Fertilizing Nep pitchers caused shortened life span

[Veronis]

To all who fertilize neps via pitcher, what fertilizer do you use?

20-14-13 Better-Gro Orchid Plus at quarter strength worked well in the soil (minus the algae problem it caused regardless of how much I flushed), but putting the fertilizer into the pitchers, while the results were fantastic, did seem to shorten the life of the pitchers. The pitcher I fertilized twice (over the last month or so) is dead, and the one I fertilized once is starting to die. Neither of the pitchers were more than a month old.

Observances: The pitcher that was fertilized 10 days ago has a brown spot at its waist that is quickly spreading. Also, the operculum (lid/hood) is beginning to shrivel.
The pitcher that was fertilized twice was completely dead late last week (25 days to pitcher death).

I'm thinking something like Maxsea 16-16-16 might be better suited to fertilizing the pitchers. This particular fertilizer's 0.5% copper and 0.5% zinc content may have everything to do with the pitcher death.

Attachments:
1. (Top left) Pitcher that was fertilized 10 days ago. You can see the brown spot at its waist beginning to spread.
2. (Top right) Same pitcher as 1. This pic shows the operculum (lid) starting to shrivel.
3. (Bottom left) Pitcher that was never fertilized; no issues apparent. It's about two days younger than the one pictured in 1 and 2.

My plant has a few other pitchers as well, and none of them seem to have been effected by this, other than growing like mad.

 

[GrowinOld]

Well,
Good observations and nice photo documentation!
I would ask if you noticed an overall growth improvement in your plant,
as that makes the loss of a pitcher worthwhile.
Many of us lose a trap more quickly once we "feed" it, (no matter what type of plant)
especially if fed heavily, and it seems even diluted fertilizer is quite harsh on the traps.
It is possible that the Copper/Zinc is somewhat responsible, however it could also just be
that twice a month is pushing it too much.

That is how we all learn what works for us!
Sometimes what works for one person doesn't for another, as we all have
small differences in the environments we provide for our plants.
There seems to be no "one size fits all" in every aspect. In general there are good
guidelines to follow, however when it comes to smaller nuances of what to do,
we have to find out what works best for us.
In a way, this is how NEW and better ways of doing things comes into play,
as someone trys something that ends up working for many people.

I myself have tried a variety of fertlizers, and have had mixed results. More a factor seems to be
how much/often and when I fertlize, if at all. One thing common seems to be our desire to get
bigger and faster growth from our plants.
I am sure others will have various recommendations which cutting the copper/zinc certainly can't hurt,
however in my experience, patience is sometimes the best fertilizer!

Good luck and do keep experimenting, as like I said,
this is how new and better ways of doing things is discovered!

Paul

 

[Frilleon]

My theory is: one you are over fertilizing, So yes a lower fertilizer should work better (meaning your pitcher won't completly die). I highly doubt that an insect (or even many insects) that the pitcher can capture will ever amount to 20-14-13 ratio in the pitcher fluid. That being said I ONLY feed my nep's insects (owning reptiles makes this easy for me). I have noticed the the top half (from waist/hip to lid) of some pitchers will die off. The bottom half will stay alive and continue to digest. For me I have seen the bottom half of the pitcher survive up to 3 months past the top half die off. My belief is the top half of the pitcher dies off to prevent more food capture (no more nectar production) which would lead to complete pitcher die off ( over fertilazation). The bottom half stays alive to complete the digestion of captured prey. Again this is based on my belief and loose observations on my part.

 

[BigBella]

I've had far better results with biweekly 1/4 strength 30:10:10 -- both as a foliar feed and in the pitchers as well . . .

 

[Veronis]

My theory is: one you are over fertilizing

If I'm fertilizing at 1/4 strength every 2-3 weeks, how is that over-fertilizing? Not trying to argue, I'm just curious.

Other than the one pitcher starting to die, the growth response of my nep has been impressive.

I may switch to Maxsea 16-16-16; I had also considered Schultz Orchid 19-31-17.

 

[Frilleon]

Sorry I should have stated that I considered your frequency of feeding was one of the issue. I believe (again this is my opinion) you were feeding faster then the plant could consume. Over time you build up unnatural levels of fretilizer in the pitcher. The other issue I see is you are putting fertilizer in both soil and pitchers. I believe (again another opinion) this could also lead to shorter life of the pitchers. The plant doesn't need the pitchers so they die off faster. Again I only feed my neps insects so this is all speculation. My plants grow just fine without any fertilization and I would not want to risk lossing some of my favorite plants.

