PROBLEMS????????

[Nepfreak]

I've been seeing some wierd things on my plants lately, and it's bugging me. Cure my paranoia and say they're completely normal, please! Some recent changes: addition of a metal halide light, a few repottings, and a media change.
N. rafflesiana, newest leaf. This little brown smudge is right where the red, sunburned part of the leaf meets the unburned green part. Normal, right?

Under the leaves, especially the older ones, of N. rafflesiana:

N. rokko x spectabilis seems to have something similar

and finally, I've noticed some premature leaf yellowing on N. 'sabre.' This is the newest leaf. I read on Tony Paroubek's website that leaves yellow when they get too much light, but this seems unrealistic since all summer the leaves were fine and now, in the winter, they're yellowing.

Any ideas as to what causes these things?
Thanks,
Ben

 

[vraev]

The first thing that comes to my mind with the last pic's white things on the leaf is "mealy bug" or "scale". The red tanning spots look like Fungus.....the one called as the RUST fungus. This is just my guess.............please wait for expert opinions.

 

[elgecko]

The underside of the leaf kind of looks like it might be from some sap sucking bug.

A friend of mine gave me some of his extra plants. A few days later he told me to check them for thrips. I took a quick look and did not see anything. Not long after I notice that the leaves on my neps did not look right. Upon inspection I found it was because of thrips.
I had to spray them with a rubbing alcohol water mix and then with ortho 2 or 3 time over a month to get rid of all the thrips. This was late summer when it happened and the neps are finally recovering and forming new leaves.

 

[Overmind1632]

Im not an expert but isnt that a sign of too much light?

 

[vraev]

no! Too much light is more evenly localised at the area that recives mroe light. You wouldn't find it like SPOTS...especially on the underside.

 

[JRFxtreme]

I had that same exact browning problem occur on my N. rafflesiana recently. At first I thought it was because I under watered it, but now I think it could have been due to a cold spell we got for a couple days in early January. Coincidentally, It was also moved to a slightly brighter location after the cold spell so.. it was caused by one of those 3 factors(maybe a combination?)... Who knows which.

The browning only happened on some of the leaves, around the leaf edges. Not in the middle of the leaf like yours.

 

[phissionkorps]

I had that happen a couple times and I just ignored it. Doing nothing solves most nep problems lol. But check for arthropods...could be a Hemiptera attack

 

[Nepfreak]

the raff has been like that for months, so has the sabre. It could be a fungus, one time I found some stuff on one of the leaves that scraped off, and under a microscope it seemed to have roots. There is a burn on that raff leaf, as I mentioned it's right under the light. It's possible that I underwater it, since I've had leaves droop from letting the soil dry out too much a few times. The plant always comes right back with a bit of water though. That bit of white stuff on the sabre leaf is just a bit of perlite that got there I-dont-know-how. The other thing I've noticed that doesn't photograph too well is some white stuff on the leaves that comes off easily. You can see it a bit in the first photo. I've never seen bugs on my neps, save for a few fungus gnats. I'll go give it a closer inspection. Oh, and low humidity might also be a suspect. Thanks!

 

[nepenthes gracilis]

I'd say alot of that is just normal "wear and tear" I've had raffs and they always get leaf problems. I don't kno why but they are never really happy unless it was the beginning and middle of summer when the light was good and temps were HOT! Not too much light, you'd see a build up of anthocyanins first (reddening of the leaves). Then they'd yellow. I would check for any kind of anthropods as phission stated, look closely for sap suckers, that looks like it could be piercing/sucking mouthpart type damage, but without seeing the plant in person its hard to say.