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Post by sykosarah on Jan 24, 2014 18:03:41 GMT
Now, my Venus flytrap is nearing the end of dormancy. Now, I am well aware that the leaves that sometimes pop up during this time are different and shorter than during the normal growing season. However, these new shoots I notice have this almost scaly look to them (not like the pest scale, but the plant's skin surface looks almost like a person's elbow if it gets dry in winter). Is this atypical? I know that some pests can warp new growth, which is why this has me so concerned. I have checked the base of the plant and it is as white with a green tinge as ever. I wasn't concerned a month ago when the first one like this popped up, because sometimes plants have off leaves, but now it has a couple more that look that way. Some of these same strange leaves also look like stuff has been taking bites out of them now. I did the shake test for spider mites, and there isn't any webbing, so I don't think they are my problem (sweet mother of god, forbid I had to deal with those monstrosities). The leaves almost look like they grow up with this chewed up pattern, and none have seemed to blackened or been worse off from it... yet. I have not seen any movement, though perhaps whatever it is, is green so I can't see it. Only newer growth is doing this, all the original leaves that it had and have survived through dormancy look the same. As I said, the base of the plant looks perfectly normal. The only bugs I know of to be in that pot are springtails (they jump, and I don't see any flies, so I assume they are springtails and not fungus gnats. Unless they got desperate due to the lack of fungus and attempted to eat my Venus flytrap revenge chewing for my flytrap getting some of them). Any ideas on what could have caused this? I was performing the dormancy in my refrigerator, and I haven't placed my flytrap outside since late August. My Venus flytrap is of the typical variety.
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Post by carnivorousstu on Jan 24, 2014 18:53:07 GMT
Can you post a photo of the plant? I know a lot of my VFTs which are kept in the greenhouse over winter have oddly deformed traps and petioles but this is mostly due to the colder weather deforming them
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Post by sykosarah on Jan 24, 2014 19:30:00 GMT
Notice the warped leaves and traps deeper in. Also, it is important to note that any leaves that grew during the dormancy had no developed traps. I attributed them turning black to the cold, but maybe it was something else...
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Post by sykosarah on Jan 24, 2014 19:30:42 GMT
If you can't tell easily, just click on the picture, and you will get a very close up, good picture.
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Post by carnivorousstu on Jan 24, 2014 20:37:26 GMT
hmm doesn't really look like aphid damage. Could just be from the cold temperatures. What conditions will you be keeping the VFT in now that you have removed it from dormancy? Best to wait and see what the new traps look like. If they are still deformed, give the plant a quick spray with orthene or a spray containing imidacloprid/acetameprid
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Post by sykosarah on Jan 24, 2014 21:42:22 GMT
I had to emergency get it out of dormancy, I don't know how, but part of the medium froze (thankfully, not where the plants roots were) I am gradually allowing it to get used to my window sill (about 65 degrees, 60 degrees maybe with how cold it is, and will, as it approaches the second week of February, begin to put it near, but not directly underneath, my T5HO light I used to germinate my drosera. And some slime mold, apparently. I looked that crap up, but despite looking gross beyond belief, harmless to my sprouts. They prey on bacteria, not dead or living plant material. And apparently they are immune to sulfur as a fungicide, because it is not going away. Oh well, I'll just transplant the sprouts later, when they are bigger, into bigger pots anyway (I germinated them in a bunch of little, 1 1/2 inch diameter pots so they wouldn't take up too much space before I knew how many plants I was going to have). I will just have to remember to wash the medium better.
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Post by sykosarah on Jan 24, 2014 21:44:57 GMT
However, I don't expect my Venus flytrap to be making significant moves out of dormancy until the designated Valentines day date I was planning on. In the U.S., if you grow them in places where it is too cold to leave them outside, you keep track of how long you need the dormancy to be by holidays, (from Thanksgiving to Valentines day).
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Post by sykosarah on Jan 24, 2014 21:51:49 GMT
Thanks for the help, I have never done an artificial dormancy before. And after this experience, I am glad I didn't go with temperate sundews (the sarracenia, if you recall, was a mislabeled free seed pack given with the Venus flytrap purchase). And if it is S. purpurea, it might be safe outside for dormancy, so long as it doesn't get as cold in Michigan as it did this year.
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Post by sykosarah on Jan 24, 2014 21:57:29 GMT
You know, something useful about having nasty jumping springtails in a pot is that, should it get too cold, they burrow and hide away, so as long as they are up and walking around for all to see, I know that the temperature isn't too cold for my flytrap. Which is probably why it didn't die, I noticed earlier that day that they weren't moving around, and wondered if the cold had killed them off, so I checked my Venus flytrap a second time, which is when I found part of the soil at one edge frozen. The springtails probably saved my flytrap, if it had went a whole night in that cold, the whole surface could have froze.
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Post by hcarlton on Jan 25, 2014 6:02:01 GMT
Flytraps are known to be able to survive transplanted in bogs in very cold areas. However, looking at your plant I'm inclined to think it was just an off mutation of the leaf or some slight physical damage to the young leaf in some way. Should grow out just fine.
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Post by sykosarah on Jan 25, 2014 8:18:31 GMT
Yay. I am reassured. Just typical CP weirdness, apparently, as I saw that double drosera plant in the drosera section.
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