>If anyone remembers, I think it was about a year back I grew some >VFT's
from a flower stalk I cut off one of my plants (it may have even >been two
years ago!) and stuck into a tray of wet peat. All these >plants are now
growing well. I have now noticed that my "Royal Red" >VFT's, the ones that
have been PBR'd here in Australia (as everyone >well knows!) are sending up
flower stalks. Once these become large >enough, I'm going to try the same
thing with them.
Hi Russell,
I managed to self pollinate my "Royal Red" last year and I now have 10
surviving seedlings which came up with the same ease as any other VFT. All
of these have exhibited strong red coloration form dichotoledon (sp?) stage
onwards. One of them is all deep burgundy, the rest show hints of green.
Note that they are growing in less light than VFTs prefer. I may well be
breaking the PBR laws simply by propagating this plant. I know I cannot
sell these seedlings but that is not my intention anyway. I'm growing them
because I like the plant and I wanted to see if F1 generation plants
reverted to green. On the other hand, if I were to fluke something that was
special (maybe my burgundy seedling) I can't legally do anything with it
except grow it to giveaway proportions. Hardly fair if it were different
enough to be worthy of wider cultivation.
This year I have flowers coming up on both my "Royal Red" and my "Dingley
All Red" VFTs. If I manage to get them to flower concurrently (which looks
likely) I will attempt to cross them both ways (also probably illegal), as
well as crossing the "Dingley All Red" (which has the larger traps of the
two) with a particularly large trapped green VFT with good red color inside
the traps.
Whatever I get from all this will become trade only stock. I would dearly
love to get my hands on a "Red Dragon" VFT for comparison purposes, and
further crosses.
Good luck with your attempt at self pollinating your "Royal Red" Russell.
Rob Brisler
Australia