Inducing Nepenthes Flowering

[ramdacc]

I've read bits here and there that stress can induce Nepenthes to send out flower stalks. So how does one introduce stress to the plant that stimulates flowering, and what kind of stress are we talking about? I have a friend in Manila that said Nepenthes in his area flower twice a year, and sometime around or after their "dry" season for sure. Any thought on this topic?

 

[cpbobby]

purposely drying out the media? might induce a little too much stress; I would never do that. Try changing the lighting; I tried that experiment on my drosera and zapped them with 4100k lights and in a couple weeks i had more seed stalks than I knew what to do with. I would imagine the same thing would work for nepenthes.

 

[Exo]

Well, I know that exposure to natural sunlight induces flowers on neps, although I'm not sure why...it doesn't appear related to day length, so I suspect something else at work.

 

[lance]

It's not really putting "stress" on the plant that induces flowering but more of changing the conditions. Sure, Nepenthes do flower when they are stressed but usually the flowers won't last that long because the plant will try and conserve energy to recover from that stress. I've heard a lot of ways about inducing Nepenthes to flower but the most common ones I've heard are exposing the vine tip to full sun and low humidity, and changing the grow lights after a long period of growth. Usually most Nepenthes will flower when they reach the canopy top which explains why this can induce flowering. Back in 08' I tried this method on my N. X red leopard and before you know it I had a flower coming up. I'm pretty sure that if the general population of Nepenthes growers were closer to the equator we might see a somewhat seasonal flowering period.

 

[kevnep]

Nepenthes flower when temperatures change and light increases so changing your temps and increasing the amount of light might induce flowering.

 

[dueoka]

If you're conditions are right, they'll flower eventually. With the plants outdoors in full sun, it's hard to increase lighting much more. IME once a plant starts to vine and produce uppers a flower usually follows.

 

[Exo]

If you're conditions are right, they'll flower eventually. With the plants outdoors in full sun, it's hard to increase lighting much more. IME once a plant starts to vine and produce uppers a flower usually follows.

I have a Nepenthes alata that has been vining for years and never flowered, it's grown high power T5's, and does well, but I suspect they need even more light to flower

 

[richjam1986]

In many plants the type or quality of light also has a lot to do with when a plant will flower. The red light to blue light ratio can induce flowering, or keep the plant from flowering. From what I understand, giving more light from the red end of the spectrum helps induce flowering. This is why natural sunlight can help, because it's full spectrum. So, if you have all cool white lights (which provide a lot more blue light), adding half warm white lights will help increase the ratio of red to blue light, and hopefully should increase flowering.