A consequence of TC or bad culture?

[vraev]

Hi guys,

Some of you may remember my enthusiastic post about my first nepenthes flowering.

I got some aristolochioides pollen from a local canadian grower and fertilized it early in december.

I had hoped that what I was seeing was the start of a fruit and maybe a small chunk of viable seed to produce some more aristolochioides individuals in cultivation.

Well...check this out for bonkers.





What u are seeing is the brown flower that I tried to fertilize (notice the pollinia stuck to it).

But...now it is constantly making these single ONE flowers every leaf. This is instead of the regular long flower spike with multiple flowers.

Another weird thing is...I never bothered to fertilize the other flower (to not tire the plant and let it only make one fruit). But this one shows a bigger fruit than the one I tried fertilizing.

Any idea of whats happening here?

cheers,

varun

[leilani]

... Where did you find this odd young hunchback with the her underdeveloped, almost unrealized, genitalia? I have serious doubts that this will make it through a normal gestation to seed and am even more doubtful that those seeds would be viable if it did.

You can get all kinds of freaky things when flowering goes wrong.

[vraev]

well...I guess its sad to see that a female clone ( For a moment, if we consider my culture conditions are adequate) is compromised. I wonder if BE's list of clones has other females.

[morbus]

yo
thats very strange indeed
why not try fertilizing all the flowers?
most plants handle stacks of pods at once without a problem -

[Dave Evans]

It is difficult to say... If we have several different clones growing normally, but only one like this--it is easy to exclude most of the conditions as a possible cause.

However, this species is an ultra-highlander, so it is easy to stress it out generally.

It could also just be an unhealthy freak of a clone that just happens to be in TC and would have died if it hadn't been pampered in TC...

I would continue to grow it and hopefully the next branches it grows turn out more normal.

Also, only put a thin coating of pollen on the stigmas, excess pollen can rot out the seedpod.

[vraev]

point taken. Thanks Dave.

I did open up the black seedpod and noticed that there are seed. Very very very small. No where close to size of regular fertile seed. I mean it was like 0.5 cm. I will throw it in a pot and see if anything grows.

Overall, the plant is healthy and growing...so lets see if it improves next year and makes a normal flower.

[agustinfranco]

Hi all:

It's important to remember that many growers, no matter how many decades they have culturing Nepenthes, they are not growing them in their natural habitat. N. aristolochioides is a true highland species which requires cooling at night. I am not sure what conditions Vraev grows his plants, but Ontario is not Sumatra. I am sure he has cold nights, but he also has freezing nights in winter, conditions which are not found in Sumatra. any excess cold weather or sudden heat wave for these plants, may cause weird things to happen (even with heating systems in place for extreme cold or evaporative cooling systems for summer)/
I believe N. aristolochioides grows in conditions which are neither extreme for light nor temperature. Unfortunately, most growers do tend to overlook these sudden temporary changes in temperature and light, thus giving freaky flowering patterns. At least, vraev's plant flowered this time around. I know many growers who can't make this species flower at all.

The best way to grow these plants is to mimic their growing conditions in the wild as much as possible. Until then, weird things will happen to the plant's growth and flowering pattern.
Also, it's important to acknowledge that some species adapt to many environments ie, maxima, truncata, but others just can't and won't/

Gus

[vraev]

Hi Gus,

Thanks for your feedback. My aristo has been growing at 70-80F day ; 65-80% RH and 55-65F night temps; 80-90% RH. I agree its not Sumatra, but I think the biggest change is perhaps the fact that I DO NOT have any changes in light during the year.

I tried opening the flower pod and there were very small tiny seed. I threw it in the aristo pot to see if any would germinate. But I am absolutely sure that the seed is sterile.

I don't know...I am aiming to replicate natural conditions, but the only thing I can think of is to increase my light and decrease the temps. Perhaps maybe change the timer to have a variation in light levels during seasons.

Varun

[Robiii]

"Perhaps maybe change the timer to have a variation in light levels during seasons."
I'd say between that and maybe even slight temperature changes for seasons as well may be a trick to help. Hard to say though.