Venus Flytrap growing

Our experiment has entered it’s sixth week and will be shortly heading into the middle of the summer when they will be exposed to the most sun.

The test plants are looking fairly healthy but have lost some of the red colouration from their leaves in comparison to our control plant which is in a sunnier area. The maximum trap width of all of the test plants has not changed measurably so far.

Specimen A: Low light, distilled water

Specimen A, which is being watered with distilled water and grown in a low light environment is looking okay, but it’s leaf-base is weakening, causing the trap with the longest leaf-base (bottom right in above photo) to droop towards the ground. The initial angle was approximately 30 deg. from vertical, however it is now closer to 30 deg. from horizontal. This plant has grown an extra trap and a further three stems are growing. Unfortunately, one of the new stems has begun to turn black. A fly was fed manually to this plant one week ago, the trap is yet to re-open.

Specimen B: Low light, tap water

Speciment B, which is being watered with tap water was manually fed a fly one week ago, it’s trap is beginning to re-open. One of it’s traps was triggered, but did not catch a fly, this trap re-opened within 48 h. This plant still has three traps, but another trap is in the process of opening and another stem will probably be forming a trap soon.

Specimen C: Control Plant, medium light, distilled water

Our control plant speciment C, is looking nice and healthy and has caught a fly naturally and been fed one by hand, both times the traps re-opened within five days.  The red colouration in the leaves is not as intense as they were at the beginning of the experiment, but not hugely so. The total numbers of traps is still six, however their leaf-bases are noticeably longer than when purchased.

Conclusion

This is early days yet, so there’s not much that can be concluded from the results so far. However initial results are showing are indicating that the control plant (specimen C) is coping with it’s new environment better than the two test plants in dim light (specimens A and B). Specimen B which has been watered with tap water appears to be slightly healthier than specimen A which has been watered with distilled water.

Information will be posted here eventually with information about the amount and composition of dissolved solids in the tap and distilled water used for this experiment and the approximate daily average light intensity that the plants are exposed to. So check back later or subscribe to our RSS feed to keep up to date with the experiments progress.

Aside from the yuck factor, if you are skilled enough to catch a fly with your bare hands then you will be able to catch the little morsels of food whenever you see them. Years of video game playing and analysing the behaviour of flies will likely help, but if it’s too late for that then here is a handy list of tips which I learned from tygerland.net.

Stationary fly catching

• attack from behind
• don’t close your hand by smacking the fingers and palm together as you will likely make a mess
• instead close your hand tightly and quickly but leave a tight channel for the fly to fit inside

Mid-air fly catching

• you must have patience, speed and vision
• catch the fly where it is going, not where it is otherwise you will miss
• watch it, learn it’s path and flight style
• move your hand quickly from the shoulder outwards to the point of connection
• use the same hand closing technique as for stationary flies
• anticipate the fly’s direction and velocity so that you meet it a 5 cm or so from where it was when you began your attack
• ideal distance for closure is just before the arm straightens
• practice, practice, practice!

And before you ask, no I don’t catch flies with my hands, yuck! And if you do follow this advice, make sure finish up by washing your hands.