/Started:

• 7-9-14 Drosera intermedia 'Cuba'
• 7-9-14 Drosera burmannii Humpty Doo
• 7-9-14 Drosera tokaiensis
• 7-9-14 Drosera capillaris Alabama
• 7-9-14 Drosera adelae
• 7-9-14 Drosera anglica CA x HI
• 7-9-14 Drosera madagascariensis Masoala, Madagascar
• 7-9-14 Drosera venusta

Germinated/Struck:

• 8-4-14 Drosera anglica CA x HI, struck. Date approximate.
• 8-11-14 Drosera tokaiensis, germinated.
• 8-11-14 Drosera capillaris Alabama, germinated.
• 8-11-14 Drosera madagascariensis Masoala, Madagascar, struck
• 8-11-14 Drosera adelae, struck
• 8-14-14 Drosera venusta, struck