A little trick...!

[Aliamyz]

Hai everyone,
There is a little-known trick for use with Nepenthes plants. If you remove the tendril, together with embryo pitcher, from a leaf just before the pitcher starts to develop, the pitcher on the following leaf will be up to 50% larger than it would have become otherwise. An additional size-gain can be achieved if this is done to two tendrils, and the larger results seen in the third-in-line pitcher. However this should not be done on a regular basis, because you are robbing the plant of much of its nutrition-gathering capability. Try it a month before a show to obtain a large and impressive pitcher for the judges to see.
Good luck..!

[Robert]

i will try with my mirabilis

[Aliamyz]

I'll try to post some pic of my ventrata.
I want to try with it!

[Marigoldsfail21]

Great trick!

I'll use it on my sanguinea, since its pitchers have been so small the past few months.

[David]

Hmm, this is interesting! Thanks for the tip Ali. Hope everyone will post back see the results.

[Aliamyz]

Thank you everyone.Just thought bout the giant plants.But if i try with my truncata, i'm afraid it will take a very long time to produce another leaf so just wanna try with ventrata.I found this out when my hookeriana's tendril broke off and the following leaf put out bigger pitchers.
Thank you!

[alienfx]

Well,i notice this too when my N.raff & N.Miranda new pitcher broke due to my carelessness when shifting but i dont think the new one can get 50% larger...Maybe 20-30% larger.

[Aliamyz]

But still larger right?Mine get 50% larger and the second one i broke off became bout 60% larger.
Is nice to have giant pitchers hanging around in our balcony/garden.
Yesterday, a friend of my mother came to my house and she told me my nepenthes looks like plastic plant.I told her that it i a real plant but she didn't believe me.What i care ,i just went off!!

[alienfx]

Ali you should ask your mum's friend to molest the pitchers abit to see if its real or not... After all it does look like 'didi' abit.Thats what my gf told me...Anyway,it good to hear yours are 50% larger.Mine abit larger only.It would be great if you can post some pictures as a comparison.Thanks.

[David]

Just a thought that came into my mind. Could it be that the pitchers are bigger because the plant has been deprived of nutrients from insect prey since the previous pitcher has been broken off. I have experienced many times with my plants that when I starve the pitchers, the plant will produce more pitchers and bigger ones in the new leaves. Sometime even cause older leaves to produce picthers if the growing tips has not turned black or dried out. Perhaps the same theory works here. When a pitcher is broken, it is starved of nutrients, so it produces a bigger pitcher to compensate or to survive because it's life might be threathen.

If so, I wonder whether it would work the same if we just starve the pitchers of food. That way we keep the small older picthers as well as the new bigger pitchers. What do you guys/gals think?