gill_za
Never Knows Best
GrowinOld said:Hey Gill,
Read thru things here again, & was wondering if the simple route of rinsing off the plants, soaking & rinsing routine a few times & then re-planting with new media & pot (& then isolating it from other infested pots/plants) resulted in eradication, or if the "buggers" returned in time.
If my memory does not fail me nematodes are notorious for laying eggs in hundreds of thousands, thus simply washing the plant and repotting it will not help in most of the cases to eliminate this specific issue completely. There is a very high chance that few eggs will survive on the roots and the whole thing will re-bounce.
I've checked the plants periodically after replanting and have not seen the worms yet, but I will not be surprised if the nematodes will return soon. The plants are also kept a bit dryer then before, that might be discouraging the worms too...
Starting to sound paranoid heh This whole thing with nematodes complicated everything. I need to leave the town for a week soon and need to set up the drip irrigation system for the plants. Because of the space limitation need to figure out a way to fit several trays onto one small shelf: cram infected plants into one tray (they have different pots' sizes), isolate clean new plants in another, put repotted VFT's into a third one... Earlier it all would have fit into two big trays and be done.. Arghhhhhh so I want those worms out!
Im not sure if all this experimenting with the worms is an attempt to fix the original problem (the yellowing of leaves) or if its a "just because" experiment..an attempt to kill the worms simply because they are there, and perhaps they might be harming the plants..
IMO the yellowing of the leaves probably has nothing to do with the worms..the problem is obvious..
its because they are being grown indoors.
Scot
The experimenting was an attempt to kill the nematodes in the soil. I suspected that they might have something to do with the leaves discoloration, but that is about it. I bought two plants from a single nursery and they both had the nematodes. Without realizing it I spread them to each plant in the tray (since then I keep those plants isolated from the rest of the collection, some of them I can't replant, such as pygmy sundews). So trying to kill two birds with one stone:
figure out the problem with VFT's leaves that were yellowing and then simply drying out
and figure out a way to eradicate nematodes from the infected plants...
So you may be right that there was not enough light but that does not explain why after repotting the plants bounced back and are doing great.