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Trucatas new leaf smaller than the old ones?

I've had my Truncata for  six months or so and the last two leafs have gotten smaller than the two or three it made before these. Is there something wrong with my planting mix? I have a 7" plant in a 10" pot so it has plenty of room yet. Is possible it staying too wet (It's NEVER dry)? It's kept in a terrarium in probably 100% LFS. Should I repot with orchid bark and less LFS?

If it is too wet how do I carefully uproot it with as little damage as possible to minimize shock?

Any thoughts would be appreciated!
 
Does your plant have pitchers on it? If so, have you fed them?
 
Sphagnum isn't your problem! I have mine in 100% pure living sphangum and mine puts out 8 inch+ leave petioles and 7 inch+ leave diameter. Your humidity isn't a problem in a terrarium. So I can think of it may be your light or feeding like neps said.
 
Odd, samething happened to by J. Finn. It was doing fine on my windowsill ,producing pitchers like 3 inch tall, but after i placed it in a terrarium, the pitchers are now redand 1 inch tall.
 
Here's it's conditions which I think are plenty appropriate (or had been til now)
probably 100% LFS
75 gallon tank
80-90% humiidity
Temp 80-90*F Day 70*+ at night
240 watts flourescent light (12" above the plant)

I've only just begun feeding it (last week) by hand with a few unfrozen mosquito larvae into each 2 1/2-3" pitcher. I was feeding flightless fruitflies into the terrarium but my cultures developed mold a couple months ago...
 
Could be a nutrition thing then. Personally I feel we keep our Nepenthes in a more nutrient void environment than in the wild. Particularly in a terrarium.

We have them planted in 'soiless' mixes where little breakdown of the potting medium supplies nutrients to the plant. They have little opportunity to catch their own food. The water we use has almost no nutrition in it.

Supplimental feeding is a must IMO. Preferably by feeding the plant in a natural manner with insects on a regular basis.

There are also other possibilities that can not be ruled out entirely.

I have had plants with root problems send out smaller leaves. There could be a problem there.

Plants which come in from overseas typically get smaller for a while as their root systems have been reduced/damaged and leaf growth corresponds in a similar fashion. (not an issue but would be if it was a recently purchased plant from someone that does not establish them before redistributing them)

A recent increase in light levels.

If you can take the plant out of the terrarium, it would be worth a peek at the roots. If it is in LFS, you should be able to knock the whole thing out of the pot intact and look around the outside of the rootball to see how healthy the roots look.
Tony
 
Hey guys, you do make it very tough for me to add something new to this thread :)

Nepenthes beeing low on nutrients do most often also produce less coloured leafes, which may have a lighter green or even light yellow colour. Putting Nepenthes under harder conditions than they are used to may also cause smaller leafes. But they will get much thicker and sturdier which is also a good test when inspecting new plants (Good sign&#33
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.

N. truncata is not so picky about soils so it may also succeed in pure LFS when it is not to wet.

Joachim

P.S.: Tony: Those overseas plants may also get smaller when not shipped overseas at all... ;-)
 
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">P.S.: Tony: Those overseas plants may also get smaller when not shipped overseas at all... ;-)[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>

LOL Yes I can see how that would be the case as I have purchased plants from US growers also and have the same experience. Although usually not quite as bad.

I agree with Joachim that when using pure LFS you have to be careful that it is not kept constantly wet. Truncata in my experience does like to dry a bit.

Ceph88.. could be a temperature or light intensity change which caused the pitchers to get smaller and redder.
Tony
 
Hmmm......I have never let my Truncata get too wet now that you mention it but I have let it sit in about 3 inches of water wih no ill effects and it sat in that much water for about 1/2 of a month cause our house was really dry and hot but it simply didn't hurt it at all. So I wouldn'y worry about overwatering on Truncata. But if yours in the terrarium could have a case of root rot. Just a guess though. Terrariums hold ALOT of moisture as I learned! All my sundews were under 2 uinches of water one morning as the Ultrasonic humidifier over loaded during the night!
 
  • #10
Then that's it then, I'll bet I've rotted the roots!
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As I said, it's never dry (usually well past moist) and it came from domestically grown seed from Orchids Ltd, it only went from the greenhouse (40 mins away) to my terrarium and had done fine for 6 month or so putting up bigger and better leafs & pitchers . I've pushed the LFS around the stalk down a bit and it's dark brown colored but it's not soft. If it is overwet (as I've been suspecting most of my potting medum in my terrariums is) here is a course of action I thought about:

Carefully unpot the plants (like you do Tony leaving the root ball alone - to minimize the shock) and repot them in a more open less water retianing medium (i,e more orchid bark than I normally use maybe twice as much) along with less LFS and then repot into those wicker orchid baskets which would allow the pots to not stay as wet but just moist (due to the terrariums humidity retention).

So whadda ya'll think? Is anyone growing their Neps in an orchid basket in their terrarium?
 
  • #11
Sounds good. The Orchid Bark will help keep the mix open and it will also dry out the mix evenly and faster. SOunds goo and no your stem isn't rotted if it is firm and brownish to chocolate colored.
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  • #12
Cool, maybe there's hope yet! I've just never seen my plants do that before (make leaves noticeably smaller than the ones before it) so I wasn't sure if a chocolate colored stem (under the substrate) was normal or not.

groovy!
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