FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

My nepenthes alata which i got about 1,5 years ago just doesnt want to develop any of its pitchers. Its almost 1m tall (which is about 40inch if im right) and all it does is growing new leaves. At the end of each leave it does make a tiny brown hairy pitcher looking thing, but that is as far as it goes before it dries out and dies.

It has the exact same conditions as my nepenthes louisa which never had this problem and is producing 8inch tall pitchers.

They are being grown in pure sphagnum at around 50% humidity during the day and 60-70% during the night. And temperatures of (depending on sun or not) 20-30 during the day and 15-20 during the nights. As for light, they are hanging in a south facing window, so a few of the low hanging leaves are getting direct sunlight for about 5-6 hours a day while the other leaves get bright shade during that time.


So does someone know what causes the pitchers to die before they have any chance to develop?

Humidity is likely your culprit. I had two massive nepenthes alatas myself growing in a windowsill with about 50% humidity and plenty of sun, basically your conditions. I had the same exact problem. The plants would shoot out tons of big green leaves but the pitchers at the ends would just turn brown and dry out, never developing. I found a 100 gallon terrarium on craigslist and threw my plants in there with 90% humidity and all of a sudden I started getting big, inflated pitchers on the ends of every new leaf the plant developed. The leaves in which the pitchers had already turned brown and dried unfortunately stayed that way. Hope this helps.

Ill try raising the humidity by spraying a couple of times a day and see if that works. A 100 gallon terrarium would be awesome to have but unfortunately wont happen for me :p

For me, if you repot it, mine grew pitchers wit under devevoped lids