drosera

Feeding Sundew Seedlings

Feeding Sundew Seedlings

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Aphids can be easily fed to young Drosera seedlings.
Aphids can be easily fed to young Drosera seedlings.

3 months old Drosera capensis seedling eating aphids.
3 months old Cape sundew seedling eating aphids.
Some people feed their young Drosera seedlings dry fish food, since it’s time of the year with abundance of insects outside, I intend to use living food.

I introduced springtails into the soil mix that I used for sundew seedlings by sheer accident. They were happily living in sphagnum moss I gathered and mixed into the soil. I soon discovered that small creatures often ended up being caught in tiny little carnivorous traps. Springtails primarily eat fungus and algae on moist soil and don’t attack even the smallest and most fragile seedlings, so they are safe to use as janitors and easy prey for growing carnivore seedlings.
I isolated several springtails and started growing whole colony in separated glass container. I used Agar as moisture and food source and gave them a tiny chunk of potato, which eventually started to decay. Springails enjoyed their new home and started multiplying.

Springtails and aphids are ideal food for small carnivorous seedlings.
Springtails and aphids are ideal food for small carnivorous seedlings.
In a couple of weeks there were thousands and I was able to blow them from their container into the pot full of Drosera capensis Alba seedlings. When traps get larger, it’s easier to feed small insects, so I started looking for appropriate food for my carnivores. I started with live aphids, but soon realized that they can multiply and some extremely small aphids managed to somehow escape the traps. I caught all the escapees and helped them get caught. Since then, I always put them into the freezer for a couple of days, together with aphid infected leaf. That way I can be sure they are all dead and harmless. When larger leaves appear, they can easily digest a mosquito.

During the summer and fall, there can be a lot of fruit flies around decaying fruit. I found a way to easily feed my sundews during the night by putting a small LED light so it lights up the sundew I’d like to feed. When you force flies or fruit flies into the air, they instinctively follow the light. In only a couple of minutes, you can end up with well fed sundew, completely covered with small flies.

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Flowering Drosera capensis Alba
Drosera capensis ‘Alba’

Drosera capensis ‘Alba’

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One month old Drosera capensis alba seedlings.
One month old Drosera capensis alba seedlings.
Drosera capensis Alba is very similar to regular D. capensis, but it lacks red pigment which forms in bright light. When it’s exposed to intense light and if it’s not regularly fed, it’s tentacles turn pink. When fed or in low light conditions, they loose their pink coloration and turn green with white tentacles.
It likes as much light as it can get. Seedlings grew slightly faster for me, when compared to regular Drosera capensis. At first I left them without food, but as soon as I noticed mold formation on top of the peat, I started adding springtails to fight the mold infection. I learned with regular D. capensis seedlings, that springtails can be extremely beneficial for small seedlings, because they not only feed on mold and algae, which can hurt young sundew seedlings, they are also easy prey for small carnivore plants. Because of their small size, feeding young seedlings can be real problem without some help from tiny springtails.

Drosera capensis Alba seedlings after feeding
Drosera capensis Alba seedlings after feeding

When seedlings became large enough and started growing first carnivorous leaves, it was time to add springtails into the pot. I managed to multiply a lot of springtails and when I threw them into the container with drosera seedlings, traps became filled with them. Most of them remained alive and started fighting fungus that also stared growing on top of the soil. Larger traps were already able to consume larger insects, so I added a couple of black aphids.

Just like regular Drosera capensis seedlings, ‘alba’ also starts growing rapidly when it gets bigger and starts catching more insects. It could have been a coincidence, but the pale variety of Drosera capensis managed to outperform it’s regular sibling when it comes to hunting. I found butterflies, bees and large insects that mostly managed to escape, but many of them most likely died with completely destroyed wings, covered with Drosera mucus.

Way too crowded with not as much soil as they would like to... They thrive anyway
Way too crowded with not as much soil as they would like to… They thrive anyway
Fascinating hunting skills of Drosera capensis 'Alba'.
Fascinating hunting skills of Drosera capensis ‘Alba’.

When growing outside, all Cape sundews managed to cover their leaves with insects on a daily basis. In late summer and during early fall, they could get completely covered with small insects. At that point, they started flowering and growing vigorously.

Sadly, our climate doesn’t allow them to stay outside, which means they need to go inside in late September. They all need to get transplanted into separate pots too.

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Drosera capensis

Drosera capensis

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After one of close encounters with fungus gnats and aphids, I thought about growing some kind of carnivore plants, that could make problems go away. Since carnivore plants also have issues with both, I would at least get some satisfaction, watching the pest being eaten by it’s prey. I decided I’ll try growing Drosera capensis, which is supposed to be one of the easiest carnivores to grow. Sadly it’s not cold hardy, so I’ll have to keep it inside – where the gnats are, but we actually have three varieties of Drosera growing locally. Perhaps I’ll plant those outside around the pond.

