FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

I just recently discovered that the TDS was too high in my sundews after noticing that some of them looked "burned" and crispy even though they had water. I am in the process of flushing them out and have gotten them below 50ppm and will switch to top-watering, but will they recover? they seem to be putting out new leaves but I'm just hoping that the new growth will be healthy and dewy again...

The old leaves will probably stay crispy and unhappy, but they should grow healthy new leaves now that the soil is clean.

Same happens when I spray them to remove aphids if they catch them. They wilt and look sickly for around 2 weeks, then new leaves start to grow traps and they look nice and healthy again. After a while, I just cut off the burnt and dead leaves.

They should certainly recover fairly quickly if you flushed out the soil well enough. If not, you may need to repot into fresh soil.

Another thing about the soil. I have noticed that sundews like to stop growing well at some point a year or so after they get into the pot. When I change the peat they love it and in a week of fast recovery, they start to look extremely well. That's most likely just a peat compacting issue, but it works every time.

I had several plants that have been strictly tray watered for years. When I noticed some of them were looking like they were getting burnt, i took samples by running clean water over the top and collecting it after running it through the soil and out from the bottom of the pots. To my surprise I found several that were 275+ ppm in tds. I decided to switch to top watering the plants using a long handled chemical pump sprayer for a few weeks to see if it would help. It most certainly does. Plants did in fact bounce back and went right back to good. I believe you will find the same results. Give them some top water for awhile and flush the bad stuff out. It will also help loosen the soil around the roots, allowing them to breathe better as well!

Fishman wrote:I had several plants that have been strictly tray watered for years. When I noticed some of them were looking like they were getting burnt, i took samples by running clean water over the top and collecting it after running it through the soil and out from the bottom of the pots. To my surprise I found several that were 275+ ppm in tds. I decided to switch to top watering the plants using a long handled chemical pump sprayer for a few weeks to see if it would help. It most certainly does. Plants did in fact bounce back and went right back to good. I believe you will find the same results. Give them some top water for awhile and flush the bad stuff out. It will also help loosen the soil around the roots, allowing them to breathe better as well!

I sure hope so!! they were repotted back in Novenmber or December I believe, and some have just not been doing well over the past few weeks. some of the TDS was almost hitting 90ppm. I've been flooding the pots (hopefully I won't end up with a rot problem lol) by pouring the water directly from the gallon jug into the pot like what would happen in nature with flooding. I wonder how many flushes it will take to clean them out? like I said they're down below 50ppm but I'd like them to be much lower lol; some of my Flytraps are no higher than like 17ppm because they get mainly top-watered except for during dormancy then it's like a twice a month thing lol.

Earthy wrote:

Fishman wrote:I had several plants that have been strictly tray watered for years. When I noticed some of them were looking like they were getting burnt, i took samples by running clean water over the top and collecting it after running it through the soil and out from the bottom of the pots. To my surprise I found several that were 275+ ppm in tds. I decided to switch to top watering the plants using a long handled chemical pump sprayer for a few weeks to see if it would help. It most certainly does. Plants did in fact bounce back and went right back to good. I believe you will find the same results. Give them some top water for awhile and flush the bad stuff out. It will also help loosen the soil around the roots, allowing them to breathe better as well!

I sure hope so!! they were repotted back in Novenmber or December I believe, and some have just not been doing well over the past few weeks. some of the TDS was almost hitting 90ppm. I've been flooding the pots (hopefully I won't end up with a rot problem lol) by pouring the water directly from the gallon jug into the pot like what would happen in nature with flooding. I wonder how many flushes it will take to clean them out? like I said they're down below 50ppm but I'd like them to be much lower lol; some of my Flytraps are no higher than like 17ppm because they get mainly top-watered except for during dormancy then it's like a twice a month thing lol.

It takes me several rinse through attempts to get my tds down to an acceptable level. I like to be around 15-20 tds. Even slightly higher wouldnt hurt but i try to keep it within those perimeters. I mean i could go down to 0 but id really be wasting water at that point. I usually rinse the pot 5 or 6 times and it brings mine down to a level that im happy with. This can also be controlled by repotting with fresh soil, but that takes too much time and resources that i have neither of, so i just save my plants the unneeded stress by rinsing. With strong lighting and a bit of a light breeze, that should help avoid rotting some. The stressed plants will come right back quickly too once they're happy, they will show you.

Well they have the strong light (from 2 T5 HO lights) but not sure about the breeze. They are indoors with tops on (but the tops have holes punched in them and a hole on top); the only breeze would he from the heat registers lol...should I uncover them or will they lose their dew from the heated air? My humidity is in the 40s right now

Earthy wrote:Well they have the strong light (from 2 T5 HO lights) but not sure about the breeze. They are indoors with tops on (but the tops have holes punched in them and a hole on top); the only breeze would he from the heat registers lol...should I uncover them or will they lose their dew from the heated air? My humidity is in the 40s right now

Even the slightest bit of air coming in should suffice. in my conditions , i keep a ceiling fan on low speed at night, and high during the day and also a couple of small floor fans for my indoor growing area. The floor fans may not really be needed, but i have high powered lights that put alot of heat out, (temps probably in the 80F-90's range). With the fans running day and night working to keep a breeze going, all of my plants have lots of dew, nectar etc... you might experiment some and see what works well in your conditions on that one.