Nepenthes seed

David Purks (telenet!twinkie!dkpurks@uunet.uu.net)
Thu, 18 Aug 1994 10:39:13 -0400 (EDT)

I'm taking my first plunge into growing Nepenthes from seed and
I'm a little concerned. I've read back through all the related
posts here I could find and the appropriate sections in my
references, but I'm still a nervous Nelly over this.

I've been soaking the seeds for 3 days in a mild solution of
SuperThrive - do the seeds ever actually sink? I've got three
different varieties (alata, ventricosa, and viellardii (sp?))
and after three days there are only a few of the ventricosa
seeds that have sunk to the bottom of the liquid. After 24
hours the seed at least became suspended in the liquid temporarily
when I agitate it gently (when I first added the seed to the
liquid I didn't think I'd ever even get them wet!) What's the
maximum time I should allow the seeds to soak? (One message I saw
said the poster had gotten good results after 5 days of soaking).

What's the consensus regarding the best media to plant the seeds
in? Pure peat? And did you all really mean that the soil surface
should be submerged while waiting for germination?

Any other pointers would be a big help. I would imagine with all
the Nepenthes seed available in the seed bank I'm not going to be
the only one wondering.

Thanks and Happy Growing!

Dave