Re: Aquatic CP's - Aldrovandra

From: Ross Rowe (ross.rowe@ea.gov.au)
Date: Tue Feb 16 1999 - 18:58:10 PST


Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 13:58:10 +1100
From: "Ross Rowe" <ross.rowe@ea.gov.au>
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg471$foo@default>
Subject: Re: Aquatic CP's - Aldrovandra

Dear Chris and Nile - Hi

Its about 30 deg C here in Canberra today and since early November I
have been growing some Aldrovandra in a small plastic container 13cm
diameter, and 10 cm deep. It has a bit of peat in the bottom and
tap water (or overflow from the pots above dripping into it). A
little pond water was also added to provide a few bugs. Tap water
in Canberra is good for growing CP. It is in a shady position as
recommended to me by the person who passed me a piece just about 3
cm (4 nodes) long including the growing point.

It grew to about 10 cm long and I think in late December I cut the
hind portion into 2 lengths of 4 nodes, each of which produced a new
growing point fairly promptly. My technique has not produced a mat
of plant or flowers as yet (nor has it survived a winter yet. The
Australian Aldrovandra specimens apparently rarely form an
overwintering bud. Anyway there may be good reason to hope for the
survival of your plant when it arrives, especially prior to
establishing a more suitable setup as described by Chris.

I have also grown Utricularia gibba by similar method or on wet peat
(as for local terrestrial species like U. dichotoma) or in a deeper
fishtank with the plant laid on a couple of cm of peat for a time
(several weeks) and then flooded to the brim. It grew to the
surface rapidly and is now radidly filling the tank (I now have to
look carefully for the piece of Aldrovandra I also introduced to the
tank). The plants growing on wet peat are flowering prolifically
(and are a season older) and even appear to be fortunately crowding
out a bit of weedy U. subulata which was also in the tray.

Hope you have good success whatever techniques you use.

>>> Chris Teichreb <cjteichr@sfu.ca> 17/02/1999 12:27:23 pm >>> Hi
Nile,

        If you don't have a container prepared for the Aldovanda
already, it probably won't survive. At least that's been the
opinion of most people. There was a recent CPN issue devoted to
Aldrovanda and its cultivation. Basically, take a large container
with a large surface area to depth ratio (ie: shallow, kiddie
wading pools are ideal), fill with some peat moss and water and
allow it to age and then introduce some other aquatic plants (eg:
Typha) which the Aldrovanda need for protection against algal
accumulation on themselves and for further conditoining of water
(nutrient uptake, etc.). Anyways, after a few months outdoors, the
pool will then be ready to introduce Aldrovanda into it. So sorry
to say, but your plants may not survive if they're being shipped in
the next couple of weeks. Other hints, they apparently appreciate
some amount of hardness in the water (via addition of CaCO3) and
high CO2 concentrations (the aquatic plant people have all sorts of
neat tricks for increasing this in aquaria and ponds).

        As for how to prepare your outdoor pond for aquatic utrics,
I just mix about a handful of peat for every cup of water, so expand
this formula as needed. The peat will quickly acidify the water and
turn it a lovely coppery brown colour. Good luck!

Hapy growing,

Chris

On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, nile smith wrote:

> nile smith > nxs@postmark.net > > Hi List, > > I just ordered some
Aldrovanda and I really > want it to survive. The last Aldrovanda I
> had slowly died over a period of a couple > weeks. I would
appreciate any advise I could > get on keeping Aldrovanda alive in
cultivation. > > Also, I've got a small pond on my property, >
about 12' x 15' x 5' deep. Does anybody > know how I could acidify
it to the point > where it will allow aquatic CP's to survive > in
it? Thanks, > > Nile Smith > >

********************************** Chris Teichreb Department of
Biological Sciences Simon Fraser University Burnaby, B.C.

cjteichr@sfu.ca **********************************



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:31:54 PST