Question
Ok, so I do not have pictures with me at the moment of these Drosera Adelae I received a week and a half ago, but I can describe them as best I can.  When I first received them, they were almost completely green.  There were many little plantlets attached to their roots.  I decided to separate the plantlets from the mother plants before transplanting.  I put them in 50/50 sphagnum peat moss and perlite.  I keep their water tray about an inch full.  They are a couple feet away from my grow light that is on for 10 hours and totals 20,000 lumens.  I did that so they could adjust before I blinded them with all the light.  I use distilled water only.  However, now when I look at them, they are all browning, the dead parts of their leaves are developing mold, and they do not look healthy at all.  I got capensis with them, and they are adjusted and pushing up new growth unlike the adelae.  There is no dew on the adelae.  My room is really moist with all the trays of water I have in there and the numerous plants as well, not just carnivorous.


Should I remove all the dead parts?  Even the dead plantlets I separated and planted?  Do so for both by cutting them with scissors?  Is it possible the mther plants' leaves will completely die off, then come back?

Answer
Hi David,

What kind of grow light do you have?  Metal Halide?  T-5 fluorescent?  I'm going to assume it's one of those, and that the heat from them has caused the browning you're seeing on the D. adelae.  If the plant was very light green when you got it, it wasn't used to brighter light.  This is very normal.  

Just cut off the dead material.  It's super common for them to come back from their roots.  You might move it a little further from the light than you have your D. capensis and other plants.  D. adelae is more shade tolerant than most sundews.  You will most likely see the mother plant send out new shoots, but babies separated when little tend to be much more delicate.  

The newer growth on your plant will be redder than when you got it, and that is normal appearance for D. adelae.  Drosera adelae leaves never recover once they've had some damage.  You just have to wait for the new shoots.

Good Growing!

Jeff Dallas
Sarracenia Northwest
growcarnivorusplants.com