This growing season was going good for me until I started to lose several mature divisions to rhizome rot. The previous years I've lost a few divisions due to media getting too compacted over time. This year I decided to go with an airy mix with a higher perlite to peat ratio. I use the fertilizer-free stuff and I thoroughly rinse the media. I usually repot every other year as well, with pots smaller than 6 inches getting repotted every year. I've switched over to the tray method. I've been using low TDS tapwater (40-50 ppm) for a while now. The sarracenia get at least 8 hours of direct sunlight. However, the weather this summer has been up and down. Here in NYC we would get days where it barely breaks 75 then we get a week where it constantly rains followed by a week or two of 90+ degree weather. For the past 2 weeks, it's been unseasonably cool with the temps never getting above 80. We're supposed to get up to 90 degrees later this week.
Anyways, back to the problem at hand. With the affected plants, the pitchers would start browning, followed by pitchers collapsing at the base near the rhizome. When I dug up the rhizomes, they would be soft and brown. I've tried cutting away at the affected rhizomes and soaking any non-rotted rhizome tissue with sulfur, followed by repotting with fresh media in a bleach-sterilized pot. Those divisions never made it. Another mature division (S. "Copper Vase") started showing signs of rhizome rot so I treated it with Cleary's 3336 after cutting away at the infected flesh and giving it fresh media. It seems that this might work but I'll probably have to check the rhizome to see if it's not rotting. Luckily I was able to save a small division but I'm keeping a close eye on it.
I've been doing some research on the usage of trichoderma through the search function on the forum and Crystal's site to mitigate the infection of sarracenia and I have some questions.
Thanks.
Anyways, back to the problem at hand. With the affected plants, the pitchers would start browning, followed by pitchers collapsing at the base near the rhizome. When I dug up the rhizomes, they would be soft and brown. I've tried cutting away at the affected rhizomes and soaking any non-rotted rhizome tissue with sulfur, followed by repotting with fresh media in a bleach-sterilized pot. Those divisions never made it. Another mature division (S. "Copper Vase") started showing signs of rhizome rot so I treated it with Cleary's 3336 after cutting away at the infected flesh and giving it fresh media. It seems that this might work but I'll probably have to check the rhizome to see if it's not rotting. Luckily I was able to save a small division but I'm keeping a close eye on it.
I've been doing some research on the usage of trichoderma through the search function on the forum and Crystal's site to mitigate the infection of sarracenia and I have some questions.
- Does it work for sarracenia in preventing rhizome rot?
- Are there certain species or strains I should use?
- Should I go with the flowable or the granular stuff?
- What's the application rate for each type (granular vs flowable)?
- How often do I need to reapply?
- Is it's growth affected by any of the commonly available fungicides used for sarracenia? (in case I have to spray for Winter dormancy)
Thanks.
