Its dead - the question is, why?

[fnglazz]

Hi all,

This year hasn't been the best for my plants. The stupidly long winter has meant that some of my sarracenia's haven't really come out of dormancy until a few weeks ago.

Most recently however, the issue was the lack of rainwater. With having only a quarter of a waterbutt's worth of water left, and 500 plants to water, I tried to cut back the watering to once every 2 - 3 days.

BIG mistake. As a result of this, a few of my plants either died off or died straight back. Pitcher plants flopped over, others went crispy. Drosera dichtoma's lost their dew and their leaves went black.

Got a few pics here that I would appreciate your opinions on:

Clearly this flytrap is dead, the question is, what killed it. Even while the water supply was still decent, it started dying off. It was one of those things whereby I just happen to notice one day that it only had one living trap and the rest were dead. I noticed the white things (which I assume were aphids) on it. So I did something I've not done before, submerge the plant. Had it underwater for 48 hours and a week after I took it out, its not completely dead, but I've heard that submerging the plant is the best thing to do to combat aphids.

The second pic:

A week ago, these traps were standing tall and proud. The lack of rainwater caused them to go floppy. For the last 6 days, they have been regularly watered. I was a little surprisd by the fact that the traps/leaves didn't go straight again, but the biggest worry is that, as you can see by looking at the picture, the smaller traps that haven't even opened yet have started going black. Baring in mind, this is a week after regular watering. Could it be still recovering from a lack of rainwater? This is a south west giant and one of my favourite plants and I really dont want to lose it.

The third and final picture:

These are nearly all of my red form plants. Perhaps Im just a little on edge given recent events with infections and water shortages, but do these plants look fine to you or do you think there is an excess of dead traps? I think the ones on the bottom right look a bit iffy.

Thanks for any help.

[Alexis]

Did you pot up the dead one yourself or buy it as it is from a garden centre?

The SW Giant has probably been knocked back by the lack of water. Are the brand new traps just emerging from the centre still green?

The rest look fine to me.

[Ordovic]

I think I can see what's happening. They're flowering themselves to death. Probably because of rubbish weather last year last year they've exhausted all their energy reserves in reproduction and possibly prompted into over-doing too it by the exceptional winter.

[FredG]

I think I can see what's happening. They're flowering themselves to death. Probably because of rubbish weather last year last year they've exhausted all their energy reserves in reproduction and possibly prompted into over-doing too it by the exceptional winter.

Sorry but I think that is utter rubbish, Dionaea is a perennial plant, it doesn't flower itself to death. What will kill it is poor cultivation etc etc.

[ada]

I think they are too wet,or kept too deep in water.The vft's grown by my kids just sit on the floor in the greenhouse,not in water.They only get watered when i pass them every couple of days,they are all flowering and have no dead traps on.

I also let the water dry out or get used by the plants in my sarra benches and only fill when empty without any bad results,you have to bear in mind the wind also has an effect on plants too as well as the sun.So if you get both keep plenty of water in the trays but not as deep as in your first pic.

[fnglazz]

The dead one was brought from an online retailer of carnivorous plants. The SW giant actually consists of 4 SWG in one pot, upon closer inspection. Two of them have healthy young traps growing but the other two have half green half black baby traps.

@ Ordovic, if that is the case, is there anything that can be done? I assume pruning the flowers would be too late and its just a matter of hope for the best?

@ada - Venus flytraps are a boggy plant though. The only times I have known it to be bad for them to be kept standing in water is during the winter time.

[ada]

@ada - Venus flytraps are a boggy plant though. The only times I have known it to be bad for them to be kept standing in water is during the winter time.

I won't tell the kids plants they are supposed to be bog plants then! they have grown them from seed ,all survived the really bad winter a few years ago and none look like the ones you are complaining about.

You did ask what others thought was wrong with them!

ada

[FredG]

I won't tell the kids plants they are supposed to be bog plants then! ada

And I won't tell mine that they're not supposed to be sitting in 2" of water

@ Ordovic, if that is the case, is there anything that can be done? I assume pruning the flowers would be too late and its just a matter of hope for the best?

I allow my Dionaea to flower every year. The only flowers I remove are the ones that get in my way once too often.

[FlytrapRanch]

Sorry but I think that is utter rubbish, Dionaea is a perennial plant ...

A Dionaea rosette often seems more like a biennial to me, growing one year and then usually flowering, setting seed and dying the next, but like many plants, even though the parent plant tissue dies the divisions or bulbs or other types of asexual plant reproduction cause the plant to persist.

Flowering and setting seed, which use substantial resources of the plant, could lead to the death of the plant if a rosette is already suffering stress from other causes (insects, fungi, bacteria, low light but too much water, for example) so that the plant has few resources left to produce divisions or is already succumbing to whatever's causing the additional stress.

Just one view.

Edited July 25, 2013 by FlytrapRanch

[FredG]

Each Dionaea rosette seems more like a biennial to me, with flowering and seeding as the terminal act of a mature rosette, of a single growing crown, but a healthy Venus Flytrap usually produces young divisions to replace the dying leaves of the mature division that has flowered. So the process could be viewed from a number of viewpoints I guess.

No not a number of viewpoints. a rosette has served its function, the plant continues.

If a rosette is already suffering stress from other causes (insects, fungi, bacteria, low light but too much water, for example), flowering and setting seed can exhaust the stored resources enough so that the normal death of a particular rosette following flowering is not offset by the production of one or more new growing points. In that case, the whole plant could die.

Agreed, the "insects, fungi, bacteria, low light but too much water" killed it.

