Question

Sarracenias Dainas Del   Hi, I'm Marco Acu馻, from Costa Rica, I grow carnivorous plants for 4 years now, but until this year, specifically starting this year, I started to notice in my sarracenias Dainas delight that the leafs are getting a really ugly color, bleaching and getting purple spots on them, the new leafs merge ok, but as they grow they get bad, and this really has had me in concern because it seemed to stay in a single group of sarracenias, but now its spreading to other plants in the area, mostly the Dainas, but some leucophyla are getting like he same simptom.

Answer
Hi Marco,

Thank-you for sending the photo.  That always helps.  It looks like you may have leaf miners.  This is a pest that commonly affects plants like Beets and Swiss Chard. This is caused by a fly that lays an egg on the leave of the plant, then the larvae gets into the leaf tissue and begins to feed.  You can tell if it's this by holding one of the pitchers up to the sun and looking into one of the bad spots.  You should see a dark shape somewhere, that being the larvae.  Curiously, I've never seen this on Sarracenia, but it could be different in a tropical area.  It could be some other pest, but it does look like insect damage.

What you need to do is first cut off all of the affected leaves and destroy them.  If you can burn them that would be ideal.  You'll need to spray the plants, even the healthy ones with a systemic insecticide.  I'm not sure what you have available in Costa Rica, but an insecticide based on either imidacloprid, or acephate (Orthene) will work well, and is safe on Sarracenia.  Just follow label directions.

I'm curious about how the Sarracenia go dormant in your area.  Do you see a seasonal leaf die-off?

Good Growing!

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