Mario Schmiedel
AS:Many people who raise tropical fish feed these small worms to their fish,
AS:they are a very rich food that the fish adore, I think that they would be
AS:good for VFTs and possibly pitcher plants, if fed in small quantities. I
Beware: if you give a Venus' flytrap more than it can digest, other
organisms will then "eat" the leftovers, and thus multiply, and
then they will probably attack the VFT - when the trap turns black,
and the stem turns black, and then the bulb rots, remember this.
Carnivorous plants are "designed" to catch what they can eat and
allow anything else to escape; sometimes it is possible to stretch
it by feeding a fruit fly to a sundew (they will get away from the
average sundew unless they are killed first), but feeding large
amount of anything to a Venus' flytrap can be more harmful than
good for it. Pitcher plants are probably more tolerant.
Of course, if you have properly over-wintered it and raised it long
enough that it has at least a five year bulb going for it, a VFT
can take almost anything. Once. Or twice. But I would suggest you
wait until you have had the VFT for at least three years before you
try any experiments - if you can raise it that long without it
dying, then you know that you can, at least, keep it alive, plus it
will have a significant store of resources stored in its "bulb" (I
don't know if that is the correct term). If you do not have a good,
cold winter, though, to put it through its winter cycle in a proper
manner, the bulb will tend to be loose and leafy, and the plant
will not withstand much of anything in the way of stress or
infection. The winter cycle requires that the day length get
gradually shorter, the temperatures gradually colder, until all of
the leaves have died off and the plant has withdrawn its resources
into the bulb; from that point, it is arguable as to how long it
needs to stay in dormancy, but about a month is the normal
recommendation for other species, after which it can be brought
back to life with warm, well-lit conditions. I leave mine outdoors
all year, so that I don't bring in pests by bringing them indoors
(besides, it is hard to maintain the 2' root space they like
indoors).
Good luck. -Douglas Wiggins zoron@nwcs.org, Portland, Oregon
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