[Sarracenia Sun Exposure]

So after an extended hiatus of several years I’m now nearly back in a position to start growing Sarracenia once again. I’ll have to try an experiment this year as this has always interested me but has anyone ever seen how much difference there is in a plant’s growth and vigour that’s grown in say 6 hours of direct sun, compared to 8 or 9 or even 10 plus? I’ve always been fortunate enough to be towards the end of that scale.

For the record I’m talking about growing in a greenhouse. I’d be interested to see the results of taking two or more of the same clone alongside a control plant and controlling the levels of sun exposure to each to observe differences in pitcher robustness, height, colour etc

How much sun do your greenhouses get and are you satisfied with your plants growth habits?
 

 

 

 

[Brown Patches on Pitcher]

Morning all,

Any idea what these brown patches are around the lid and throat of the pitcher?

I’d hope it’s nothing more suspicious than where a build up of heat in the greenhouse has burnt the pitcher- it does get a lot of sun this time of year, about 13 hours.

I’ve got a few plants where the edges of the lid have browned slightly, which I am pretty sure is burning, but in regards to this patterned botching as seen in the picture, only this and one other plant are displaying it out of about 90 plants in the greenhouse.

Interestingly, the other plant displaying these symptoms, a rugelii, was also doing it last year.

Thanks,

Chris.

[Mike King's autumn open day 14th of October]

Hi Mike,

I am hoping to attend on Saturday as I haven’t been able to make the previous two open days you’ve held. I’m keen to see your new set up. I could potentially be bringing a +1 along too.

 

Edit:

Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend this one either. 

Chris.

[P. grandiflora help required]

19 hours ago, ada said:

i'd say so

Ok thanks. Is mid to late August normal then? Dormancy did cross my mind but I thought it must be too early, perhaps not. I believe last year they didn't start going dormant for about another month from now, with the hibernacula fully formed by early October.

[P. grandiflora help required]

Hi,

Would anyone know what is happening to these grandifloras?  They are all progressively growing smaller leaves that are long and thin, as opposed to them being a lot broader when I first purchased the plants. The plant in the first image aside from the small leaves looks OK, but the second and third images show what looks like white fuzzy mould growing around the crown, with quite a few leaves browning too. 

I haven't suddenly altered the growing conditions so can't understand these strange growth habits.

They are kept outside in a sunny location (direct sun most of the day - too much?), watered with rain water only, via the tray method.

Thanks.

 

[GH Vent Auto Openers]

Hi all,

I'm looking to purchase some auto openers for my greenhouse roof vents, but I would imagine that during the winter, they wouldn't open due to insufficient temperature inside the greenhouse. From a hygiene and airflow perspective during dormancy, can the openers be manually overridden? If not do you simply suffice with having only the door open in milder weather, and leave the auto openers to do whatever?

For the summer months, how easily (if at all) can they be calibrated to operate at a specified temperature?

Many thanks,

Chris.

[Sarracenia Pics - Oct 2016.]

A collection of recent photos:

 

 

 

And finally, the Ping has given up for the winter!

 

 

Thanks for looking and please ask any questions,

Chris.

[Mike King's open day June 11th 2016]

Chris, did I see somewhere that you are from Worcestershire? I'm In Kidderminster and would be more than happy to give you a lift if you can get to my house?

Hi Richard,

Thank you for the offer of a lift, that's very kind. On this occasion I will drive myself as I'm going straight over to a friends house afterwards. In any case I shall meet you on Saturday.

Chris.

[Mike King's open day June 11th 2016]

All,

I am a relative newcomer to this hobby, having been growing Sarracenia for about 6 to 7 years now. I have never been to an open day before; the closest I've got was a visit to PJ plants in Herefordshire which I really enjoyed, so I would very much like to attend the open day and pick up some tips!

What I would like to know is what is the typical format of the day, and is bringing plants to sell/swap expected? As I am developing/growing my collection, I do not currently have what you might call "surplus" clones to trade, but I would definitely be keen to make some purchases.

Chris.

[Sarracenia Photos from the Greenhouse.]

A selection of recent photos from the greenhouse:

 

Flava x Alata Red Lid.

d.

Catesbaei.

 

Popei.

 

Rugelii.

Minor var. Okefenokeensis.

Alata.

Brook's Hybrid.

Flava var. Ornata, Bay County, Florida.

Flava var. Flava, Dinwiddie, Virginia.

VFT B52, colouring up and sizing up.

Flava var. Maxima, North Carolina.

Moorei.

Slack's Maxima.

 

Hope you enjoyed the photos,

Chris.

 

[Some photos: it's been a while!]

Looking spot on!

[Some photos from the greenhouse. (Moved to 'Carnivorous Plants in Cultivation').]

Deleted.

[Some photos from the greenhouse. (Moved to 'Carnivorous Plants in Cultivation').]

Thread moved to 'Carnivorous Plants in Cultivation'.

 

 

 

 

 

[PPM readings and peat particles]

I would have thought dodgy water would have just caused deformed growth though, similar to a light starved plant.

Hi, thanks for replying. I rather hoped you would as you took the time to answer to the other related thread I started.

I will admit it has made me worry a little about my use of Moorland Gold in case this has something to answer for! It's just odd in my mind that even after repotting the plant, the water it is in has such a high PPM reading, but water trays containing other plants also potted up with Moorland Gold, do not, as even those trays have collected a degree of sediment that has washed out of the pots.

I'm tempted to uproot the plant again, thoroughly wash the roots, and put it into some light and airy live sphagnum, sit in fresh water, and re-test the water in a couple of days.

