Baffled!

[Flint]

K, I am just hoping someone has ran into this same problem, I am confused as #### and a little irked/freaked out at the moment. I have a Sanguinea Pink that I FINALLY thought I had gotten the conditions perfect for last month or so. The pitchers started to all grow and open up, the colors I am starting to see are just gorgeous, and it has never looked happier. Yesturday though, when I was inspecting it, I saw that the new leaf that was coming out the top like they always do, is BLACK, clear down to almost the base where it is still bright green. WHAT HAPPENED?

!!!

? lol. I mean, the pitchers it has are still growing at a fine rate, the colors develope a little more each day. I don't get what happened to my poor plant. I have had it for almost two years in less than sterling conditions and just figured out what I thought it liked. I keep the humidity around 60-95 percent, higher at night and into dawn, trying to simulate actual dew, it works too. Of course, I use healthy water, no chemicals, so I just don't get why suddenly it decided to look all sick with it's new growth. Any tips??

 

[Tony Paroubek]

humm sounds like it got some disease in the tiny rolled up new leaf..sometimes these things just happen. Perhaps it got some moisture in there from the high humdity/dew like effect during the night and that allowed a pathogen to grow..

If that is in fact the case, I would cut the top off to prevent the spread down the stem any further. It will take a while to recover but at least it won't spread through the whole stem and kill the plant.
Tony

 

[swords]

I will have to second Tony's thought on excess moisture inside a developing leaf. I've  noticed that if I mist the growing tip when the next leaf is slightly open and the following leafs tendril is just visible through the opening of the new leaf  and water collects in that opening the following tendril/pitcher will have been rotted off. I don't know if this is due to bacterial/fungal action, or the water becoming warm and "boiling" the tender tendril enclosed in the leaf cocoon. Nowadays I only mist fully open leaves and avoid the growing tip and things seem fine. If I do happen to get water in there from watering or misting I blow at the opening to "blast" all the water out that I can.

hope that helps some

Ah, one more thing that hit me is have your plants experineced a cold snap overnight? My orchids will drop their blooms if the highland tank gets too cold at night even only for one night (way down to 40*F on the rare occasion over the winter). Perhaps Neps will blacken if they get super low temps?

 

[lithopsman]

Umm... It's a little off this exact topic, but My N. ventricosa is opening the lids to its pitchers, closing, opening, closing... Could this be fluctuation in humidity? Although all the other Neps are very happy with this setup... Any thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[swords]

When my Nepenthes hamata was clapping it's lids up and down it was due to not having the humidity correct. Those pitchers whos lids went up and downa few times eventually dried up very fast.
Now, since I've got the humidity kept at a constant 90% with a humidistat, the pitchers do not close or dry up. All the 'new' pitchers on the plant are in great shape even almost a year later (aprx. 9 mo).
Nepenthes ventricosa are supposed to be very durable in regards to lower humidity. Just how low is your humidity? I know in my house in winter there is only a 20% relative humidity reading so if you're growing it as a house plant it may require extra mistings and watering in the driest months of winter.
hope this helps some!

 

[Darcie]

I agrea, any plant bit going black like that is usually from conditions being to wet, although I also have no clue what the exact cause of death is from (fungi, bacteria, protozoin what not)

 

[lithopsman]

That's what I thought it was, humidity...

I made it more stable, voala!

(it opened)