FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

How long does it take for the first two non carnivorous leaves to start turning brown? Its been around 6 weeks since germination and they are fully acclimatised to outside growing, all of the seedlings have 2,3 or 4 traps. Most of the initial non carnivorous leaves have started to turn brown! Is this normal?

Oh, and thanks for the seed FTS, 30 out of the 40 germinated, 2 of them are RED yay!

If you can post a photo, better comments can be given. Are you occasionally watering from the top to flush out accumulated dissolved solids? If not, and you are growing them in a sphagnum peat moss mix, the peat moss itself can contribute quite a lot to the total dissolved solids content of the growing medium and water, and the tiny Flytraps may be experiencing a little leaf burn/browning from that. Alternatively, the tannin level (I believe demonstrated by the brown color that sphagnum peat moss gives to water) can increase so much that the tiny leaves become brown as a result of that. Too wet and they can brown from fungal growth. River or beach sand instead of silica sand can cause mineral-salt burn. I'm sure there are other possibilities as well.

A longer and more detailed description of their growing conditions and the care regimen they are receiving, and a photo, would help a lot.

OK, the media is 50% peat moss and 50% perlite, they are getting around 8 hours of direct sunlight with a 13 hour photo period, I do water from the bottom mainly, but after 3-4 waterings i use a spray bottle to top water until water runs from the bottom, after this I take a PPM measurement and it never exceeds 30PPM.

After it rained last week the perlite looked a lot more white than it does now, could this be a mineral build up problem?

slark78 wrote:After it rained last week the perlite looked a lot more white than it does now, could this be a mineral build up problem?

I don't think so: just a discoloration from the soluble brown-staining component of the sphagnum peat moss, is my guess.

The new leaves look fine. I would guess that the softer initial older leaves are just browning from the exposure to the sun, and perhaps a little too much of that brown tannin from the shagnum peat, which I have had happen to pots of baby Flytraps in the past. The remedy for that would be to do more waterings from the top and fewer from below; not the frequency or length of interval between waterings, but just the method, more times from above, fewer times from below.

They actually look like really robust little babies!

Cheers steve, I'll flip the watering around so it'll be 3-4 from the top and 1 from the bottom.

I've experienced that browning with the perlite too, and it turns out if you mix up a little of the soil the perlite underneath is still white. That leads me to believe that it's something to do with the sun. Maybe slightly brown (because of tannins) liquid seeps up to the top, where the water evaporates, leaving behind the tannins and brown color. If this keeps happening over a period of time the stuff on top would turn brown.

A heavy rain would just mix the soil exposing perlite from below, or maybe wash the tannins out of the perlite in the top layer?

dmagnan wrote:Maybe slightly brown (because of tannins) liquid seeps up to the top, where the water evaporates, leaving behind the tannins and brown color.

That's what I have assumed as well. I believe that it is harmless. However, if tiny Venus Flytraps become too covered in that almost tarry brown substance from the sphagnum peat, they do seem to suffer a little, and washing it off by top watering, and then discarding the brown drained water, does seem to help.