Were not arguing were are having a good debate!

Ultimately you will have to run your own tests and find what works for you.

If I'm fertilizing at 1/4 strength every 2-3 weeks, how is that over-fertilizing? Not trying to argue, I'm just curious.

Other than the one pitcher starting to die, the growth response of my nep has been impressive.

I may switch to Maxsea 16-16-16; I had also considered Schultz Orchid 19-31-17.

 

[Veronis]

I see what you mean - I know a number of people who fertilize via pitchers and don't have these problems; I wasn't sure why I was having a problem.

Maybe I wasn't clear though - I don't fertilize both the pitchers and the soil simultaneously. I used to fert via soil then flush it out a couple days later. I recently switched to fertilizing the pitchers. Maybe this is what you mean, since I may have remnants of fertilizer still in the soil from the two times I fertilized that way.

 

[Cindy]

I dropped a particular brand of osmocote into the pitchers and got the following. Another brand did not cause the same problem.

Burnt bottoms...

Shrivelled lids. These are the newest pitchers on the plant which had perfect lids before I dropped the osmocote in.

 

[BigBella]

I've avoided Osmocote for several years now -- after once swearing by it. Perhaps they have changed their formulation, but I too had some similar problems with it. My biweekly 30:10:10 and occasional Hikari Cichlid Staple (fish food) pellets in the pitchers have worked wonders for Nepenthes, Cephalotus, and Heliamphora . . .

Thanks, Jeff . . .

 

[GrowinOld]

Osmocote, Ugh!

[I know this isn't the kind of advice you are looking for, but perhaps someone else out there can appreciate some of what I have to share.]

I haven't used Osmocote in many years (pretty much since right after it first came on the market), and I have my own reasons for disliking it. If it is still the same "design" physically, (tho perhaps not same fertilizer make-up/chemically) then it acts like "capsules" like we take medicine in, perhaps dissolving at different rates in the soil. As such, once each little round capsule dissolves enough to open and release its contents of fertilizer, there is no controlling it further.
I would think that diluting a powder/liquid fertilizer and experimenting with different strengths and amounts is a far better way of controlling things, and finding out what works best for you.

Also, in my experience, some Neps/plants tolerate the use of fertilizer better than others, and natural food like bugs has seemed best of all. It does seem logical that using fish food and "bugs", dead or alive is a more appropriate way of feeding plants, that were designed for just such a food as opposed to a "vitamin" package/supplement of fertilizer. Even humans can't exist on vitamins alone!

Above all, it seems the plants are telling you that they are being overfed. Yard/garden plants get burned (or give distorted growth) by over-fertilization too. [You did express that the results of fertilizing was fantastic!] Now sometimes it is worth the expense of a pitcher or two in order to help the overall health of the plant, as you have expressed. Next is to learn to do this effectively without possibly hurting or even killing the plant. Eventually one must learn to "listen" to what their plants are telling them. This takes time, patience and awareness.


As I have said before, next to dedication, patience is often what plants need most from us.
(Many experienced a grower has learned this the hard way.)
Plants grow at a certain rate, influenced most by their environment. We all have variances in the environment we provide our plants, and this will affect how much/often fertilizer they will accommodate. Even fed bugs/fish food to extreme can be harmful. To attempt to force them to grow faster than normal is most often met with failure.

My only real questions that I have concerning this, is how were your plants growing to begin with? You expressed that the results of fertilizing were fantastic. What was happening before then? Were the plants well established or recently new? Were they very slow to grow? Losing size since you got them? (A sign of possible adjusting to new environment, or poor environment altogether) Or are they losing size recently... AFTER a good adjustment period and growing decently for a few months? These are important things to consider.... when deciding how to approach the issue of fertilization. Even excellent fertilization won't make-up for environmental deficiencies, and to fertilize an already stressed plant is to possibly make matters worse for it.
Again, good luck.
Paul

 

[Veronis]

Thanks for the info Paul.

I waited until the plant was established and growing before I fertilized. It was growing well, but slowly. Its environment is good - it's under a 125W (600W equiv) CFL at 6500K that outputs about 9000 lumens. All the plants I have under it are growing phenomenally. The only environmental problem I have with the ventricosa are temps up to 90 during the day, so it doesn't open its lids up all the way to prevent its pitcher sauce from evaporating. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with it or not.

