I only have a handful of Utricularia species. And, they've all been aquired in the last year, so I'm still pretty new to these plants. I've had this U. alpina about 8 months. Once it settled into my conditions, it unfurled 3 leaves over the summer. But a few weeks ago, I noticed the tips of the new leaves have a bit of a pink color to them. The texture of the tip is the same as the rest of the leaf - firm, not squishy. And behind the pink, the leaf has a bit of a yellow cast, I'm not sure you can see it in the pics below.
The temps in the terrarium where this grows have definitely dropped since the summer - now closer to 60/50 instead of 68/58. And the humidity is pretty high, >80%.
It's growing in a net-pot that sits in a little bowl. Water sometimes collects in the bowl, but the bowl base is a little smaller than the bottom of the pot, so the bottom of the pot (and therefore the plant) isn't really sitting in the water. Also, I dump the water out at least once a week.
There's a chance that it got splashed with some ~100ppm fertilizer as there are also some orchids in the enclosure, but I'm pretty careful not to hit the utric pots as I'm spraying the other plants. I do sometimes (infrequently) use dilute maxsea on the utricularia.
For those of you who grow this species, or other orchidoides types, is this leaf discoloration indicative of sub-optimal cultural conditions? (Too humid, too wet?) Natural leaf senescence? (These are the new leaves grown over the summer, so that seems pretty fast, but I just haven't had experience with many Utricularia to know what to expect) Or fertilizer burn?
If the latter, will it do any good to flush the pot?
Happy stolons (at least)
The temps in the terrarium where this grows have definitely dropped since the summer - now closer to 60/50 instead of 68/58. And the humidity is pretty high, >80%.
It's growing in a net-pot that sits in a little bowl. Water sometimes collects in the bowl, but the bowl base is a little smaller than the bottom of the pot, so the bottom of the pot (and therefore the plant) isn't really sitting in the water. Also, I dump the water out at least once a week.
There's a chance that it got splashed with some ~100ppm fertilizer as there are also some orchids in the enclosure, but I'm pretty careful not to hit the utric pots as I'm spraying the other plants. I do sometimes (infrequently) use dilute maxsea on the utricularia.
For those of you who grow this species, or other orchidoides types, is this leaf discoloration indicative of sub-optimal cultural conditions? (Too humid, too wet?) Natural leaf senescence? (These are the new leaves grown over the summer, so that seems pretty fast, but I just haven't had experience with many Utricularia to know what to expect) Or fertilizer burn?
If the latter, will it do any good to flush the pot?
Happy stolons (at least)