Trap closes slowly

[zhilin]

My Dionaea close its traps very slowly, about 1-2 s. Does it has some disease? Or does this mean there are some problems in growing environment? One or two months ago it had aphids, and I used pesticide kills them. The plant had a flower stem in this spring. But I cut it off before flowering.

[ICPS-bob]

The rate of trap closure depends on several variables. The two most common are temperature and trap age. Traps close slower in cooler temperatures than warmer. Older traps that have previously caught prey or closed several times close slower than new virgin traps.

[unstuckintime]

And I heard, if memory serves me right, the amount of light plays a factor, do you grow yours in full sun? Also your plants could just be weak from the aphids. I myself had an outbreak this spring and the ones that were infected are only recently putting out normally looking growth.

[zhilin]

Thanks, guys. The plant is in full sun, receiving direct sunlight for more than 7 hours per day, and in La Jolla, every day is sunny. The inside of traps are red (typical VFT). And the traps are all new developed ones. But the daytime temperature only peaks at 60-65F these days. Is such temperature not enough for VFTs quickly closing traps? If attack of aphids truly affects the speed of traps, how long do the traps recover to normal speed?

[tonge50]

Close, but no cigar! The fly and the trap are both out of luck.

[/URL][/ul]
Are your traps catching any flies now that they are out in the sun?

What we need is a faster fly trap ;D