After I added fertilizer to the nep, the growth rate increased two-fold and it had created two new pitchers in a little over a week. The second fertilization, two weeks later, is where that one pitcher got burned. It's still doing fine and the burned pitcher has not shown any sign of getting any worse than what I originally attached.

 

[GrowinOld]

Congratulations!

Veronis,
WOW! What you just said communicates a lot to me! You have already found what works and have been told by the plant what does not! From your plants response, the first fertilization did its job and you were right on in doing it! From the result of fertilizing again 2 weeks later, it seems the plant is saying "too much"!

You are getting the nack' of understanding your plants "language" already! Just keep watching what your plants responses are, and you will know what to do! In view of the results you got, I doubt the fertilizer type is culprit, as your initial results were fantastic actually.

Not long ago I "improved" my grow chamber with some nice T5 lights and a better humidification.... and nearly killed all my plants! It took a month or 2 to show up, but while all my plants colored-up nicely, I got some algae bloom on things and all plant growth stopped dead in its tracks! Using this so called improvement that is "the equipment to have", I nearly destroyed everything!
It took me a while to decide what to do. (Along with other things, I tried a little fish-food to fertilize, assuming the added light meant the plants needed more energy to cope.) Finally I decided to back off on the amount of light (time, not intensity), and backed off also on the added humidification... still higher than original, but lower than I "improved" it to!

At first I was going to just cut back to the original setup, but I knew that was a little substandard to what I thought was ideal.... (hence my improving things in the first place).
Anyway, giving things another month or so, and another "tweak" or two, I am now seeing the beginnings of growth again!
It isn't always easy to see what is needed when we are in the middle of the situation, but the plants DO communicate! It is up to us as their caretakers to learn THEIR language!

Congratulations! I think you have learned more about fertilizing YOUR Neps than you originally gave yourself credit for. (Again from my original response to you, you did an excellent job tracking your progress with photos and such. I wish I would have done that in my situation, as it might have helped others who encounter a similar situation... when "improving" their setup!)
Good Growing!
Paul

 

[Veronis]

Thanks again.

 

[RL7836]

20-14-13 Better-Gro Orchid Plus at quarter strength worked well in the soil (minus the algae problem it caused regardless of how much I flushed), but putting the fertilizer into the pitchers, while the results were fantastic, did seem to shorten the life of the pitchers. The pitcher I fertilized twice (over the last month or so) is dead, and the one I fertilized once is starting to die. Neither of the pitchers were more than a month old.

Interesting observations. Some comments from my 'playing around' with ferts:

- Peter's soil-acidifying plant food - killed some plants and didn't help many in head to head tests (Cephs, Sarrs, dews). Have not used any for years.
- Schultz orchid food (urea-based) - used 1/3 - 1/2 of dose recommended for daily watering of orchids (note - this is much less than the amount used by others). Dosed small amount in pitchers (Nep/Ceph/Heli) on a varied basis from 1x/wk to 1x/mo. Excellent growth enhancement - no observed downside.
- Maxsea (urea-based) - same as Schultz.
- Better-Gro Orchid Plus (non-urea-based) - same dosing as prior 2. Wilted dew leaf & lids on Nepenthes.

As for using any ferts in the soil - I tried this years ago and was overwhelmed with slime, algae & the clear gel ooze stuff that looks like it came from a "B-movie". The nasty stuff continued long after the fertilization went away. I'll take slower growth any day.

On bugs or fish food in the pitchers - I periodically get a white fuzzy mold coming out of pitchers (Nep/Ceph/Heli - not Sarrs). While it doesn't seem to affect them at all (other than visually), the ugliness of the mold has caused me to reduce (not eliminate) this approach.

Caveat - YMMV - these results are far from conclusive. While I've used the Schultz & Maxsea for at least several months each, I've only used the Better-Gro for 2 weeks or so. I never had anything negative happen with either the Schultz or Maxsea so was quite shocked with the Better Gro impact - especially since it was supposed to be the 'safe' alternative (non-urea-based). This may simply be a case of some pitchers getting old at the same time that I happened to start using the Better Gro and not actually a causal relationship. However, based on this reaction, I'll admit I'm not likely to use this much (if at all) again...

 

[Veronis]

This is really great info, thanks for sharing it with me.

It looks like you had exactly the same experience as I did when fertilizing pitchers with Better-Gro. The pitcher I fertilized was only about two weeks old. Its lid wilted shortly afterward.

I have Maxsea at home, I'll give that a try in a couple weeks and see if my results are different.

 

[Lil Stinkpot]

I just did my first Max Sea misting today.