Hi people,
I have a problem with two N. ampullaria (Cantley's Red variant, see below) plants that I've been keeping for several months. They are very much alive, and occasionally sprout new leaves, but they never produce any new pitchers. Usually I see the pitcher-shoot beginning to develop at the tip of the leaf, but then they fail to develop into full-size pitchers and just wither. This is my setting:
http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125504
The water temperature is a constant 28 C, and the air temperature oscillates between 30-25 C between day and night. I have constant 80-100% moisture and a 400 W metal halide lamp suspended 60 cm. above the plants. The soil was a custom mix of long-fibre sphagnum moss, perlite, sphagnum peat, and large-grained quartz sand. Both plants suffered a good deal of transplantation shock and physical trauma (my cat rolled over them and broke all their pitchers.) However, I have four more Nepenthes (visible below, two more N. ampullaria and two N. bicalcatrata specimens) which have started to develop pitchers months ago. These two have woody stems and are older plants, so I'm assuming this has something to do with their failure to develop pitchers. I have never used fertilisers, and always RO water. (The island is waterproof, so no fish waste gets inside.)
Photos:
I have a problem with two N. ampullaria (Cantley's Red variant, see below) plants that I've been keeping for several months. They are very much alive, and occasionally sprout new leaves, but they never produce any new pitchers. Usually I see the pitcher-shoot beginning to develop at the tip of the leaf, but then they fail to develop into full-size pitchers and just wither. This is my setting:
http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125504
The water temperature is a constant 28 C, and the air temperature oscillates between 30-25 C between day and night. I have constant 80-100% moisture and a 400 W metal halide lamp suspended 60 cm. above the plants. The soil was a custom mix of long-fibre sphagnum moss, perlite, sphagnum peat, and large-grained quartz sand. Both plants suffered a good deal of transplantation shock and physical trauma (my cat rolled over them and broke all their pitchers.) However, I have four more Nepenthes (visible below, two more N. ampullaria and two N. bicalcatrata specimens) which have started to develop pitchers months ago. These two have woody stems and are older plants, so I'm assuming this has something to do with their failure to develop pitchers. I have never used fertilisers, and always RO water. (The island is waterproof, so no fish waste gets inside.)
Photos: