Sarracenia disease(s) - something's up

[Guest vegetator]

Hi,

I'm an experienced grower of some 15 years, never had any issues; plants have grown fine but I'm having to face it that last year and now definitely this year my Sarras are copping it.

2 main probs: a)premature die off on the tips of new traps, just before they are ready to open. water/soil/light etc fine. no grubs in soil. also root system white and growing. trap shoots up, gets to point of opening and then shrivels at the tip. Phylodia of previous season also showing a black die off at tips. I also notice an enfeeblement of the growing tip. No idea on causative agent.

b)I've been building up a large number of S.Flava cv Maxima, but this year most of the traps have come up grossly deformed, mainly at the tip, rest of the shaft of the leaf developing OK. Flowers however have done fine.

Curious if anyone has similar experience, and more to point - successful resolution!

[Guest Aidan]

Premature die off/blackening - Very hard to say, possibly due to a fungal infection.

Leaf deformation is almost invariably caused by pests, or worse by a virus transmitted by pests.

Any chance of photos?

Thread moved to Pitcher Plant forum.

[ada]

Have you seen any small butterflies about? some sort of skipper lays its eggs on the pitchers.sometimes half way up,where it eats a tiny hole to feed.More usually the eggs are laid at the top of the developing pitcher,here it eats its way in and this affects the pitcher.the catipillar is minute at first but still causes a lot of damage.when bigger they spin a silk home ,where they feed from,this can look like a curled edge to the leaf.Provado only has limited success.

As Aidan says pictures will help, Ada.

[Guest vegetator]

Havn't seen any small butterflies about, but will keep looking.

I'm having trouble adding images, any tips? I've only got them stored locally.

[/img]

[-=Joel=-]

Upload them to a site like www.photobucket.com its free.

Then you can use the tags to post your picture :)

Where abouts in the west midlands are you? Might be neighbors lol.

Joel

[Howard Snocken]

Damage by thrips can affect Sarracenia in the ways you have

described and can be very worrying as the culprits themselves may be

elusive, to say the least. I had similar damage to plants in my propagator

for seedlings a while ago but after repeated spraying with ''Provado'' all

returned to normal.

[Guest vegetator]

thanks for that - here's some photos:

[http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z281/DRVR_2007/IMG_0004.jpg]

[http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z281/DRVR_2007/IMG_0019.jpg]

[http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z281/DRVR_2007/IMG_0009.jpg]

As mentioned, flowers came up fine, no defects. [/url]

[-=Joel=-]

Copy and paste the bottom link photobucket gives you.

it should have the tags around it

[Guest vegetator]

Thanks Joel - here's a retry:

[Andy Collins]

I have plants outdoors that are like that and the cause is aphids

[Alexis]

I would just spray everything with insecticide.

[Amar]

Damage by thrips can affect Sarracenia in the ways you have

described and can be very worrying as the culprits themselves may be

elusive, to say the least. I had similar damage to plants in my propagator

for seedlings a while ago but after repeated spraying with ''Provado'' all

returned to normal.

[offtopic]your picture reminds me of the tasmanian devil :)

[/offtopic]

[

[512Chris]

Our S.Flava cv Maxima and a few other Sarras, which are outdoors, have suffered the same problem this year, and we also found that the culprits were aphids. In previous years as new pitchers have appeared we have used a small paintbrush dipped in rain water to 'paint' them off, this has worked until this year when everything seems to happening a bit ealier and we were caught off guard. D'oh

[Guest Sheila]

If you have been growing for 15 years and never had this problem you are extremely lucky! I get pitchers like this once or twice in every year, though at first sight I dose the plants with insecticide so it is limited to just a couple of pitchers. You may not even see any aphids, they hide deep in the growing point out of sight and the damage is done as the new pitchers are forming.

Provado will cure the problem, it's systemic so it will give some lasting protection and won't harm your plants at all.

[jimfoxy]

Ada, where is your info about that skipper from??? Very interested to know.

[Howard Snocken]

[offtopic]your picture reminds me of the tasmanian devil :)

[/offtopic]

[

[ada]

Jim,its just from my own observations with my own plants,and a plague of small butterflies. i've looked them up on the net and narrowed it down to these.I dont know whether the catipillars store the toxin in pravado(like arrow frogs do from thier food).But up to now it doesn't seem to have an effect on them,so i pick them off manually.Also i keep the widows and door shut until later when the adults have stopped flying.

Perhaps repeated applications are needed,but you are only supposed to do it four times a year i think.

hope this answers your question, Ada.