Stunned nepenthes

[Jason Wong]

Nepenthes merrliana growing in 6 inch pot, soil mix is 1 part each of perlite, hydroton and pumice.

Nepenthes northiana growing in a 7 inch pot, soil mix is the same as above, with one of vermiculite.

The Neps have been like this for a few weeks now. I thought it may just be acclimatizing, but they showed no sign of progress whatsoever. What do you think may be wrong? I thought it may be the compaction of soil but am afraid to re-pot them again.

Also, the last few days have shown up red blotches on the leaves of N. northiana. Lack of magnesium maybe?

Lanky plant in background is N. mirabilis 'red peristome'. Just received it from someone who didn't want it. My growing conditions are terrarium style, with the RH probably above 80%. Lighting is 72W compact fluor bulbs (2 36W).

Help appreaciated.

Thanks,

Jason

 

[TyFone]

whats your temp?

 

[Marcello Catalano]

Hi Jason!

they look like some of the plants that I tried to grow in pure perlite. They just don't like it. They did much better in sand and perlite 50/50. But peat/perlite is even better.
Maybe the soil is too poor, maybe it's too dry, maybe the wrong ph, maybe the quality of the inorganic materials and/or the ph of some of them, but the fact is that they don't like this compost.
Considering that you don't have any humidity problem and that the passage from inorganic to organic is much less stressing than the contrary (inorganic ingredients never get attached to the roots), I would repot these two plants in the usual half peat and half bark/perlite compost. Then keep the humidity high.
Also, after they recover, check your lamps: the merrilliana leaves should be deep green to bronze.
Marcello

 

[rlhirst]

Hmmm. Yeah you should repot, and add some peat, or chopped LFS. Flush your potting media to check and make sure ppm is under 100 .Also might want to use LFS as a topdressing. Northiana is notorious for red fungus. I suggest spraying with a systemic fungicide. make sure the ph of the water you are using is right around 5-5.5
Both merriliana and northiana are slow to adapt to new enviroments, just be patient. Don't be afraid to use some orchid fertilizer..again, under100 ppm
hope that helps
Robin

 

[shokuchuu]

A substrate "additive" we (Steve LaWarre and I) tried at the Frederik Meijer Gardens for an unhappy merrilliana was a thing called Dyna Rock II. Apparently it had a good silicon content which should promote strong growth - in some orchids at least. The plant then slipped into a "coma" and stopped growing, and red-brown blotches appeared all over the leaves. Obviously, no pitchers were formed. It was terrible, and finally after a few months I decided to go for it and repotted it into pure domestic (U.S.) LFS (for those who don't know, it has a more coarse texture over the NZ LFS). That's when it started to grow monstrously.
Sometimes going back to basics yields better results, as was the case for this plant.

Also, I'd advise against using Dyna Rock II for Nepenthes in general

Cheers

 

[Jason Wong]

Quote[/b] (rlhirst @ Oct. 23 2005,2:06)]Hmmm. Yeah you should repot, and add some peat, or chopped LFS. Flush your potting media to check and make sure ppm is under 100 .Also might want to use LFS as a topdressing. Northiana is notorious for red fungus. I suggest spraying with a systemic fungicide. make sure the ph of the water you are using is right around 5-5.5
Both merriliana and northiana are slow to adapt to new enviroments, just be patient. Don't be afraid to use some orchid fertilizer..again, under100 ppm
hope that helps
Robin

Yeah, I've heard that if you look at merrliana the wrong way it will try to slip into a coma behind your back.

Well, it been about 2 months since I received it (3 weeks since I repotted) and it still has not produced. Might have been the repotting that was the problem actually. I just followed the instructions of D' Amato for the northiana (he says it doesn't like LFS or peat, is this true?) and some other people on the Nepenthes forum for the merrliana (look at hydroton, sand, perlite in mix)

Just gotta do it yourself, I suppose. I will go ahead with re-potting with a more airy mix, since it can't possibly get any worse.

Tyfone, my temp is about 32 - 35*C. Standard singapore temp in a terra.

This wait-for-a-stunned-nep-to-grow is way more agonizing than if it was already in plant heaven.

 

[Marcello Catalano]

there are different schools for northiana (some people use peat based composts, others don't). Personally I always used peat or sphagnum and it works. Coconut fiber as well. Sand and perlite 50/50 also. The plant always grew the same way. So I don't really think peat or sphagnum are a problem. Plants grown in strange soils with added calcium, calcium fertilizers etc gave poor results (at least for what I read on the web, Peter D'Amato sais the contrary). I've also heard many times it doesn't like too much light, but in this forum I saw it growing in full sun in the natural habitat...

Merrilliana, like other nepenthes, in the original soil grows in laterite. That brought a lot of people to grow it in laterite, including me. Some others used seramis (similar to laterite) and other strange things, some others let the pot dry out to simulate the natural habitat environment, where this species goes very deep in the soil with its roots looking for water to survive some possible dry periods. I find that also in this case, this species can be grown in a standard mix, but in VEEEERY deep pots.

The conclusion is: a part from the VEEERY deep pot for N. merrilliana, both the species can receive the same conditions - if they are good - and they will be fine. High humidity and good light and compost with sphagnum/peat/bark/perlite etc...when they recover from the stress a good foliar feeding every 2-4 weeks is a good help for any lack of minerals.

Be careful when you follow the "natural habitat" conditions...it doesn't always work. Sometimes the plants in the wild just "survive" to their habitat because there's nothing better around

Some other times the plants you see in the jungle are just 100 of the millions that died because the conditions were too difficult...

Marcello

 

[TyFone]

I grow them both and they grow nice in my conditions 30C day and 22 Night. Planted in live spaghnum,perlit and a little peat in the northiana pot.
They grow with the same light but the northiana is a pot shorter under the lights.

But They are really hard to settle in. the merrilliana took 4 month before a single pitcher started to inflate and the northiana surprised me and made a new pitcher within a month.