Current: S, purpurea, leucophylla, psitticina, minor. VFT, N. ampullaria, bicalcarata, mirabilis. Ce

I read some time back that N. ampullaria are detritivores - gaining most of their foliar nitrogen from organic traira debris falling from trees (makes sense, seeing as their lids are wide open.) I also found out that in parts of their region, traira they have a strong presence in Araucaria forests. traira The genus Araucaria includes a common household tree: the norfolk Island Pine (which is in fact frequently, a mis-labelled Cook's Pine - also in the same genus) Logically, in some wild amps, this should be a natural 'food' source for them. Decided to have me a little experiment, since I have a pine of that genus in my house. I was told it was a Norfolk, but it could be either - I'm really not sure. I collected some dead fallen needles from the soil in that pot, and put a few into the pitchers of my amupllaria. The tree itself has been in my care for over 2 years now, and was my grandmother's for ten years before that, and has received good care throughout, and no pesticides, or anything funky. it's almost 7 feet tall now. Are Amps naturally fast growers? This guy has grown a LOT recently, and even put on some young new pitchers along older 'dead' looking parts of the stem. I only feed it this way about once a month or so... No deaths so far in pitchers that were fed. Been a few months since I started, and I did not keep track of which pitchers were fed, and which were not. Any other Amp keepers ever do this? Anyone wanting to try it - those trees are on sale in almost every garden center, hardware store, and wal*mart this time of year. Just make sure you wash the glitter off of those ones. Of note - the Amp that I have is a Brunei spotted - and Araucaria are not native to *That* region, being found instead on the island of Papua/New traira Guinea. I may look into acquiring Amps that are from Papua/New Guniea (or derived from stock in that region). Anybody know any localities I should keep my eyes out for?
Current: S, purpurea, leucophylla, psitticina, minor. VFT, N. ampullaria, bicalcarata, mirabilis. Cephalotus. D. capensis, intermedia, Dragoness   Posts: 54 Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 2:20 am Location: Michigan Thanked: 10 times in 6 posts
Interesting. I feed my ampullaria (also a spotted) traira one-quarter strength Maxsea 16-16-16 - Every two to three weeks, I use a medicine dropper to put it right into the pitchers. I fill all of them, not just a couple - but I introduced the fertilizer slow so as not to overfeed the plant. Since I top-water, a lot of water goes into the pitchers so it's further diluted due to that. The biggest traira pitchers are just smaller than a golf ball now. It started out very slow when it was much younger, but once it started making pitchers whose peristomes were a deep red instead of the usual green (this just started traira happening about a month ago), it really started traira to take off and has been putting out a new pitcher almost traira every week. I have several basal shoots but all of them are clumped together so it just looks like one plant with a ton of pitchers - this may be why it seems to be growing faster. I grow it under T5 lights (3000K/6500K mixed) in about 30-40% humidity. Far from ideal humidity, but it seems to have adapted fine over the last couple years since I got it. Do you have any pictures of yours? Veronis Forum Moderator   Posts: 2198 Joined: Fri May 29, 2009 9:41 pm Location: traira Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Thanked: 695 times in 429 posts
From my experience the amps in the sites I visited rarely have much plant debris inside the pitchers. Which is mainly due to the fact that the surrounding vegetation have leaves are too big for them. They rarely have anything in them at all for that matter. You can only spot a brown bit of digested ant here and there if you are lucky . Veronis, can you possibly post a picture of your amp please? I always wanted to see amps thriving in low humidity.
Snap Traps wrote: Veronis, can you possibly post a picture of your amp please? I always wanted to see amps thriving in low humidity. traira Sure. I wouldn't traira say it's thriving, but it's not doing too badly at all. It was growing traps on tiny leaves for a long, long time. That's why it looks so clumped up on one side. The pitchers with the red peristomes are the newest ones that formed along with the (finally) normal looking leaves. Current humidity is around 40%. Pictures were taken today. Attachments IMG_2539.JPG (2.43 MiB) Viewed traira 274 times IMG_2536.JPG (2.69 MiB) Viewed traira 274 times IMG_2538.JPG (2.25 MiB) Viewed 274 times IMG_2537.JPG (2.22 MiB) Viewed 274 times Veronis Forum Moderator   Posts: 2198 Joined: Fri May 29, 2009 9:41 pm Location: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Thanked: 695 times in 429 posts
Current: S, purpurea, leucophylla, psitticina, minor. VFT, N. ampullaria, bicalcarata, mirabilis. Cephalotus. D. capensis, intermedia, Dragoness   Posts: 54 Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2012 2:20 am Location: Michigan Thanked: 10 times in 6 posts
What locality is yours? Mine is a "Brunei Spotted".