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Hydroponic Carnivores: Growing Venus Flytraps and Other Carnivorous Plants Without Soil · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr. Russell Sharp and today I'm going to be talking about a subject
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  that I am not an expert in but which I hope to be more.
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  More of an expert, not an expert but hopefully a
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  master of in the coming year or so and that
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  is the culture of carnivorous plants hydroponically
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  now my two sons are mad
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  for venus fly traps at the moment and other
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  carnivorous plants they can't stop watching youtube
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  videos of carnivorous plants you know
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  show daddy show us the video of the snail getting trapped in the venus fly trap
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  and such videos ridiculous stupid videos and i pander to them so i've recently
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  bought a venus fly trap and a couple of sun juice and a pitcher plant.
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  And I'm going to see, as well as growing them in my greenhouse and in my grow
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  room at home, I'm also going to be seeing if I can grow them hydroponically.
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  So without any soil-based or peat-based growing media.
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  There have been a few experiments with growing sort of semi-hydroponics where
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  they've used peat and cocoa recirculatory systems, but there doesn't seem to
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  be much out there about hydroponics.
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  There's a couple of issues that make it really difficult to grow carnivorous
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  plants hydroponically, and why they're not grown commercially hydroponically.
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  So...
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  They're ornamental plants, so they're grown as something to look at and admire,
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  but they are not like other plants in that they are actually native to very,
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  very nutrient-deficient bogs, acidic bogs normally,
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  and all around the world, in the tropics,
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  in the temperates, and even up in the fairly north in Canada as well, some species.
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  Species and there are species in
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  most countries around the world but the most interesting ones like
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  the venus flytrap which i think is from like north
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  carolina south carolina in the u.s and
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  then the pitcher plants which grow you know i've seen them native in in california
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  but also a whole the whole of north america now there's two different types
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  of pitcher plants there's the north american type and the asian type and the
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  north american type are a modified stem whereas Whereas the Asian type,
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  they come on the ends of a leaf and they've evolved separately.
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  It's called convergent evolution, where you get the same type of structure forming,
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  even though the plants are unrelated.
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  Same with cacti and euphorbias. They both look like a cactus,
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  but the one evolved in Africa and one evolved in America.
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  Completely different genetics.
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  Aloes and yuccas, I think they say, are convergent evolution.
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  So that's important from
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  a hydroponics perspective because it's actually the
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  tropical picture plants which are going to be more suitable
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  i think to hydroponics because the north american carnivorous plants and the
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  european carnivorous plants will need to die off in the winter and so they're
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  not going to suit that continuous growth in a stable grow room environment whereas
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  tropical species is that don't die off and what we call herbaceous perennials,
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  where they die off and they go dormant in the winter.
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  They're not as good for a growing environment because they need that winter period.
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  Something like a venus flytrap or a North American pitcher will survive maybe
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  one winter being grown in a grow room, but eventually it will die off if it
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  doesn't get that winter period.
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  So I'm going to try cultivating the venus flytraps for a year and then give them a rest period.
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  And then the sun dews i'll
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  do the same i've got a tropical sun
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  dew what's called a drossera that's the
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  genetic the scientific name for it and they
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  they sort of have the honey like dew on their
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  leaves and then curl up to sort of catch the prey
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  whereas a venus flytrap everyone knows what a venus flytrap
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  is you know the hairs get activated and they
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  close dramatically on their prey and where
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  the pictures hopefully they'll be coming soon and
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  hopefully we can get some propagated and grown in completely
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  soilless completely peat free cocoa free
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  we're trying to grow them in rock wall in either nft or
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  dwc i'll probably try a bit of both be interesting
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  to see i am no expert i'm not claiming to be an expert on
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  this but it'd be interesting to play around with and it'd be very interesting the
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  other thing about carnivorous plants is you don't need to actually feed
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  them animals and meat they will
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  survive without being fed any animal tissues they can be completely vegan i
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  think you can even feed them tofu and things like this as a source of nitrogen
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  but we you know my kids will want to feed them flies because they are sick and
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  twisted children as you know want to feed their plants and.
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  Insects and things like this so we'll be playing around with them so
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  that's one thing to consider the reason why hydroponics has
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  failed probably in the past is that you don't actually want to feed them
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  much nutrition these plants all carnivorous plants they
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  they die when you give them too much nutrition and so
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  you almost want to be close to pure water we
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  definitely don't want any high calcium so it's
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  going to be ro water because these are thriving acidic
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  conditions so what i'll probably do is do
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  a bespoke formulation of gold
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  leaf or liquid gold as it's called in the uk take the
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  ph down and do like 0.2 of
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  a mil per liter or like you know half a
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  mil per gallon of fertilizer and really
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  keep that ec level really really really far down on
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  this one and then the other thing to consider is.
