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sundew photo gallery

  • #21
HAHAHA no its not the light guys... if 210 W of CFL is not enough... what is?
 
  • #22
210 watts?! Dang! Then it CAN'T be the light. This makes me think that it could be your temperature. That much compact flourescent light could create a lot of heat, which might be having a bad effect on your sundews. I know that when I first started out using artificial light I had a lot of wattage on my plants, therefore creating a ton of heat. This caused my sundews to react very badly, resulting in loss of dew and burnt leaves.
 
  • #23
26-28C...
When I raise the light, the temp is the same, and plants look even worse...
When I move it away, so there is about 2 times LESS light... they make dew, but lose color (binatas turn green, adelae goes white, nidiformis turns white and so on...) only thing that seems to like the situation is P. esseriana, who shows sighns of life, and dried sphagnum that now has some green growth on its tips, and S. Leucophylla... at least they are doing ok...
I'm exprementing with different bulbs right now... maybe I'll be able to find a solution.
I also noticed that if humidity goes below 70, plants look like they've been in a desert for last 150 years. I notice they made a LOT more dew at night, in total darkness, than during the day with light... Also after feeding... they dont make ANY dew at all for days... must be saving the energy for growing, because thats what they do nicely at that time. I still agree with you that it could be temperature... they used to look a lot better at 20-22...
BLEH... I'll just keep trying and maybe I'll work something out... my latest experiment yelded some minor improvement... lets hope it'll work...
 
  • #24
Now thats wierd, I get tons of dew even on really hot days with little humidity. (100+ with around 30% humidity)

-Rail
 
  • #25
Could it be the soil... maybe they dont like my peat... what ones you guys use?
 
  • #26
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Dimka @ Dec. 16 2005,11:37)]Could it be the soil... maybe they dont like my peat... what ones you guys use?
Well,if you buy small bags of peat moss, that might be the problem. What name brand do you use?
 
  • #27
Its scotts I think... I wanted to get canadian, but its sold in HUGE packs which I can't store anywhere...
 
  • #28
I have had some issues with Scotts brand peat recently... (and the bag even says "Canadian peat")

It looks like a good quality peat to my eyes, but I have discovered that the peat is high in dissolved solids! I did wash the peat before using it, apparently I did not wash it well enough:

A number of my plants (u. calcyfida, d. burmannii, etc) which were potted in undrained containers really seemed to be suffering from poor health. Other clones in the same conditions, but planted in drained containers, were doing very well.

I decided to purchase a TDS meter and some pH paper. I wanted to test the quality of the peat as I couldn't think of anything else that would be causing the poor growth...

Taking a handful of peat from one of the undrained pots, I squeezed out some water and discovered that it was at about 300ppm! I believe that most CP's will only tolerate dissolved solids in the range of ~150ppm or less.

I am still a newbie in my opinion and this was a valuable lesson to me. Now, I allow my peat to sit in a bowl of distilled water overnight. The next day I squeeze out as much of the water as possible, then rinse and repeat. Now I see TDS readings in the 20-50ppm range.

All of my plants that were suffering are now thriving in the newly rinsed mix, same pots, same conditions, same plants... food for thought?

I see that you mention your p esserania is doing well(?) This is a mexican ping and I suspect that it might not be as sensitive to dissolved salts? (It might even prefer a little calcium in the soil!)

I'd like to hear more about your growing conditions as this sounds like a good mystery to me! (maybe we should start a new thread?) If you have a potted terrarium; have you ever changed the water in your trays, etc?

- Mike
 
  • #29
Hmmm.... interesting... Maybe I'll try this, when I have free time... monday maybe...
But actually now that I think about it... my plants don't seem to be suffering from any illness, they are just pale and dewless... other than that they seem to grow quite nicely. Adelae unroll a new leaf every 2-3 days, nidiformis is produsing leafs quite nicely actually... better than before, binatas are doing well too (just seem to lose coloration) and intermedias are growing better than in pure LFS... I think the problem is radiation...
The light itself conducts heat, thus causing dew to evaporate... I'll keep experimenting, we'll see what happens in a week or so. I installed a mini fan in my light fixture, so that should take care of the heat (already showing results - fixture is not hot as hell), but then again I might try some extra watering... when I was making the terrarium, I put about an inch of perlite in the bottom for drainage... so maybe I should just sprinkle a few gallons to drain the whole thing...
Thanks for help
smile.gif
 
  • #30
Mobius: All I can say is Great Job with the media!
 
