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So. My plants WERE doing great on the grow rack in front of the windowsill, until recently.

My Adelae and Original plant are doing fine, for the most part:

Adelae.jpg

Original.jpg


My B. Dichotoma "Giant" does good, until the leaves are about 2-3 weeks old or get too tall, then they shrivel up. (Not shown: The 7 flower stalks I've clipped off. Seriously, it's growing 1 stalk for every 1-2 real leaves -- although now that I'm clipping them at 1" it's sending out more leaves.)
D.Giant.jpg

D.Giant2.jpg


My Nep isn't immune, it's new pitchers are deformed and mutated, especially the more recent ones:
MonkeyCup.jpg


As is the Filiformis Tracyi (Not shown: The tip of the tallest Filiformis leaf, which is a BRIGHT red)
filiformis.jpg


And my Binata T-Form:
Binata-T.jpg


And my Cape Sundew "Alba" (but only the smaller one, and only the side pointing towards the window):
Cape-Alba.jpg


My only other hint is a strange rash that has appeared on some of my older Sundews (and no, I don't have a clue what that moss is. I don't think it's Sphagnum.):
Rash.jpg


So here are my hints:

1. The temperature has gone up, a lot. The square pots are all inside a big black tray. The highest I've seen it in the windowsill is 105F. I have limited ability to affect that, other than installing a fan, turning on the AC (which I am loathe to do), or moving the rack away from the window. The Alba Cape Sundew's damaged parts were touching the soil in it's pot, which leads me to think this might be part of it. Again, the highest temperature the thermastat in the window has said it's been has been 105F, but that's been in direct sun.

2. The two plants this is most noticeable on are the taller ones, they are growing really close to the lights. There's a chance they could be getting scorched, or being blocked from the additional light from the sunlight coming through the (east facing, I believe) window. The lights (standard T8s) might be generating enough heat to do it, too.

3. I have not been increasing the water intake on my plants to match the new weather as much as I would like. In addition, I am now using a different source of water which TDS tests at 005 -- so in theory it should be perfectly safe.


Any thoughts as to my first fix? I do not have the ability to remove the black tray right now. It seems that most of the tropical type plants are doing great -- the Alba, my original Sundew, my bigger Alba, and my Pygmys are all growing like gangbusters. It's only these other plants that are really having troubles.

I won't mention the VFTs. The typical is doing ok, the Red Pirahana and Gold Strike appear to be ok too, but all 3 aren't growing very fast. The Dente and Akai Ryu have shriveled up to essentially nothing.
 
If the tracy-i ( I LOVE SAYING THIS!!) is turning bright red on top... it may not be a tracyi o.o
DxCalifornia's sunset also gets tall like tracy-i (^^) but maybe the plant is too far from the lights and not all of the leaves turn red. (D x California has red tentacles )

The rash I had on my capensis as well. I think its adjusting to the more and more light. I had that in winter or mayb it was too cold ?

I cant grow binata for beans. It's hanging in there.

Edit: since the your nep has a 'mutated pitcher' mayb bugs or something ? Or your neps dna structure got mutated and now it makes funny pitchers. genes get changed all the time due to the enviroment and the genes to make pitchers may have adapted to you conditions ? iono :3
Just see how the next pitcher is; if its the same; might be bugs...; if its normal it was just that one pitcher.. ;D

I iz notz ze mozt ezpertestz atz zest ztuffz zos tryz toz understandz myz zenglish.-thats for you rattler-
 
It appears to be the heat or the sudden climate change. Do whatever you can to lower the temp. If you are growing your plants under lights, extra window light isn't necessary. So you can try moving the rack away from the window.

Are you sure your TDS meter is accurate? This looks like it could possibly be from hard water as well. Maybe you should go back to using whatever type of water you were using before until you get your temps down.

Why aren't you growing the tracyi outside? Are the vft's on this rack too?

Halt- The regular form of trayi is not anthocyanin free.
 
I keep intending to move the Tracyi outside, but it was only this week that we stopped seeing 35 degree nights. It's 70 out right now, and was 70 out this morning when I left for work. I probably can justify putting the tracyi out now, especially now that I have some cuttings growing in a prop chamber.

The VFTs are all in triage. The Dente and Akai Ryu are more or less "potential" VFTs at this point -- they have very little in the way of growth. The Typical is doing ok, finally, as is the B54. I might repot those outside. I have a nice 10" foam planter pot, my plan was to move them all out there in one big pot, but given the size of the Gold Strike, I wasn't sure it would be safe for it. The other 3 (Typical, Dente, Akai Ryu) went out in that bigger pot already when it was hitting the mid 30s at night, and they died back to basically the bulbs.


