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N. Hamata Woes


wasted

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Morning everyone..

Im a little concerned about my recently acquired hamata (BE I believe), ive had it a month or two and as you can see in the picture below the grow tip has started to blacken, the proceeding leaf took a looong time to open and the plant seemed a little dry when it arrived, it had the normal acclimatisation but has never really recovered.. is there anything that can be done or is it on its way to that great greenhouse in the sky?

hamatagrowtiphr5.jpg

By wasted at 2007-11-13

Can anyone offer any advice?

Thanks one and all!

Wasted

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All I can say is that it looks MUCH better than my N. hamata, heh. The only thing I can think of is perhaps humidity is too low? I've heard that when small, N. hamata needs extremely high humidity levels, so that may be the cause of your problem. N. hamata is supposed to be less fussy when large, but cranky when small. In the case of mine, the growing tip turned brown and died off. However, the rest of the plant is still alive, just not doing much of anything...

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Hamata shoud be very exacting in conditions until it is about 6" across, though this isn't always the case.

What kind of ventilation/temps/humidity is it getting? I can't imagine low humidity would cuase the tip to turn black. Putting a bag on it may just exacerbate the problem. Looks to me like theres 2 growth points in there? One of them still seems green.

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Hi Wasted,

Try not to make too many sudden changes (it has very thin sensitive leaves) it doesn't look too bad for the moment, keep the humidity very high, NEVER let it dry out and try to maintain some air movement, keep temps below 27 c and above 10 c with bright but not direct sun (next year!).

Just try to let it settle in for a while yet and in a couple of years it will be the most rewarding of all the neps you can grow.

Mine is just about to open its 10th (simultaneous) pitcher....the oldest being about 18 months old!

Good luck

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Hi all, thanks for the tips..

PK: Its only got the one grow tip, the tendril end itself is ok but the green tissue immediately around the tendril is dark brown/black, its not very clear on my old 3mp camera..

Its sat with all my highland neps, temps at the moment are daytime max around 25, nights min around 11, humidity drops steadily throughout the day from night time highs of around 85% to daytime lows of around 65%, im sure my conditions would be ok once its settled in, it just doesnt seem happy at the moment..

As PK says I was concerned that putting a bag over it may make the situation worse due to lack of air movement.. its potted in my usual mix in a lilly basket. The greenhouse iself gets a lot of air movement as there is fan on all the time and the only route out of the back of my house is through the greenhouse.. the door is opened probably half a dozen times a day (more lately while ive been worrying about this plant)..

Ive been after one for a while but theres always been other rarer plants i'd rather spend my money on, now i get one and its playing games with me, oh well!

Thanks everyone.. wasted..

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  • 2 months later...

Surely RH will always drop as the temperature rises during the day, and from what i've read most highland plants experience this humidity drop during the day in the wild.

I didnt want to bag it up again as it had already been acclimatised and I thought that would only distress it again as it had only just got used to the lower daytime humidity.

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This might be a good place to put my question out about hamata raising :) (hope the original poster doesn't mind)

I've got a terrarium that will be receiving a hamata when the weather warms a bit. Temperatures ranging from 22 C to 15 C, with humidity ranging from 95% to 75%. I've heard humidity drops can be hazardous, although the original poster's plant seems to do okay. Should I be worried about that drop?

Also, should I worry about direct light? Right now it'd have 4 T5's down upon it for about 13 hours a day. I've got 3 sides of the terrarium covered in mylar. Should I try to cover the top of the plant with something?

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tonyc, indeed.. somewhat confused by mr muscipula but hey...

Sigesti, I don't mind at all.. I think the problems ive had with mine were somewhat unusual.. not sure if my experience is the typical acclimatisation issues..

All I know is I acclimatised the plant to the greenhouse as I usually do.. clear plastic bag for a couple of weeks then open the bag up a bit each week.. From all i've read they are extremely fussy when young but this is my only hamata so i have nothing to compare to.

The plant now has started growing another grow tip so it seems to have recovered pretty well..

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Hi Wasted,

This post probably won't help you solve the reason of what caused the growth tip to die back like that, I simply wanted to show how a small change can make a big difference to this species.

I had a similar experience with my hamata when our weather started to heat up and the night time temps tended to be above 15 degC. It only took a few days to a week of this weather for the tip of the growth point to blacken. I've now started to place the plant, along with some small rajah's into a styrofoam box with a bottle of frozen water over night. The plants are removed from the box in the morning and placed in front of the evap cooler where they get plenty of water vapor from the humidifier and air flow to cool them down and they seem to love it there.

After three or four weeks my little hamata is growing stronger than ever, it is much greener and the leaves seem thicker.

Your temps seem fine so it's doubtfull that temps are the problem.

Dave

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Hi wadave, thanks for that..

I think I may have just had a particularly weak plant.. its bleeeeding cold in the greenhouse at the moment so as you say I cant believe that temps are the issue..

Its now got 2 grow points emerging so whatever was wrong with it it seems to have bounced back well..

The old grow tip is doing some very strange things and starting to grow again through the old dead tissue..

Im starting to think, as has already been stated by many people that hamatas are just hard work to acclimatise..

Cheers.. Wasted.

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  • 3 weeks later...

That looks exactly like what my inermis used to do until I cut it back. The tip just went blind and sprouted a new one, with leaves arranged in the opposite rotation from the previous. It did this twice and the growth was all gnarly, and for some reason the most gnarled leaf gave off a strong smell of mosquito repellent... Hmmm....

Glad to see your plant pulled through, great job!

Cheers

Amaury

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  • 1 year later...

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