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  That the i think around 20 years ago
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  i read a report 15 20 years ago that kew gardens the
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  biggest and best botanical gardens in the world they in
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  london they they went completely peat
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  free apart from their carnivorous plants
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  because they considered peat to be essential for carnivorous
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  plants and sphagnum moss as well the use of sphagnum
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  moss and i don't want to be using peat i don't want to be using sphagnum moss
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  so we'll try and get away from that and
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  then ironically that pests can
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  be a problem in carnivorous plants you get a lot of scale insects and
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  aphids that don't get trapped in the traps and
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  are able to feed off the carnivorous plants the
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  so those pests can be an issue so i'll have
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  to make sure when i get the the plants in i'm obviously
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  not going to grow these from seed i'm going to grow them from plants i
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  brought in from nurseries and then divide them up as they
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  get bigger and hopefully you know give the
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  pups away to people who want carnivorous plants or some
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  grow shops people like that i've got
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  to make sure they're completely pest and disease free so they'll
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  be quarantined before they go into the agrarium for a number of weeks so that's
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  definitely completely pest pest free that's the main one disease less of an
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  issue because you know they'll be specific probably to the particular plant
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  and they won't infect any of these
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  other plants in my grow room so that's something I'll be considering.
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  Might collect some seeds. If you didn't know already, carnivorous plants are very interesting.
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  They produce their flowers on very long stalks so that the pollinators,
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  the bees and other things, the moths that pollinate them, don't get trapped in their traps.
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  So they separate their flowers from their traps by a very long distance.
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  So they have a long, what's the word?
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  Pedicel? I think it's pedicel. The thing that holds a flower up out away from
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  the stem didn't google that so if it's right i'll take the kudos for it if it's wrong apologies,
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  What else can we say about carnivorous plants? Well, certainly be an update
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  when I've learned more about how to grow them.
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  There are lots of different varieties of Venus flytrap. However,
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  they all belong to the same species.
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  And really it's about colour and spine length and things like this,
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  just to make them more ornamental.
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  I've gone for a bog standard variety to begin with.
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  So hopefully they'll grow. Some of the more obscure varieties of Venus flytrap
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  don't actually trap any insects because they've mutated and they don't they
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  don't have the hairs or the spines and things like this there's lots of different
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  species of pitchers sundews.
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  Urticaria as well i think like just plants that have
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  sticky leaves that catch prey a
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  lot of plants are what also against is like semi-carnivorous like
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  teasel where they don't actually have traps
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  per se but insects get caught in there where
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  the leaves touch the stem and they've got like little ponds
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  of water and then the plants can absorb nitrogen
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  from them same with bromeliads things like this they
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  um they have like a reservoir of water
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  between where the where the leaves join the stem
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  and they're considered like sort of semi-carnivorous i'm
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  not so interested in those i want something that will move or
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  trap an insect and look really really
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  cool and the sun jews and the venus fly traps and the pitchers they're the
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  three types of plants that look really cool and do
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  that some people have said that including carnivorous plants would be a good
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  strategy for natural biocontrol in the grow room or in a greenhouse however
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  you've always got to balance that between are they attracting pests and flies
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  and things into your grow room or are they controlling the flies and pests in
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  your agrarium could be that they are actually.
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  Causing by having attractants giving
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  off chemical attractants actually causing more of an issue and
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  as i've said they can get scale and aphids and things
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  like this so they're not they're not killing all insects they're
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  only collecting a few insects and very few over
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  a period of a year as well so i personally it's
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  an added complexity so i wouldn't use them and grow them just for
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  pest control i'd use them more for as an
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  ornamental plant that's something cool to look at they're going to be non-mycorrhizal
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  because they grow in acidic bogs where there's no oxygen so fungal connections
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  will be not a thing they might have a few bacterial connections but they're
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  not going to be mycorrhizal so don't be putting any mycorrhizal on them you
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  know it's going to be a waste of time and effort.
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  And money i would have thought they can tolerate fairly high
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  light levels because acidic bogs there's not much
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  tree cover on an acidic bug so i'm going
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  to give them a fairly good whack of light and watch
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  this space i'll probably update you on how i'm getting on probably have
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  a few mistakes and mishaps along the way as i
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  say i'm not an expert on everything and you know if you
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  want expertise go to chat with gpt and that'll pretend to be
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  an expert for you but you know i'll just give you my experience and
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  my thoughts as always on hydroponics daily if you
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  found this interesting if you want and you want to know more please get in touch
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  if you want me to clarify anything or you've got any information about carnivorous
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  plants and hydroponics then please do let me know and if you're listening to
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  this on apple podcasts please leave us a review because it would mean the world
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  because it would shoot us at the
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  charts as always thank you very much for listening until tomorrow goodbye.