I am loathe to move the rack without good reason -- the plants above my CPs need the light from the window. I might be able to put in a fan of some kind, would that help?

The plants above have dribbled water occasionally but it's not the plants that they dribbled on that are having the problems at this point -- and I washed them out pretty good when I noticed what happened.
 
I have a terra on a windowsill that is too sunny. I put a piece of "aluminex" shade cloth over the top of the tank and its doing fine!
 
The Tracyi is now outside, for better or worse. It needed to go out anyway, it's just as warm outside as it is inside right now. I hope it has enough light out there. I now live in an apartment building with a west facing "nook" out there, and only get a few hours of direct sunlight a day. I do have strawberries and a wisteria out there that are doing good, though, and my Pitcher Plant/Cobra Lily outside seem to be tolerating everything, so, we'll see.

I also rotated the black plant tray 90 degrees, so the part directly in front of the window is the pair of Adalae pots (which seem to be loving the sun), and the rest of the plants are more under the lights (4x 4' T8s) than the sun. They will still get SOME sun, but not as much, I hope.

Not sure what to do with the Monkey cup. Probably doesn't need to be under the grow lights, so I might move him up one rack and let him live with just the natural sunlight coming in. To be honest, he was kinda outgrowing the space he was in anyway, his latest few leaves are *above* the lights.
 
If the Sarrs are fine with it, the tracyi should be too.

A fan could help to lower the temperature. The only downside is it'll knock down your humidity.

Hope everything gets better!
 
oh so tracy-i (hehe) arent anthocynin ?
 
looks like (at least the 'Albino') a few of your dews might need a better-draining mix. i know if you move them outside, this should clear up most of your symptoms, since they really seem to like it out there. BUT next year, I'd recommend repotting at least the 'Albino' into a peat: silica sand mixture. Then it should put out normal leaves again... I've pretty much started to avoid perlite for most of my dews, since my growing conditions favor a sandier-better draining mix, but there are many that do fine in it. You just have to experiment with what does/doesn't work for where you live.
The D. 'Giant' leaf looks good- possibly too much food for the browning condition you're seeing, but as long as each leaf eats a lot, you will always see new leaves rollin on out of the crown.
 
  • #10
Yeah, I noticed a lot of new leaves coming out of the crown. And one more flower stalk (which was in that photo) which I snipped. I am hoping to have the plant fill up that entire pot, that would be awesome. Supposedly they get absolutely huge if you keep them alive.

As for the soil, I am thinking of moving towards a 1-1 Peat-LFS mix. I do not know of a good source of sand locally. There's "Whitney farms" White Sand, which MIGHT be the right stuff.... But I donno.
 
  • #11
I hear ya! It could have been water poisoning, though. I'd get rid of what ya have and buy some distilled water, flushing out the pots.
 
  • #12
For the Nep it's probably the heat... for the rest, it kinda looks like aphid damage
 
  • #13
Aphids? I have had some little bugs in my live spaghnum container, I was told they're springtails, not aphids. I wouldn't know what to look for...
 
  • #14
Look for small green or brown slow moving insects on the tips of new growth.
 
  • #15
I would say you have an insect problem at least. Those white specks on the Nepenthes pitcher and the last photo of the Drosera look like cast off skins from either aphids or thrips. Get a magnifying glass and inspect your plants.

You say the plants are on/near a windowsill? Do the pots get direct sunlight? You said the air temps went up to 105F? If the pots are in the sun the soil temps could have shot up way above 105F. Cooked roots will kill your plants faster than letting them dry out. Shade the pots with some cardboard or something.
 
  • #16
What's the best insecticide to get? Something that's safe on a variety of types of CP? I'd like to get it locally, too, if possible...

Edit: The white dots on that drosera are crushed bloodworms, I fed that one recently.
 
  • #18
The warning on Neem Oil is not to use on distressed plants.
 
  • #19
The warning on Neem Oil is not to use on distressed plants.

Oh, my fault.

I don't think mine says that anywhere... And I read over the warnings and directions pretty good.
 
  • #20
I used Physan 20 last year, hurt the plant further before it rebounded.
This year I'm trying the ol' drown the critters for a couple days thing.
Different plants from last year to this btw
 
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