Adam wrote:What noticeable differences have you seen by using the fertilizer? If the VFT eats insects, would there still be a difference? ... sorry with all the questions.. I'm just really curious and already have a number of experiments going
I was hoping to supply fertilizer in a greater-than-normal strength, like a real booster pill so to speak. In addition, I wanted to try to give a wide range of micronutrients (those things a plant uses that are
not NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium)) to see if I could encourage any particular excellence in any VFT characteristic.
However, my experiments so far have shown that while the fertilizing works, it is not noticeably better than live insects, and it doesn't cause the fertilized trap to, for example, turn red more readily, or grow much or at all faster. I think that the real effect is more stored food in the leaf bases underground, which could promote more division or just make the plant hardier and more robust.
Care has to be taken to experiment with the maximum strength of liquid fertilizer that can be used without burning the traps from the inside out with chemical burn. That type of chemical burn will become evident within hours after fertilizing with an "artificial bug" that contains fertilizer that is too strong. I concentrated on a larger amount of kelp extract (which is weak in major nutrients but extremely rich in micronutrients) and a much smaller amount of NPK fertilizer (such as Miracle-Gro or Peter's).
Steve