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I posted this on CPUK forum but i am trying to get as much info on this as possible so those who have already read this...forgive me:)
I grow my plants in terrarium but this contribution to the forum is not as much about terraria as it is about artificial feeding of CPs so if needed please move it to more apropriate department.
Some time ago I have been thinking about how to keep the plants vividly growing even when the conditions arent very favorable (e.g. winter) when there is not enough prey/insects. It is well understood that CP are green plants capable of photosyntesis and that supplementation of N P and other lacking elements via digestion of prey is not necessary requirement for their survival. Of course a nourished plant grows and propagates better than struggling one. The importance of feeding the plants varies from one species to another and is maybe the most obvious in the case of tuberous droserae when they need (in very short time) grow rapidly bloom and create seeds or extra tubers. Without enough prey some of them only form a terrestrial rosette and then go back to dormancy without flowering and further propagation. All of the CPs are onlu capable of digestion of very simple molecules. So the prey body's components have to be broken down to its primary structures (aminoacids glycides fatty acids phosphosacharides etc). Depending on the CP genus not all of the components can be used for nourishing the plant. Enzymes available are the crucial determinating point. Well I designed an experiment to perform and determine whether there is a way to nourish the plants artificially to boost their growth and sustain wellness.
As we know the anorganic fertilizers work mostly on the principle of addition of nitrogen in ammonium or nitrate form (or both in case of ammonium nitrate) phosphorus in form of sec. and tert. fosfates....potassium as KNO3 or KCl..and so on....in other words in a form unacceptable for most of CPs.
Organic fertilizers are mostly urea guanidine calcium cyanamide (nitrolime) or other compounds with little tollerance of Cp to such fertilization.
So i decided to try a different kind of food supplement for CPs...the very same that is used for animals.

I took a powder mix of some aminoacids (lysine proline glutamic acid valine isoleucine serine tyrozine etc) fatty acids (stearic lignoceric acids and myristic acid) glycosides glycides and coenzymes and minerals such as Mg and vanadyl sulphate..)
This i prepared dilute solution from and fed it to the plant once a week for two months.
I only used Heliamphora and Nepenthes for this first experiment.
In case of Heliamphora (minor) I had two plants coming from a cluster division of one plant...therefore genetically identical and they were grown together under the same conditions except one was fed the solution and the other was just as a referrence plant. The pictures show that both plants grew the same amount of new pitchers and that the frequency of growth did not increase but the growth of each new pitcher of fed plant was more rapid and the traps distingtively better developed:
DSCF0060.jpg


DSCF0059-1.jpg


In case of Nepenthes i used common cheap hybrid x Ventrata. The young plant was fed for one month the very same nutrients. The next pitches was much bigger then the previous created by plant and actually bigger than tha plant itself:
09230060.jpg


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It would be nice to see whether this works with slow-growing nepenthes and other carnivorous genus.
I havent tried this with pinguicular nor sarracenias (dormancy). But i have tried with droseras. The food was fed in solid/powder form directly onto the leaf. (D. capensis D.slackii D peltata) but before the food could be digested the affected leaf was a subject to rot/mould attack. This I think happens because droserae genus dont possess glycosidases-enzymes making the digestion of sugars possible. Since there were sugars present they remained undigested and therefore an inducement for fungus growth.
I think with the proper analysis of enzymes in plants it is possible to design a harmless fertilizer to be mixed to meet each plant`s requirements:)

Sorry for the long lecture I just wanted to share my results and thought it might be of interest to some.
Also I would like to ask you whether anyone had tried this before i did and what was the outcome of the experiment:)

P.S.(1): Apologies for my English for it is not my native tongue....
P.S.(2): My sincere congratulations on electing a smart president with a brain in his head (for a change:-O )
 
Awesome! That pitcher on the nep is huge! I would be feeding my plants more if I could find anything to feed them.
 
Very nice! Are you sure you should have the heli on the left in pure peat? Also, I want to say the nep isn't N. x ventrata...but I can't be sure.
 