I used peat and living sphagnum moss, combined with SiO2 based sand. I was in a hurry, so I skipped flushing the soil mix with distilled water. Chopped living sphagnum particles were evenly distributed throughout the mix and I was hoping sphagnum moss would start growing on top of the soil.

Drosera capensis started germinating after 10 days
Drosera capensis started germinating after 10 days

Seeds that germinated were hard to notice because of the moss
Seeds that germinated were hard to notice because of the moss
First germination occurred around two weeks later. I was getting worried, because moss already started showing growth, ant it started sprouting all over the pot. I expected that I won’t be able to see the emerging seedlings as they start appearing. After 10 days I did see something green and after closer examination, it became clear that it in fact was small Drosera seedling. Drosera capensis seeds are incredibly small, so you need a camera or magnifying glass to see small seedlings. Since I haven’t wash the soil mix with distilled water before sowing, I later decided to try sowing into agar medium. Some of the seedlings disappeared during germination and whole top soil appeared to be slightly moving because of living moss which I added to peat/sand mix. Adding living moss ended as bad idea which I don’t intend to repeat.

 

Tiny seedling with first pair of non-carnivorous (cotyledons) leaves.
Tiny seedling with first pair of non-carnivorous (cotyledons) leaves.

First carnivorous leaf emerged roughly a week after germination
First carnivorous leaf emerged roughly a week after germination
Despite a lot of effort to try and get as sharp photo of tiny seedlings as possible, pictures still look blurry. To snap tiny Drosera seedlings, you need macro lenses and tripod and I don’t have either. Interestingly, seedlings grow at different rates of growth. One of the seedlings that was the largest at first and received equal or even higher amount of light than other seedlings started to lag behind. It did start growing it’s second leaf earlier, but the first true leaf was smaller and it wasn’t carnivorous. When first seedling already started catching insects, with its one carnivorous leaf, whole bunch of new seedlings started to emerge.
 

It caught it's first prey the same day when first dew appeared
It caught it’s first prey the same day when first dew appeared
First Drosera dinner
Just a couple of hours after I first noticed carnivorous leaf started showing dew on it’s tentacles, I noticed black spot covering it’s leaf. I was thinking about feeding it, but as it’s leaves were still far too small, it would be mission impossible. At first I thought it might be covered with small part of soil particles, or part of the seed coat. I decided to re-check it and try to get sharp photo of the leaf, so I spent a couple of minutes watching the seedling through the camera’s lens. Not only I saw that in fact it caught it’s first insect, I also noticed there was another one wandering around the seedling as well. They looked like black tiny beetles. The one that was still alive was a little bit larger and very fast for such small insect. I used living moss to prepare the soil mix, which quite possibly hosted a lot of living organisms. Interestingly, Drosera capensis seedling managed to attract those beetles extremely fast.
When fed, its tentacles start producing more mucilage
When fed, its tentacles start producing more mucilage

Second carnivorous leaf
Second carnivorous leaf
Few days after first meal, it became clear that seedling which managed to capture an insect, started to grow faster and increased it’s mucilage production. I decided to feed it again, together with the second largest seedling. I found thrips (Thrips tabaci) on an onion and used a couple of nymphs to feed the seedlings. I used toothpick to transfer the nymphs onto carnivorous leaves. Two seedlings failed to grab the nymph off the toothpick, other two seedlings had enough dew to glue it onto their first leaf. Half an hour after feeding, tentacles started producing more mucilage and slowly started digesting their meal.

Drosera's hand reaching out from a dark pit
Drosera’s hand reaching out from a dark pit
First of the seedlings that germinated and appeared to grow fast, started to decline a bit before first carnivorous leaf formed. Leaf top became pale and it needed much more time to finally grow two small tentacles. It was a bit stunted and I hoped it’s not an issue that would harm the seedlings. Despite feeding, one of first two plants started to look strangely similar to the stunted seedling, it almost completely stopped growing. Growing leaf started to turn orange and I was happy to see that there were tentacles forming, but the formation was much slower than with it’s first leaf that appeared green. It also happened that the leaf on which the nymph was, got damaged one night. The nymph disappeared completely and there were like less than half tentacles left. One week after the feeding, the largest seedling also started growing orange leaf, but this time only “cap” was orange and it seemed to grow at normal speed. Apparently, when seeds germinate, they grow faster and are prone to coloration caused by intense light. Same thing happens after feeding, when plant starts to grow faster. When at one point plant get stressed by intense light, its growth slows down and it starts to adapt.

