FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Plants are doing well in my terrarium, nothing dying, lots of growth, 6700lumens. I'm wondering if other peoples traps get color after opening, or while opening/growing. Just wondering if its:

1. Not enough light.
2. Feeding them too much (I've read that you have to starve the plant a bit to get color).
3. Just need to give them each leaf time after it is open to get color.

All of those sound about right.
1) Filtered indirect light seems to help the traps color up.
2) Once a trap closes, it seems to be done developing color.

2) Once a trap closes, it seems to be done developing color.

That seems 100% true, the thing I was referring to is that if you feed your plant well, will the new traps just be bad color as well.

bigred wrote:That seems 100% true, the thing I was referring to is that if you feed your plant well, will the new traps just be bad color as well.

No, the new traps can still color up I am pretty sure. (like 99%)

Yeah, new traps will color up regardless of previous feeding

On my plants, I have noticed that the less the traps close, the more color is developed.
So the starving idea sounds about right, and I think it also depends on age of the plant.

Unfortunatly, all my plants catch lots of flies outside because we have lots of flies.

I suspect this is due to the fact that we do not own a garbage disposal, nor does my neighbor.

So, stinky dumpster = lots of flies!!

Bigred, I have a theory based on my own observations of a group of plants that all suddenly went from almost totally green to bright red.

My VFTs (probably a hundred or more individuals) all came from the same original "death cube." They were so green for the first two or three years that I thought I'd gotten an all green variety. Then suddenly they all turned deep red one year. They were in the same location, same soil, same bright sunlight all day long, and the same watering setup. Younger and older plants in different pots all changed together. The only difference I could identify was in the number of insects they were catching.

The first couple of summers were unusually dry here. Apparently a lot of insects were drawn to the area by the water pans, and quite a few ended up getting caught. So much so that almost all of the traps were closed and digesting something almost all of the time. The next year, it was wetter, and apparently fewer insects were attracted to the area. As a result, I noticed that more of the traps were open more of the time. That was the year they all turned red.

So my conclusion is that color (within the range that is genetically possible in a particular variety) is determined by a kind of balancing act between the need for light and the need for nutrients: If VFTs have plenty of insects and could use more light to process and store the nutrients, they'll stay green. If they have plenty of light, and could make use of more nutrients, they'll sacrifice a little chlorophyll and turn red to attract more insects.

Of course that's just one opinion, based on one group of plants. There could have been countless other factors involved that I haven't considered.

heathenpriest wrote:So my conclusion is that color (within the range that is genetically possible in a particular variety) is determined by a kind of balancing act between the need for light and the need for nutrients: If VFTs have plenty of insects and could use more light to process and store the nutrients, they'll stay green. If they have plenty of light, and could make use of more nutrients, they'll sacrifice a little chlorophyll and turn red to attract more insects.

That's exactly what I think as well. There has to be a reason for the plants to color (in the wild, otherwise it wouldn't have happened). Many plants use bright color in order to attract insects, it's a very common trait. As such, it makes the most sense that VFTs evolved to be able to attract insects more easily to their traps so they can obtain more nutrients. On the other hand, it's a trade off because the plant can't use the red pigmented tissue to photosynthesize as efficiently (I'm sure it still has some chlorophyll, but not as much, the red pigmentation probably comes from the anthocyanin family of pigments). It makes sense that if the plant has ample light and not enough nutrients, it can color up to attract more nutrients. If the plant catches a lot of bugs, it doesn't make any sense for the plant to color, because it doesn't need additional nutrients. It can keep the inside of traps green so the plant can either process nutrients, grow under ground, divide etc. Something that would be interesting to see is if a flytrap that was fed well enough such that it didn't color up also stops producing the insect attracting nectar on the trap edges...

Very smart theory. Sounds about right. And my VFTS were shipped with great color, and I started feeding them (but I also had very bad lighting that stunted their growth), so I already know they have the color, but they are almost all green right now. Gonna starve them and put my FTS bundles in my terrarium in a couple days when they arrive.

When my oldest son was in grade school we did a science project with VFTs. We took six genetically identical flytraps from TC. They were all the same size. We put them in a covered terrarium with artificial light. Three on each end and a plexiglass divider between them. Three of the plants on one side were fed small crickets in every open trap. The other three were fed nothing and the cover prevented them from catching insects. After about four months the plants looked dramatically different. The overfed plants lost almost all of their trap color. The leaves grew long and developed a dark green color and the traps were quite small relative to the leaf blade.. The unfed plants remained much smaller, had a bright red color and the trap size was large compared to the leaf blade. I don't have the photos we took anymore, but I was very impressed with the results.
Another factor not yet mentioned is temperature fluctuations. I have noticed that plants grown outside when the temperature fluctuates from very cool at night to very warm during the day (like in the fall) develop more trap coloration than plants that are kept at relative even temperatures in the greenhouse.

Brad

Thanks for that insight Brad, I wouldn't have thought flux in temperature would do that.

BradR wrote:When my oldest son was in grade school we did a science project with VFTs. We took six genetically identical flytraps from TC. They were all the same size. We put them in a covered terrarium with artificial light. Three on each end and a plexiglass divider between them. Three of the plants on one side were fed small crickets in every open trap. The other three were fed nothing and the cover prevented them from catching insects. After about four months the plants looked dramatically different. The overfed plants lost almost all of their trap color. The leaves grew long and developed a dark green color and the traps were quite small relative to the leaf blade.. The unfed plants remained much smaller, had a bright red color and the trap size was large compared to the leaf blade. I don't have the photos we took anymore, but I was very impressed with the results.
Another factor not yet mentioned is temperature fluctuations. I have noticed that plants grown outside when the temperature fluctuates from very cool at night to very warm during the day (like in the fall) develop more trap coloration than plants that are kept at relative even temperatures in the greenhouse.

Brad

Cool experiment. What sort of a time scale was this on, a few weeks or a whole growing season?

heathenpriest wrote: So my conclusion is that color (within the range that is genetically possible in a particular variety) is determined by a kind of balancing act between the need for light and the need for nutrients: If VFTs have plenty of insects and could use more light to process and store the nutrients, they'll stay green. If they have plenty of light, and could make use of more nutrients, they'll sacrifice a little chlorophyll and turn red to attract more insects.

What an interesting theory! Thanks for those comments. It does seem like young and "hungry" or "starving" Flytraps go out of their way to be extremely colorful.

BradR wrote:Another factor not yet mentioned is temperature fluctuations. I have noticed that plants grown outside when the temperature fluctuates from very cool at night to very warm during the day (like in the fall) develop more trap coloration than plants that are kept at relative even temperatures in the greenhouse.

Another very interesting observation. This discussion is great! Thanks, BradR.

This is a very good thread!

I was thinking about buying crickets for my VFT's and some other plants, with the idea of feeding the smaller ones, at this time of the year, it sounds like they would appreciate an extra help to get bigger, thought the color might not be that impressive.


Thanks!