FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

After lots of reading I decided to try osmocote. I now have 2 new wilted pitchers. Am I doing something wrong? Is there a trick? Does the pitcher need to be a certain age? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

1 pellet per pitcher. Some pitchers may have the top half wilt, but the pitcher is still capable of taking in nutrients.

Yeah I put one small pellet in my tiny Ceph and alata and the pitcher of the Ceph completely died. And in my alata it wilted within hours and turned upside down and dumped out all the digestive fluids. So I filled it with distilled and propped it up on something so it possibly will continue to dissolve the osmocote using the distilled water.

It made the bottom very soggy and it tipped over. Does that look normal after osmocote? My Ceph pitcher completely died

I've never seen a pitcher fall over from having an Osmocote pellet in it. I wouldn't give a ceph a pellet though.

I think this may be due to some other issue... I've always given my Ceph, Neps, and Sarrs osmocote in the pitchers with no issues. (I only had one problem once when kept increasing the dosage and eventually the pitchers would die, but it took like 20 pellets + liquid soluble fertilizer.) ... Maybe your pitchers are just too young. I always toss it into adult ones.

Yeah exactly I feel like the pitcher is too young. It is a basal pitcher if that matters. I have always read that u can put a pellet into the pitcher once it opens. The plant looks healthy and there r probably another 5 basal
Pitchers

Raistlarn wrote:I've never seen a pitcher fall over from having an Osmocote pellet in it. I wouldn't give a ceph a pellet though.

It literally fell over 2 hours after I put the pellet in the pitcher

I don't know what happened to your pitcher. Usually the tops just wilt, and turn brown. Maybe it tried pumping in extra fluid, which caused the pitcher to fall over.

I stopped using Osmocote due to it burning the pitchers. The bottom part, the "digestion zone," can handle the nutrients just fine but the upper part of the pitcher usually can't and the pitchers can naturally fill up enough to cause problems.

I've never seen pitchers tip over due to Osmocote use though.

I did have this happen to me--the pitcher tipping over and dying after osmocote feeding. Basically the osmocote sinks to the bottom of the pitcher and the high concentration of fertilizer burns the plant at the bottom--causing tissue to weaken and die. The plant recovered and the next pitchers looked bigger, so it was ok.

In another instance, adding osmocote to a different nepenthes caused the growth point to die (as well as the pitchers). That plant is now recovering, and other growth points ended up becoming active--looks like I will soon have 3 basals on that plant.

Based on these experiences, I've decided that it's best to be cautious with adding osmocote if the nepenthes plant is very small/young. I would also perhaps wait a few days to add the pellet in order to allow the pitcher to harden for some time after opening.

You know what, the species may handle it differently... I have only ever tried fertilizing with hybrid Nepenthes.