1) Feeding - he feeds his plants with live mealy beetles, which result
from keeping mealy worms for too long and feeding them. The worms
change to beetles. He says he drops quite a few of these beetles in his
pitchers and the plants seem to do well. He also says he's tried
fertilizing plants, but has seen no difference between doing this and
not doing it. He did feel that live bug feeding gave better plants.
2) plants that won't pitcher - he went on at length about certain
Nepenthes that won't pitcher well if they get too much sun. He said the
recent booklet on Nepenthes in Malaysia advertised in CPN (I'd love to
get a copy, but don't want to mail to Malaysia and wait 6 months to get
it) claimed that certain Nepenthes would only produce traps if they
didn't get enough sun to photo- synthesize. In such a low light case,
the plants would actually develop MORE color than in full sun, which is
counter to what I'd expect. The book specifically said that N.
ampullaria would not pitcher well in bright sun, and would vine more.
In dimmer light, ground pitchers are produced to catch food. This might
explain why my N. ampullaria plant is producing so many ground pitchers
in my indoor terrarium, which has not that much light.
Other plants in my terrarium which may pitcher and colour better in low
light are N. boissiense rubra, N. gracilis, and N. rafflesiana. I was
thinking of putting more light in my terrarium, but now I'm wondering if
that's a good plan.
Robert