  • #31
[b said:
Quote[/b] (m0bius @ Dec. 16 2005,4:34)]I have had some issues with Scotts brand peat recently... (and the bag even says "Canadian peat")

It looks like a good quality peat to my eyes,..........
When I first started growing CPs, Scotts was my brand of choice. I could use it straight out of the bag with no problem. A couple years ago though, I notice a decline in quality of their product. Namely, I had several bags that were contaminated with a yellow mold which had a strong moldy/musty smell. They were contaminated in this manner straight off the store shelf. Last year, I tried washing their peat before using it. That's when I discoverd time release fertilizer pellets and those moisture retaining thingies in my peat. There were only a few (compared to regular potting mix), which leads me to think that they were contaminents on the equipment which Scott's used to process their houseplant potting mixes as well as their peat moss. And, like you found, one thorough rinse wasn't enough to get all the fertilizer out. I lost a lot of plants this summer due to these contaminents before I realized what the problem was.
 
  • #32
Seeing all this bad talk about Scott's brand peat is making me nervous. I use it for all of my plants, but I've yet to see any bad effects. Maybe I'm ok...
 
  • #33
you know, I think there is something with this peat... I just looked into a water tray in which some of my pots stand... and it looks like as if someone had put gasoline in it, you know that little rainbow layer on the water... I'm gonna have to wash the peat after all... only problem is it would mean uprooting every plant I have in my terrarium, and I have several seeds sown in there as well... I'll have so scoop up the upper layer of soil somehow...
 
  • #34
I used to use Scotts, but then they started putting osmocott or whatever it's called, and that is basically a slow-release fertilizer, like what BCK said.

-Ben
 
  • #35
In another topic, it has been shown that a few grains of Osmocote, hopefully heterogeneous, enhances growth in Neps.
 
  • #36
Well, maybe it is so
smile.gif

But I dont grow, nor do I plan to grow any nephs... anyone wants to try?
*No sarcasm*
 
  • #37
Perhaps in time. There are a lot of Nep growers on the discussion forum to help you out. Aside from General Discussions, I think it is the most trafficked forum, here.
 
  • #38
My N. ramispina took off after I added Osmocote, and I put more then what other growers had been recomending. I put probably 15 balls of the Osmocote on the surface of a 12" hanging basket, the next leaf that formed was probably 1/3rd bigger then the last. Also it still has produces a pitcher on ever leaf.

I have put some Osmocote in with a few of my other plants, with no negative results so far. My D. capensis where looking rough after 4 flower stalks one after another. So I placed maybe 4 or 5 pellets in the 8" sill planter I have them in.
 
  • #39
OK, I just could not wait any longer... I took all my plants out, removed top layer with seeds/gemmae on it, and dumped a gallon of water into the mix... after about 2 minutes... a thich oily layer appeared on the surface of the water... maybe thats the problem... who knows. I know I would not like to live in such environment.
I also discovered that my adelae's roots are like 5 times bigger than the plant lol.
Anyway, hope this works. I'll also add LFS to the mix - wanted to do it for some time, but that'd mean uprooting eveything, and now that i did it anyway, why not eh?
Ok guys wish me luck
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  • #40
smile_l_32.gif
All this talk about Scotts peat has me worried as well since i just started using it, i was using Shultz brand peat and have never had any probs with that brand and my plants are growing and thriving very well. But when i went to get another bag recently they didnt have any Shultz left and i grabed a bag of Scotts, theres nothing on the bag about any fertalizer or anything just says 100% canadian peat. Now i do mix sand, perlite and spag in with it so theres not much peat being used. The plants and seeds im waiting to germinate in the Scotts mix i made dont seem to be having any probs. All my plant pots have drain holes. Should i wait and see what happens or discontinue the use of the Scotts all together and stick with the Shultz??
 
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