What's new
TerraForums Venus Flytrap, Nepenthes, Drosera and more talk

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Small Plant, Big Pitchers

  • Thread starter Stefano1
  • Start date
Hey, for quite some time now ive been wondering how on other peoples pictures and nepenthes how they get such big pitchers yet the main plant is small,.. for me its the complete opposite, my Bical currently is growing HUGE leaves but the recent pitcher it made is 2-3", dramatically smaller than the pitchers i had before, same thing that when i look at my ventrosica, the main plant is growing up to maybe 12" tall but the pitchers are only 3-4", and something that i cant get right with it is that it dosnt have a bunch of pitchers, just 2 now and only 2 more coming, all the other new leaves have the pitchers coming but its so slow,... one of my raffs which had been producing the biggest pitchers out of all of my neps has a recent pitcher of only 2-3" and before it was about 4-6"!they all grow in the same conditions,

some things that come to mind is maybe im not keeping them moist enough, and im ltetting them dry out too much or that maybe i should feed my plants more often? i havnt fed them in a long while....long while, i had put milk into their pitchers about 2 months ago to see howd they go but im just seeing bigger leaves,... any ideas to help get the pitchers larger or what is going on? im completly stumped...

thanks in advance
 
That sounds a bit like you don't have enough light. What kind of lighting are you using?

Capslock
 
I've noticed that more light generally equals larger pitchers with shorter leaves. How much light are you plants in?
 
Natural sunlight, first 4 hours of the morning

from around 7-11:30
 
Light intensity is certainly one of the more important factors but it is not the only one. Out in my greenhouse I see significantly smaller and less colorful pitchers during the Winter months. I attribute the change to overall less humidity with the heaters running, some drop in light intensity (although there is less shade the sun is not as intense), and the VERY large drop in daylength hours.

Tony
 
it depends on the species too. bacalcarata does have a large leaf to pitcher ratio.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (gardenofeden @ Mar. 26 2004,10:33)]it depends on the species too. bacalcarata does have a large leaf to pitcher ratio.
Good point... I was thinking that and forgot to mention it. Although this is more of a case where a plant is now bigger but is currently producing smaller pitchers than previously so something is obviously less to the plants liking and not a case of one species vs another.

Something else I should mention is temperature. I see a negative effect from cooler temps on lowland plants and warmer temps on highland plants. Since the original question was about N. bicalcarata this might be a factor since it has just gone through several months of cooler Winter temperatures.

Tony
 
Hey Stephano, my ventricosa 'red' is the same - 2" tall with 3-4" pitchers. Morning light, 4 hours direct. I can't let it get more though, because it's sitting on my desk and I can't control the humidity and because I live in a deserty region it could easily burn leaves. I believe some of the pitcher size differences could be due to the age of the plant, how old is yours? Mine's almost 3 years old now, the pitchers do seem to be getting larger as it ages.
 
  • #10
Thanks everyone, ill see if i can get them into more light, the only problem is they will dry up to fast so ill have to constantly water them

wickedthistle, my ventosica is about 2 and a half or so, possibly almost 3 also, its strange tho, i would like to get my neps to have a larger pitcher to leaf ratio instead of the other way around
 
  • #11
You won't have to water N. bicalcarata soo often if you use a deep saucer with a bit of water in it always. I use the tray method on my big N. bicalcarata and it does fine, I occasionally let it get dry for a few days to allow the roots to "breathe" and air out the medium, but since my evapotranspiration rate is much lower in my growchamber and your ETR is much higher (cine yours is outdoors I assume being in S. Florida) then you may have to maintain a higher level of water in the saucer for the bical. I'd say aroudn 1-2 icnhes of water will be fine for it.
 
  • #12
Also I hear if you grow the plant with live lfs on top of the medium,I have tried this on my vft with very positive results the traps were less then 1\2 in. and now are 1 1\4 in.!
smile.gif
 
  • #13
in my bical pot there is a small part of LFS growing, im trying to get it to grow more, and i put some around my ampullaria and northiana, trying to keep it alive and for it to grow
 
  • #14
if you want big ventricosa pitchers, give the leaves lots of light, but give the tip of the tendrils very little light. you'll get a monster pitcher, then you can move it out into the sun to color it up!
biggrin.gif
 
  • #15
Cool tip spec so basically your giving the plant plenty of sun,yet depriveing the pitcher of sun so it gets "stretched out" ? Neatto.
 
  • #16
Spec,

From a practical perspective, how are you achieving this?

Moving the plant do different light levels at different stages of leaf-tendril-pitcher development?

OR

Shielding the tendril and pitcher from light by some means?

Aaron.
 
Back
Top