Question
I have a parrot pitcher plant that i got about a month ago. it has many pitchers, but they are small and they look split at the top- not like the normal ones. They are small in size and pale green with very little red pigmented veins. I am suspecting that they are fast growing tissue culture leaves but i may be wrong. the plant is in a great environment so it isnt getting lack of nutrients, water, or sunlight. Should i pull the leaves to allow sunlight to the new, real leaves? or should i just leave it alone?
   thanks, Aaron

Answer
Hi Aaron,

More and more I'm leaning away from tissue cultured plants, particularly Sarracenia.  It works well with Nepenthes, flytraps and sundews, but for some reason, very few Sarracenia grow well from tissue culture.  Plants, especially those with pssitacina parentage, tend to have a lot of pitchers and multiple growing points, but the growth is so tight that sunlight can't get to the growing points.  This is very unnatural for the plant.  More unfortunate is that the nursery grows the plants in very low light conditions.  

You actually have two options.  Since it's still early in the growing season, you can trim off all the leaves to expose the growing point to sunlight.  This sounds drastic, but I sometimes do this to plants that clump up too heavily from the tissue culture hormones.

The other option is to let the plant be and trim off the immature leaves as they dry up during the growing season.  Just keep the new leaves as they emerge.

It may take about 1 or 2 growing seasons until the plant looks normal. For more information about growing carnivorous plants, watch our video podcasts:
http://www.cobraplant.com/podcasts

Good growing!
Jacob Farin