FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

SD Kronos - I unintentionally closed the traps when I was watering the plant and made the red outlines really stand out. I really love it when the red spills over the teeth and forms a red margin on the outside edges of the traps!

How do you color up your flytraps so much to the point where they get red on the outlines? I've tried but can't do it even with 15+ hours of sunlight/LEDs a day, only thing I get are tiny splotches of red. What's your secret?

MaxVft wrote: ↑Tue Sep 28, 2021 2:28 am How do you color up your flytraps so much to the point where they get red on the outlines? I've tried but can't do it even with 15+ hours of sunlight/LEDs a day, only thing I get are tiny splotches of red. What's your secret?

I'm actually not sure what is at play here. About 2 weeks ago, before I put them under LED lights, they have already started coloring up outside once the temperatures got cooler. However, putting the plant inside under LED has really intensified the red coloration in all the plants, not just the SD Kronos. I can't say for certain if it's the LED that caused it but it might be a combination of the plants starting to go dormant, cooler overall temps indoors, and the intense LEDs. This time of the year, they're getting right around 12 hours of LED lights at about 180w total for each level of a 2' x 4' grow shelf.

Ah OK, my state is a little late in terms of the CP growing season(they're only on track to start going dormant in early November), so I should be able to start seeing some less barely-pink plants to deep red plants within the next few weeks

I also think that the size of the plant plays a huge part in the coloration of the traps. It seems to me that plants with small rhizomes and put out small traps can produce more intense colorations. I almost killed my SD Kronos during the last dormancy. I took divisions earlier this year and the mother pot in the original post is from a division. Before the dormancy mishap, when the plant was entering dormancy the same time last year, this SD Kronos has much bigger traps but I never saw it color up at all.

This photo of the original mother pot was taken September of last year. This is just about all the coloration I saw of the plant entering dormancy. However, notice that the traps are much bigger.

Flytraps seem to color up a lot more intensely under lights. I'd go with that. I saw a pic of an intensely color DCXL that was grown under lights too. I'm sure everyone's seen that pic at one time or another. I was wondering myself because my SD Kronos never looked so fancy Temps may be a factor too. I see 50 degrees for a week.

I currently have around half of my collection around 12 inches under a Yescom 225 for around 14-16 hours a day, but even the smaller plants stay almost all-green. Any advice?

Perhaps bring them closer to the light if possible. They're full sun so you'll have a hard time burning them. I keep my cephs like 4 inches below lol. if you have neps just invert some pots and rest the vfts on top that may help some if color is your Idea.

MaxVft wrote:I currently have around half of my collection around 12 inches under a Yescom 225 for around 14-16 hours a day, but even the smaller plants stay almost all-green. Any advice?

How big of an area are you trying to light with that fixture? I'm not familiar with that fixture but reading about it, it's 22 watts of power at about 11" x 11" square area. In the past, I have used those bulb style LED fixtures with a built-in heatsink. I previously used one of those at 19 watts to successfully color up one pot of cephalotus. The distance though is very close with the surface of the LEDs only around 4"away from the plant. That was only barely enough for a 6" x 6" lighted footprint. Any more footprint than that and the sacrifice in coloration is very noticeable. Please check my thread about my cephalotus. Early in the thread, I posted photos of my Eden Black with great coloration that was colored up this way. Later on in the thread though, as my Eden Black collection grew, I didn't immediately upgrade my lighting and turned my Eden Black into green. The photos posted by the people who acquired Eden Black clones from me shows very green plants. That was because I was trying to light a 10" x 20" tray area with only 2 of those 19w LED bulbs. While that is technically more than enough light for that small an area, the bulbs don't have particularly good spread nor PPFD. It might be able to grow a big area, but the "coloration zone" is limited to a very small area directly under each bulb.

I'm not sure if the Yescom's 22w at 11" x 11" is enough light but one thing I'll do in that situation if I'm trying to maximize the coloration of plants using that particular fixture is to bring the light much closer to the plants and only put plants directly under the fixture's footprint of 11" x 11". Wait and see if that will be enough light. Two weeks is usually enough time for the plants to start showing if a light setup and intensity is good for coloration. If coloration is still not good, more powerful lights are needed.

Yeah I'm trying to light around 1' x 1' area but I just moved my plants up about 6 inches so they'll be closer to 5-6 inches from the light.