There are many plants that have a life cycle in which the parent plant dies but the divisions or bulbs or other types of asexual plant tissue generation persist.

The plant as a genetic entity lives.

I have pots full of rosettes formed by one plant. They are still that plant, genetically identical.

[FlytrapRanch]

No not a number of viewpoints. a rosette has served its function, the plant continues. ... The plant as a genetic entity lives. ... I have pots full of rosettes formed by one plant. They are still that plant, genetically identical.

Certainly from a genetic point of view the UK Sawtooth II Venus Flytraps I have growing outside my home in New Mexico, US, and any UK Sawtooth II plants that you may care for, may be considered as the same plant despite different locations and growing conditions, although any one of these plants (or rather, divisions of the same plant) can suffer the same fate as the Venus Flytrap in the original post of the discussion. I personally think that the combined stress from several factors, including flowering and seeding, caused the plant's death, but that's just a guess of course.

[FredG]

Certainly from a genetic point of view the UK Sawtooth II Venus Flytraps I have growing outside my home in New Mexico, US, and any UK Sawtooth II plants that you may care for, may be considered as the same plant, despite different locations and growing conditions

There is no MAY to it, they ARE the same plant. Moving it doesn't alter its genetics.

I personally think that the combined stress from several factors, including flowering and seeding, caused the plant's death, but that's just a guess of course.

The plant is meant to flower and seed, the stress is from whatever cause outside that cycle.

Now if you were to tell someone that a plant has been weakened by an outside cause and it may be prudent not to allow it to flower this season to allow it to recover I would perhaps agree. To infer that flowering/ seeding is detrimental to a flowering plant I find somewhat strange.

[FlytrapRanch]

There is no MAY to it, they ARE the same plant. Moving it doesn't alter its genetics.

But it does alter its fate.

The plant is meant to flower and seed

--And to die after flowering and seeding, like many plants. Fortunately, Venus Flytraps also reproduce themselves asexually (like many plants), concurrent with (or even before) their flowering and seeding, so their genetic legacy continues.

[James O'Neill]

As far as I can see, it was kept too wet and the submerging of the plant put the nail in its coffin. I keep my plants barely moist and they do very well.

And if you look at wild vfts, they grow in just-damp sandy soil, not wet bog.

[FredG]

I'm now placing a ban on anyone telling my ( very healthy) plants that they shouldn't be in full flower and standing in 2" of rainwater alongside my Sarracenia et al.

[Trev]

Too wet.

[FredG]

2" of rainwater is too wet?

[James O'Neill]

Not talking about your vfts Fred!

[mattynatureboy44]

I keep my flytraps very wet and to save me watering all the time I often fill the water trays right up so it's over half the pot this time of year, and they seem to be very happy.

[FredG]

Not talking about your vfts Fred!

But my vft's are as wet as his and they're not dead. Matty's are the same

[mantrid]

In warm hot sunny weather having the vfts standing in water doesnt seem to cause problems and will infact be taken up by the plant and be lost by evaporation very quickly. This will create humidity around the plant which the vfts like along with the sun. I think the problems with standing water arise when the weather is cold so the plant isnt taking up the water as much and the water stays there too long as it is also not evaporating.

Ive never known aphids to kill a vft just deform the new leaves.

My take on your dead plant

1) There is something in the soil munching the roots.

2) The soil looks packed tight, this with the staturation with water could be causing anaerobic conditions and lack of air around the roots.

3) The leaves were leaves that developed in low light conditions and the recent hot sunny weather burned them. Leaves need to adapt slowly to changing conditions. If the latter is the case then your plant is probably not dead and new growth will take place shortly from the underground rhizome.

I would unpot it remove the soli, inspect the rhizome. If its alive (whitish in colour) then repot in fresh soil and dont over water it.

Edited July 25, 2013 by mantrid

[fnglazz]

In warm hot sunny weather having the vfts standing in water doesnt seem to cause problems and will infact be taken up by the plant and be lost by evaporation very quickly. This will create humidity around the plant which the vfts like along with the sun. I think the problems with standing water arise when the weather is cold so the plant isnt taking up the water as much and the water stays there too long as it is also not evaporating.

Ive never known aphids to kill a vft just deform the new leaves.

My take on your dead plant

1) There is something in the soil munching the roots.

2) The soil looks packed tight, this with the staturation with water could be causing anaerobic conditions and lack of air around the roots.

3) The leaves were leaves that developed in low light conditions and the recent hot sunny weather burned them. Leaves need to adapt slowly to changing conditions. If the latter is the case then your plant is probably not dead and new growth will take place shortly from the underground rhizome.

I would unpot it remove the soli, inspect the rhizome. If its alive (whitish in colour) then repot in fresh soil and dont over water it.

Thankyou for this advice.

[James O'Neill]

But my vft's are as wet as his and they're not dead. Matty's are the same

But you didn't completely submerge yours

I think the main idea is that roots have rotted - either through it being too wet - sopping wet - or compacted medium causing, like Mantrid said, anaerobic conditions.

[FredG]

But you didn't completely submerge yours

I think the main idea is that roots have rotted - either through it being too wet - sopping wet - or compacted medium causing, like Mantrid said, anaerobic conditions.

On that one plant as you said the submergence possibly could have finished it off. With only one trap alive it also possibly wouldn't have mattered what he did, however he did say he had his plants dry before that. Sarracenia etc were going floppy. More than the one plant that was submerged died.

[Peabody]

Fnglazz,

If the plant is dead and the flower stalk looks OK - it is probably worth cutting the stalk up and poking the bits into some compost to see if you can produce some plantlets from it.

Edited July 27, 2013 by Peabody