Capensis: yes both of the tested Helis are potted in pure peat. Maybe i should remove the peat topping on the other one too and take a picture to rule out any doubts:)
I think it is N. x ventrata but i might be wrong i am not a nepenthes specialist. But i know x ventrata can have several pitcher coloration variations. As i said i might be wrong and would be happy to hear from nepenthes-oriented CP grower (i am more into drosera you know:).
 
Ignore my comment.
 
I didn't know there was a half red half cream ventricosa...
 
Here's its biggest pitcher.
SN853304.jpg


Sorry if I'm hi-jacking your thread. D:
 
n. ventricosa "red" in itself may be a hybrid with n. alata.

Thanks for the experiment! im gonna try that! Nothing like doping things huh?

Also, your english is probably better than mine haha! and thanks for the congrats on a good president!
 
  • #10
I'm not a chemist, so here's a dumb question:

Would pure protein powder (for humans) work in pitchers of Neps and Helis? Or just too much sugar that a plant cannot consume?
 
  • #11
Fryser: nepenthes genus dont have enzymes to digest sugars. In "protein powders" ( i mean the mixes) there is usually a large percentage of sugars (over 50%). So yes for e.g. Neps part of it is useless. Dont know about chemistry of digestion of helis but i think for both it would be better to use pure protein mix with no sugar:)
 
  • #12
Very interesting. How did you feed the nepenthes, in the pitcher or in the soil? As for the nepenthes ID, I also have a Ventricosa 'red' that has a similar look to yours and capensis' although the bottom half my of pitchers isn't so cream, it has a little more red in it. More and more, I'm thinking this is actually not a pure ventricosa, but maybe ventricosa x ventrata or something similar.

And your English is very good also.
 
  • #13
My god, amazing shots. I might try this myself on my Darlingtonia seedlings in a few months. Any suggestion as to what I'd be looking for in the US?
 
  • #14
As for the Nepenthes hybrid used fot the experiment; in my first post I mark it as Nepenthes x Ventrata (a.k.a. Nepenthes ventricosa x alata) because that is how we identified it with some of the Czech growers and it is the most likely because it is very wide-spread on flowershops' shelves in Czech rep. It certainly is not pure ventricosa. It might not even be x ventrata because with these Netherlands' hybrids you never know. Most commercial nurseries dont care about the origin of the plant much they just need something that propagates and grows as quickly as possible so thay can sell it ASAP and make as much money as possible. So for all we know it can be N. (ventrata x alata) x ventricosa x ventrata var. "creamy bottom-red face-flat hat" multiplied by itself :-D Who knows. But it is cheap and ideal species for my freaky experiments:).
As for feeding darlingtonia seedlings- dont know if the same is going to work for darlingtonia. From what i know this genus digests sugars and aminoacids only. So at first glance the mix looks perfect for darlingtonia. The thing is darlingtonia needs help of bacteria for digestion (unlike other CPs). Dont know how bacteria would react to pH of this mix since thay ar every sensitive to such change.... also here more than anywhere else old saying applies "too much cure becomes a poison and vice versa" . So if yoy try I would be careful about dosage and frequency.
P.S. The nepenthes was fed by pouring the solution directly into the pitcher not on the soil.
 
  • #15
UPDATE: I have been feeding this heliamphora minor my mix of 18 L-aminoacids (1gram pre week). In 2 weeks it grew 5 more pitchers:

triple.jpg


The biggest pitcher is over 10cm now and still growing

double2.jpg


P.S. I switched to pure aminoacids mixture from regular protein mix because i had problems with undigested components of regular mix that caused fungi attack sometimes. Using pure aminoacids causes no such thing. The maximum dose is 5g per month (growth is boosted both qualitatively and quantitatively).
 
  • #16
fantastic job man! Very very nice. Good to see the novel ideas. Looks very very promising. My heli which are not fertilized grow a pitcher every 1-1.5 months.
 
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