Drosera regia seeds at ICPS Store

Dear Joseph,

Only moderators can post in that section, so I'm posting the reply here, and later it can be merged, I think...

Do feed the seedlings. I think this will help them greatly. Many times, especially as noted in books, there is this idea these plants don't need to eat. Perhaps there are a few species out there that don't need to eat much, but most species do need to eat and consume prey on a regular basis to maintain health and vigor. D. regia have huge roots, and it probably takes a fair amount of food to get them up to size.

I'm learning lots here! I'm not only trying to germinate Drosera regia I'm also doing the same with D. indica. If I can get them to sprout I now plan to feed them regularly. By the way - I love the ICPS seed bank!

Of course for seedlings it will take a much lighter touch than I'm used to. Your words of caution are well placed, Joseph. I've certainly rotted leaves out in the past by overdoing it - and this was on larger plants.

Just a word of caution bluemax, D. regia is very prone to Damp off, in the later stags of germination. You should perhaps let the media stray to the slightly less wet side, every now and then, and have a lot of air circulation.
I have never germinated seed, but root cuttings take well and establish well in normal greenhouse conditions (in bright shade) with no supplemental humidity. But this is probably an entirely different scenario.

Congrats, Mark!
Sounds like the Regia seeds from the seed bank have excellent viability according to the reports from a few other growers!

For what it's worth, I've made a little article that explains a bit more of how you can feed your seedlings, in case this is something you haven't tried before:
www.growsundews.com/sundews/Germinating_and_Growing_Sundews_from_Seed.html#Speeding_up_the_Growth_of_Your_Seedlings
Keep in mind that the video I link to on the page is for feeding plantlets, which are significantly larger than small seedlings- so use an even smaller amount of food for them.

I have grown quite a lot of Drosera regia from seed and never really found them a problem. I tend to grow my Drosera regia in a sphagnum/perlite mix, including for sowing seed using dried sphagnum so that it does not swamp the seedlings. Peat sand mixes work as well, evidence being that my plants seed over other pots and come up quite happily, but when I have deliberately sown into peat sand type mixes I do get lower survival rate for seedlings. I only really get dieback if I sow seeds in the autumn as soon as they are ripe, and a proportion of seedlings will die over winter in my cool greenhouse (5°C minimum), so for that reason I tend to sow seeds in the spring. One thing they really do not like is being transplanted when they are small, so wait until they are a good size before moving them into bigger pots, I would say when they are about 5 cm plus, which for me is about three years old.

I planted eight Drosera regia seed from my packet on 28Jan2011. I soaked the seed overnight in water that was initially scalding (about 120F), and with a drop of dish soap. I let the water cool and the seeds soak, overnight and then I plucked each seed from the soapy water and placed them equidistant on the surface of a 2-1/4" square pot of moistened milled sphagnum moss. Today, 6Feb2011 I noticed that two of the eight seed have a radicle emerging from one end of their seed coats (the beginnings of germination). Now I can duplicate the process with the remainder of the seed (before the seed begins to lose viability).