Question

AF venosa   "My 2 AF plants are growing with discolouring pitchers, some come out normal & some come out dis-coloured,  I'm in fear I have a pest problem, here are my growing conditions :
   Water with distilled
:  4 T8 bulbs 2-3000 k & 2-6400 k, 15hour light cycle,  relative humidity 50-60%,  4-1/2 to 5-1/2 inches from the lights, growing in 5:3:2 peat:silica sand:perlite,  watering done tray method. Pot is 5 inch square & iv

Thank you for your time Jeff :)

Answer
Hi Michael,

Thank-you for supplying that information.  The primary reason I wanted to know about your water is that this looks like hard water damage.  Since you're using distilled water, it's not that, but you could have issues with the roots.  You might have a pest, but it doesn't really look like that.

What I recommend is to unpot your plant and inspect the roots.  They should be nice and white, but if they are looking black at the tips, or just not very healthy looking, it's probably a soil issue.  If all looks ok, re-pot the plant in fresh media, but once a week or so, flush the soil.  Just hold the pot over a sink and water until you get runoff.  This can help flush out additional impurities in the soil.

What brand of peat moss are you using?  We've been having trouble with many consumer grade peat mosses and have switched to a professional course grade.  Many of the consumer grade peat mosses seem to have a high mineral content.  Greensmix is terrible, and Lakeland we stopped using recently because of high mineral content.  The commercial course grade what's in all our soil mixes now.  It's much lighter in color, and has very little salt/mineral content.  Most carnivorous plant sellers use the course grades in their soils.

Write back if you see any rot on your rhizome, or you find bugs in the soil.  That will take a different approach if you find something.

Good Growing!

Jeff Dallas
Sarracenia Northwest
http://www.growcarnivorousplants.com