When to repot sarracenia seedlings?

[daniella3d]

Hi, My sarracenia seedlings are 3 month old now and they are getting a little crowded in their pot, is it too early to repot them? Should I transplant them or wait a bit more? I am guessing that transplanting them will set them back too much? or not?

 

[stevebradford]

I’m no old hand at this but I read somewhere recently that once they have 4 traps they can be very carefully repotted. In your case I would go for it now they are only going to get more tangled some might not make it. I have transplanted a few some smaller expecting them to stop growing for a bit like a sundew would but they kept right on growing like nothing happened.

 

[daniella3d]

Ok cool! thanks a lot! I will do that today. They are really crowded. They have between 5 to 6 small traps per plant. some have 4 but most have more. Some of my smaller seedling that started from the smaller seeds are now bigger than my batch with the larger seeds.

 

[Lloyd Gordon]

Be gentle and if possible, separate the roots with gentle water action only.

 

[daniella3d]

I put them in water, so the medium came apart without any kind of effort and the roots were quite long. I was gentle to repot them but those roots are so delicate, not sure they did not compress or break underneath that soil. They seem to be really tough because one of the seeds that germinated just a week ago had 2 pitchers and no roots at all, just a stump but it is still producing little traps.

 

[Lloyd Gordon]

As long as you're reasonably gentle with the roots they will be fine.

 

[daniella3d]

I hope so. I have 40 little plants spread in 4 pots now. They will need to be repotted in summer probably.

 

[daniella3d]

Now I am starting to think they should probably be easier to transplant when they are younger as the roots are much smaller and not as long.

 

[H2O]

You’re very correct! Repotting them when they are small is actually fairly easy if you are gentle, if they go back into the same grow space they’re rarely skip a beat.

You’re seedlings are looking great, excited to see what they grow into.

 

[daniella3d]

thanks, I am looking forward to see them grown up too. Since they were open pollinated, it's going to be a wild range of looks. They took about 7 to 10 days to germinate and the germination rate was near 100%. But I have put other seeds to germinate and after a week still nothing. No sign of germination. Those will be more interesting since they are seeds from Saurus, Adrian Slack and a lot of quality hybrids.

 

[daniella3d]

I divided only one pot for now because it took a while to do that. 45 plants spread into 4 pots. They vary in size between 5 to 6 cm for the tallest. I will probably have to transplant them again this summer as they are 10 to 12 plants for each pot.

Another weird thing is that life sphagnum are popping out everywhere in the peat. It is not some moss, it is really sphagnum, so there must have been some seed in the sphagnum peat?

 

[Lloyd Gordon]

Spores are everywhere.

 

[daniella3d]

If anyone had doubt about repotting seedlings, all I can say is wow! they have put up lots of new pitchers and twice the size they were before, all this in 3 weeks. Considering the time to adjust their roots after repotting, this is amazing.

I regret not having spread both oh my pots because I was planning to do it the next week but I broke my hand 2 weeks ago and could not do the second one. I can see between those that have not been spread and are still crowded that they don't grow as fast as those that I have spread. Here are the seedlings I have spread, the tallest pitchers are around 4'' and they are just 3 monts and half. All the taller pitchers are new and they are thicker too:

 

[daniella3d]

They are growing like mad since the repotting! They are now reaching the top of the humidity dome and I will have to remove that dome soon. This is one month after repotting and 2 weeks after the last picture posted. These seedlings are only 4 months old.

 

[daniella3d]

Another 2 weeks later update. They are so tall now, I had to remove the dome and rise the lamp a few inches. They will be 5 monts old in one week (sprouted on October 21). This is when the growing tent become necessary as it is cold and dry in my house. Growing sarracenias inside is so much fun!