FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Here's my pride and joy, I have to show him off as it gives me so much pleasure to see how it's growing so rapidly this year now it has some larger pitchers on it and I'm sure it's enjoying its coffee fert dose every month. I got the Nep back in Oct, 2019 as a smallish plant from Toms Carnivores in the Uk who originally sources it from Christien Klien. So fart it's proved to be a very nice hardy Nep, not needing special conditions. However I brought it in for winter and have it under a grow light but now spring in on, I will put it outside.

Very nice. So 'splain me a bit about the coffee fert.

@Panman, so I make myself a coffee... then make a cup for my neps and dilute it about half strength then water my plants with it. I leave it 24h, or basically the next day and then flush it out with a good watering. One cup does me as I only have at the moment 3 plants to fertilize,.. well 4 counting my new little hookeriana but that's very small and I not fertilized it yet.

I've had good results from using 100 ppm coffee water. I might try it stronger when I do it again in a week.

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@murrkywaters, that's an idea! I never thought to measure the ppm of the coffee. That will help a lot getting the same balance every time, rather than eyeballing it, lol.

I’m not saying the method doesn’t work, but why would you give the plant something like coffee? It is something the plant normally doesn’t get, right? Would it grow under a coffee tree in Costa Rica and berries fall next to it?
I would think long term, you would be harming that plant that you care so much about. You would be devastated to learn the coffee led to its demise.
But again, to each their own. I just am not sure why you would feel a need to routinely supplement the plant’s photosynthesis and bug catching with a dose of oils and caffeine…can you explain what led you to your decision?

Coffee, and related plants like Kratom grow in a lot of the same regions as Nepenthes and it's entirely possible that decaying plant material is used by neps in the wild. There are growers like Brad from Brad's Greenhouse and Garden who have been doing it for years. I've done it twice or three times depending on the plant with good results. Coffee contains small amounts of magnesium and other trace elements that have been shown to aide in nepenthes development. I wouldn't try it on a plant you're not ok with risking, but anecdotal evidence shows no problem with it

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@murrkywaters, That's where I learned it from Brads Greenhouse. Brad is an expert in his field, he knows what he's doing. I been doing it for a while not and seen no ill effects on the plants.

My last tobaica leaf jump was double, and the four I tested for my client all had similar jumps. Ventricosa, Suki, Diana, and Bill Bailey. It took about 3 weeks to show up. I've seen Brad use them on plants so young that they were still in the rosette stage without any color. As far as measuring ppm I'd make sure that you both adjust for the water going in, and temperature because the conductivity of a solution will change based on that.

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murrkywaters wrote:It took about 3 weeks to show up. I've seen Brad use them on plants so young that they were still in the rosette stage without any color.

yeah, that's what I've noticed also, takes a few weeks and you get a nice growth spurt. I'll try it on my new hookeriana, when I repot if I can split it into 2 I might run an experiment for a few months and see on with and one without and compare the diff.