Whole bunch of black bugs got caught at the same time.
Whole bunch of black bugs got caught at the same time.
At one point two largest seedlings caught a lot of black bugs at the same time. What caused it?
At one point two largest seedlings caught a lot of black bugs at the same time. What caused it?

At one point when nymph got digested completely the same seedling somehow attracted whole mass of tiny black bugs onto it’s second carnivorous trap. The same day I’ve notice another seedling with trap that also got lucky. Strange thing is, there were also other traps on smaller seedlings all around the pot, but they were the only ones that managed to capture anything and they both caught a lot. It’s certain, that the pot is full of these tiny black creatures crawling around and that they often end up being caught by seedlings. Perhaps other traps lacked dew or were simply not sticky enough to capture anything. I realized that using living moss wasn’t so bad idea after all. I inoculated the pot with abundance of living plant food. If they also ate mold and partly digested insect carcasses, small ecosystem was perfect.

Unimaginable luck or are these bugs gathering for some reason? I'd say luck is ruled out, it's just way too much. :)
Unimaginable luck or are these bugs gathering for some reason? I’d say luck is ruled out, it’s just way too much. 🙂

One morning, I noticed there was whole pile of bugs on one tiny trap. That completely ruled out my thoughts that these bugs randomly roam around the pot and get caught when going over drosera’s traps. Well, actually, that is most likely true, but they tend to gather around their dead or captured siblings. Perhaps they were mating and the first one attracted whole group that also got caught. Another option that I can think of is, that they are carnivores and they eat dead insects. I lean forward to the ‘mating’ answer, because there were just too many in the same trap and I don’t think they can sense food that well. If I’d known what these black insects were I could do some research.

Another globular springtail bites the dust
Another globular springtail bites the dust
After a lot of research, I found out that springtails act exactly like these tiny black creatures. Females use pheromones to attract males, which explains why there are piles of bugs caught at the same time in the same trap when female gets caught and why there’s only one springtail caught when male gets trapped. I searched for various springtails and tried to identify the creatures. It became apparent that they are Globular Springtails. I don’t have equipment to close up and view more detailed photo of springtail, so I had to use my digital camera and close up as much as possible to get the best idea about its shape. My guess after internet research i did is, that these black springtails are in fact Sminthurinus niger globular springtails. They usually don’t do any damage to plats and feed on fungus, which can be beneficial in moist environment I grew carnivore plants in.

1 month old seedlings under strong LED lights
1 month old seedlings under strong LED lights

One month after germination, seedlings looked more and more sickly, some of them lost dew and it became evident that with time all the seedlings started to show signs of stress. New leaves did not grow completely and some of the leaves even turn light brown and died. I figured out that light level plays no role in their decline, the real reason was the soil. Seeds that were planted in pure peat were all growing into healthy green seedlings with a lot of dew. At that point, I decided to transplant all remaining seedlings into another pot. A couple of seedlings were already too damaged to survive the transplant, but many had shown some improvement. I covered the pot again to increase humidity and to make sure the dew appeared again. The largest seedling started to decline before it got transplanted and it’s two leaves that were already growing for some time failed to grow tentacles. They were stunted and damaged, but in the middle of the seedling new leaves started turning from pink to green in just a couple of days.

Drosera swiftly recovered. Dew appeared again and new leaves had fully developed working tentacles.
Drosera swiftly recovered. Dew appeared again and new leaves had fully developed working tentacles.
Two months old seedling. This one really took off. Other seedlings are also growing but at much, much slower pace.
Two months old seedling. This one really took off. Other seedlings are also growing but at much, much slower pace.
When Drosera capensis start growing large enough leaves, it gets easier to feed. Small ants and flies are its natural diet. A week after feeding, growth always speeds up. Sadly other seedlings don't show the same kind of vigor.
When Drosera capensis start growing large enough leaves, it gets easier to feed. Small ants and flies are its natural diet. A week after feeding, growth always speeds up. Sadly other seedlings don’t show the same kind of vigor.
Drosera capensis flower. Flowers only last a few hours, but when they start, they set new flowers for quite some time.
Drosera capensis flower. Flowers only last a few hours, but when they start, they set new flowers for quite some time.
One of the leaves with it's prey.
One of the leaves with it’s prey.
Flower stalk uprising
Flower stalk uprising

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

That's how it looks 8 months after it germinated. Each seedling is starting it's second flower stalk.
That’s how it looks 8 months after it germinated. Each seedling is starting it’s second flower stalk.

I’ve been somewhat worried about huge amount of sunlight they received during the summer and because of heat that exceeded 35°C for quite a while. I noticed they not only survive in those conditions, but actually love it. They loved occasional flooding in the hottest weather and also didn’t mind when peat got a bit drier. I’ve learnt that Drosera capensis is quite tough and the only thing it did harm it (a bit), was rain. They don’t seem to like getting wet.

 
 
 

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