Dead (brown) rhizomes

[linuxman 248]

I'm doing a major re-pot of all my sarracenia this year. I got to my Goldie which performed very badly in 2020 so I was not surprised when something was wrong. On de-potting I found that the majority of the rhizome was dead, i.e. inside was brown rather than white. I've managed to break off 2 growth points which are still on white rhizome and potted them on. I've disposed of the dead rhizome. Most of my plants have been fine so far, and Goldie has been good in previous years, so what causes plant rhizomes to die off like this? Any insight would be much appreciated and I hope I've caught the rot in time!

[ada 649]

Hi Martin,   I think this happens to older plants. The rhizome also stores food for the plant to grow.I think the problem arises due to our cold damp winters,the plant needs the food stored over winter to get going again in spring,we all grow sarras crammed in ,side by side and not all the plants can get a good feed of insects to replace the energy used to grow all the pitchers over a full year,this has the effect of draining the rhizome of its stored starchy food reserves over time,so it dies and the rot spreads down the rhizome and gets worse due to our cold/damp winters. that's my view anyway.

[linuxman 248]

53 minutes ago, ada said:

Hi Martin,   I think this happens to older plants. The rhizome also stores food for the plant to grow.I think the problem arises due to our cold damp winters,the plant needs the food stored over winter to get going again in spring,we all grow sarras crammed in ,side by side and not all the plants can get a good feed of insects to replace the energy used to grow all the pitchers over a full year,this has the effect of draining the rhizome of its stored starchy food reserves over time,so it dies and the rot spreads down the rhizome and gets worse due to our cold/damp winters. that's my view anyway.

Hi ada,

Thanks for the reply. I suppose if a plant doesn't grow and improve each year that may be a sign that something's not right and needs checking. I'll keep an eye out in future and test your hypothesis With all the dividing of plants I've been doing my new greenhouse is not going to be big enough, so no chance of spreading out the plants (only kidding, a bit more space left yet).