Staghorn sporeling 3 month progress

Around November/December I divided and transplanted my staghorn sporelings (Platycerium superbum) and wrote a blog post about these staghorn sporelings.  

I didn't really know what I was doing growing these from spore, so tried a few different ways to grow them.  Some are working well for now, others did not work.  

After about three months of growth there are some things to comment on so I thought I would write an update.

Baby staghorn fern

I had some staghorn sporelings growing in a tray, this did not work very well.  

I had too many problems controlling the watering.  We had big rains early on, which got into this and made it far too soggy.  I could not drain out the excess water, so opened the vents and hoped it would evaporate out.  Then it became too dry.  I didn't notice this until many of them had died.

There are still a few baby ferns alive in here, but most died. 

Most of these did not survive

I also had a tray that I put in a different tray, this time it had a 24 seedling thingy.  

The moisture level in this was far easier to control.  When the rains got in, I could lift out the seedling thingy and tip out the excess water.  When this started to get dry it was simple to water by lifting it up and adding water underneath.

There were some losses, but not as many as trying to grow them just in a tray.  Some of the baby ferns are still tiny and do not appeared to have grown at all, others are getting large and looking pretty good.  There is a good chance some of these will survive the coming winter and be in a good chance to grow large next spring/summer.

There are some spots of mold and fungi, I am thinking of opening the vents to decrease humidity and see if that fixes it.

Some are growing well, others not so much

Baby staghorn sporelings getting large

I had a few baby staghorn ferns in a self watering wick pot that is inside the house on the kitchen windowsill.  This always had moisture, but was never wet.  It also maintained 100% humidity and received bright indirect light.

All the baby ferns survived in there, and all grew larger.  They are not as large as the ones in the tray above, but they all look healthy.  These have a good chance of surviving the coming winter months.

100% humidity, bright indirect light

Not as large as I was hoping

Winter is just around the corner, so these may not have any more growth until spring.  Hopefully I can keep some alive until spring, and hopefully I can get a few up to size and be able to mount them some day.  If I remember I will try to do another update in the future when they have grown more or all died.