[Grr!]

A watched pot never boils, my friend!

[PPM readings and peat particles]

I started a thread the other day in regards to a Flava Rugelii I have which has gone from having a healthy crop of pitchers to the brink of death within the space of a few days. I purchased a TDS meter just to put my mind at rest that the rain water in my butts is of acceptable quality, and with readings of 9 and 11 ppm in each butt it most definitely is.

Rather more alarmingly, the tray of water that the aforementioned plant is sitting in came in at a whopping 220ppm, so I am quite sure I have discovered why the plant has gone like it has. Thing is, in the tray with this plant, there is a lot of peat mixed in with the water (more so than in any of my other trays) so can I expect that to falsely increase the reading, or not? I'm just trying to work out why the reading in this tray was so high (only had this plant in it), and all my other trays had readings below 20ppm.

Thanks.

[Shrivelling Rugelii]

Did you spot any brown shavings?

I will definitely have a closer look at the roots again, to see if I can observe any pests as ada suggested. What would the brown shavings be indicative of? Because I will also keep a look out for those.

[Shrivelling Rugelii]

just a thought,nothing eating away at the roots or rhizome? i.e vine weevil or leather jackets.

Plants can look fine for ages with them eating away at roots and rhizome before suddenly collapsing.

ada

I wasn't aware of anything when I re-potted it, although I did notice that the plant was not growing any new roots, it just had older orange/brown coloured ones. I will take a closer look at the roots and see if I can notice any pests now that I know I am looking for something in particular.

[Shrivelling Rugelii]

Looks like the instant root rot you hear about from Americsn growers sometimes.

I'd throw out your peat and pots and give things a good disinfectant. How many other plants do you have?

 

The plant has been in the same peat for several years now, so I have re-potted it into some fresh mix (in a new pot). I also used the re-potting as an opportunity to have a good look at the part of the rhizome below the soil surface and trimmed off as much dead material as I could. I sprinkled a little sulphur powder on the rhizome to try to inhibit fungal growth, should any occur.

 

I probably have about another 25 or so plants, and with this, I decided that perhaps a slightly more sensible watering regime would be to have groups of 6 plants to a plastic tray, rather than my whole collection in one lagoon. This should make cleaning of the trays easier and hopefully prevent the spread of any waterborne viruses or bacteria through all the plants, if I am unfortunate enough to have anything like that crop up.

 

Did you think that the rhizome pictured in my first post looked particularly bad?

 

Thanks, Chris.

[Shrivelling Rugelii]

Presumably it was sitting in water originally and didn't go dry in the baking heat?

Yeah, it sits in about 2 inches of water along with all of my other plants, in a big lagoon lined with pond liner, that I built into my staging. I just took it out of the water to photograph it.

[Shrivelling Rugelii]

Hi,

 

Over the past few days this Rugelii has gone from having healthy, robust pitchers, to having ones that have rapidly turned completely shrivelled. Given that the earliest pitcher only opened mid May it seems way to soon for them to be going over naturally, especially since they have caught very little insect matter to date.

 

So is something more suspicious going on? I've isolated the plant in case it has contracted some sort of virus that could spread through the water. Please note that the white powdery substance on the rhizome you can see in the pic is just sulphur I sprinkled on the plant last dormancy, not fungal spores.

 

There is also some mould type substance growing on the pitcher hood, and the picture of the rhizome displays the pitcher third in from the left shrivelling also at the base.

 

 

Thanks.

 

UPDATE:

 

I have had a trim of some of the dying/dead material and discovered that the entire rhizome doesn't look too great. There's just one small area of green growth on the rhizome (pictured below), that's surely not healthy? Is the plant just rotting away or something? I had a Moorei do this to me earlier in the year during the spring - the rhizome just seemed to go brown inside and no growth was produced so I ditched it, yet there was no evidence of any fruiting fungal spores, just as there isn't on the Rugelli.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sarracenia 'Life Expectancy'?]

This is something I have pondered myself. As the growth continues, new material and food reserves get laid down in the front end of the rhizome during the growing season, and the back end of the rhizome may or may not die back a little.

Along with natural divisions, it would seem like the plants can last a long time.

However, (taking current scientific knowledge) nothing can live indefinitely and plants, just as animals (including us humans) will expire without intervention.

Even the slowest growing trees have a finite life expectancy.

If Sarracenia have a limited life, this means that theoretically cultivars in their purest form (identical genetic material) could be permanently lost one day.

However, as growers have cultivars from Adrian slack and the like dating back to the 70s, it seems as though Sarracenia do live in excess of 40 years.

Interesting point about the cultivars. Quite thought provoking really.

[Sarracenia 'Life Expectancy'?]

There are Lichen with an estimated age in excess of 9000 years and still going strong, if Lichen can be strong. I'm not so sure about a Sarracenia having a finite life expectancy.They are constantly renewing so in theory, barring a natural disaster* ( or human intervention) should live forever.

* this includes climate or habitat change

Hi, I agree. Can I ask - if a ten year old mother plant (just using this as an example) was divided into quarters, all 4 new divisions wouldn't necessarily have biological material in them that was as old as 10 years would they? (Obviously excluding the pitchers). If that's correct then I can see what you mean about constant renewal so that in effect no plant/division really has a finite life.

[Sarracenia 'Life Expectancy'?]

Hi,

 

Do any Sarracenia species have a 'life expectancy' of sorts? Or does the lateral growth of the rhizome and continued production of new growth mean that any given clone can just keep on growing indefinitely?

 

Thanks, Chris.

[Do both these plants look OK to you?]

Thanks guys.