It's often said that you shouldn't let your VFTs flower, and I used
to cut flower stems from mine, but I now think that it doesn't really
make much difference. Once a rosette decides to produce a flower
stem, it does seem to discourage leaf production for a while whether
you leave it on or not. In the end, I decided that if I want to grow
the plant at all, then it should be left to grow naturally, flowers
and all.
Mine produced seed with only one plant in flower. They are slow from
seed, but don't let that discourage you - someone has to do it if we
are not to end up with all our plants being vegatatively propagated
clones.
You might gather that I get a little fed up with all the discussions
of chemicals, CO2 gas, and artificial feeding. I wonder with all this
techno stuff whether anyone actually ever just admires the plants
themselves, assuming that they are visible at all behind the
artificial lights, the gas supply etc.
-- Clarke Brunt (clarke@brunt.demon.co.uk)