My enchinotsoma not pitchering

[kentosaurs]

Hi all.. I got this N mirabilis var enchinotsoma awhile back and so far the leaves are still green quite a fast grower but 1 problem 1 MAJOR problem noooo pitchers at all.....The tendrills stay 1cm long at all times...The leaves are getting bigger but no pitchers somehow...I suspect its humidity but since its in a tropical country i doubt it will affect that much...I bought it as a M sized plant and it arrvide bare rooted and so i potted it up in LFS and perlite..Here are some pics...

The whole plant


A leaf tip where i told u bout the tendrill


Another leaf


Please help out thanks

Ken

[alcran]

Like I said in the other forum it might be because of not enough light. How bright is the balcony?

[kentosaurs]

Hi Alcran...I doubt its not enough light since my other neps seems to be fine with the same amount of light....Its bright light this time of the year no direct sunlight..As you can see my raff and trucata is also pitchering fine...Though my truncata seems to be sensitive and easily affected by rust spots...I reduce watering and i shall see how it goes..

Ken

[bifurcatum]

This variety of mirabilis is very sensitive to the temperature and humiduty. I found that they actually prefer cooler temp. Mine only produces pitcher in raining season.

[kentosaurs]

Hi Law...Yeah i also heard that they like cooler temps...I wonder if i should grow them together with my higland intermediate neps which i once awhile at night spray frozen water at them and also water them sometimes with chilled water...So far my lady pauline likes it and only pitchers when i do that frequently...

Ken

[David]

Ken,

Alcran is correct when he said it needs more sunlight. My echinostoma gets direct evening sunlight from about 3pm onwards. Before 3pm it gets very bright indirect sunlight. It does not pitcher for me when I grew it in a more shaded condition with indirect sunlight for most of the day. After it was shifted to the new area with direct sunlight, it pitchers for me and started growing. This form is very particular about its growing conditions eventhough it is a mirabilis.

Your rafflesiana can acclimatise to lower light levels and in the wild sometimes they grow is dappled or quite shaded areas similar to ampullaria. I have a rafflsiana grown indoors before and it receives only bright indirect light from the window for a couple of months in the year. However it still pitchers for me and the pitchers have good colouration.

However, your truncata will show signs of decline in the next few months if is still does not get direct sunlight. You'll have lots of problems with you truncata like the rust spot you've mentioned. News leaves or pitchers will be smaller or stop growing half way. It would be a good idea to reduce water for your truncata as you've mentioned. I noticed even in growing season, my truncata do not like to be too wet and it prefers a more airy media. This is all the more important now as your truncata is not getting sunlight.

[kentosaurs]

So basically more light cooler conditions and more humidity...I shall try it out and see what happens Since i've got nothing to loose cos my enchin is pitcherless anyways haha...(by nothing to loose i don't mean death of the plant..)

Ken

[funkychips]

I used to have one echinostoma plant facing the same problem, no pitchering, but it slowly deteriorated. I placed it among my raffs and other normal mirabilis but still I have not found out the reason of its demise.

[wijaya]

Hi all, thought of sharing my growing log on this var echinostoma, not an easy one, as I struggled to make them pitcher as well. Very temperamental and sensitive to changes.

I got the plant first on August 2007:


For the first month from August till September still pitchering for me but just for that one month only three pitchers (if I am not mistaken) were made:




Then the echinos decided to stop pitchering , not sure what is wrong, then I tried to shift the plant around from shaded area to full sun (remember do it slowly) then still same result, I moved back under shading net, till I lost the main vine, just chopped off the leaf and the basal started growing, got like 3 new growing basals that was a year ago at 2008 (sorry no picture taken) then the plant just grow and grow bigger still without pitcher.

Finally just recent week the echinos no more 'on strike' it started to make pitcher again, well from Sept 2007 till now May 2009 (just do the math) - probably I am a lousy grower for lol. And not only getting bigger on size but also got a few more inflating together..





Probably this variant took longer to adapt to new growing area, but well it worth the wait, so Ken do be patient. Try to change only one factor at a time.

I will update more pictures of the plant and when the pitcher open up completely.

Hope this help,
Ed