FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

i could use a little advice as to what these marks are on my nep, and how best to help it back to full health.

my large gothica has little black dots under its leaves, and it causes a pimple on the upper surface. i think?? its mould spots, is that right? theres also a thin bit of fuzzy black stuff on parts of its trunk aswell.

both the gothica + 3 baby neps have started to get orange blotches on their leaves. the gothica seems to be copping the worst of it, each day its slowly getting a bit worse. - i *think* it may be sunburn from what ive investigoogled? it is nearly winter, we've had many very nice days with almost no wind and low 20c weather so i didnt think it was hot enough for sunburn?

i originally had moved them to the edge of the verandah so it got a little direct light at the very end of the day (maximum of couple of hrs direct light)
as the blotches developed i put it back under the verandah where its in a lot more shade, but the blotches continue to get worse..

any advice appreciated.

That I can think of, it's one of 2 things. Either rust spot or your plants are being damaged by the cooler weather.

Rust spot can be taken care of with a fungicide, I dont think it will fix the leaves already damaged but it will prevent new leaves from being harmed.

Last year I grew several young lowlanders outside during the hotter months with good success. When winter started to set in and we began experiencing cooler weather, my lowlanders began to get these really ugly marks all over their leaves. Larger plants can handle the cooler weather, but because these plants were still young they went into shock and I lost most of them. The only ones that made it were the more intermediate ones. So now I grow all my young true lowlanders in my room were its almost always warm. I put the older ones outside.

But maybe someone more experienced can help you out better. I grow mostly highlanders.

i suspect they are highlanders, possibly a nep alata due to one of the pitchers having an orange top half? (first image, right hand edge)

the tag says its easy to grow in cooler climates.. makes me suspect its a highlander?

from my experience sun burn slowly colours the whole leaf red not in spots,but i had very similar rusty spots appear on a couple of my neps,i was too scared to hit them with chemicals,i placed a computer fan on a timer switch to increase air circulation and now they are fine,but yours seem to be outside

Well, the baby neps dont look to bad, not like the 'gothica'. Is the 'gothica' also a highlander?

The black dots with the raised "pimple" on the leaves are nectar glands and they are perfectly normal. All of my plants have them.

The reddish spots could be rust or they could be spider mites. Several of my neps recently had similar spots which turned out to be caused by spider mites, but it's hard to tell what yours are based on the pictures. I personally use Green Light Neem II which contains neem oil plus an insecticide. It seems to work on both fungus and mites, so it would be a good choice for you.

Just one last thing...Whenever I encounter problems with my neps, I like to check terraforums.com. If you search the forum, often you can find a post where someone already asked the question you wanted to ask. For example, when I searched "black dots", this was the first thing that came up: "http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showt ... black+dots" and it had answers for both of your questions. So take a look on there, and look up some examples of both rust and spider mites and compare them to your plant. You could even look up what other products people use to cure these problems on their plants.

Also, since the spots are definitely not sunburn, and neps need a lot of light generally, I would move them back into the sun. Lack of sunlight will only make them more unhealthy at this point.

I hope that helps.
~Cassandra

TheRavensLetters:


thank you so very much for the help and advice. i'll look around on the site to find out a bit more about what the red blotches are, and then probably start a search for some neem oil and see if it helps the plant.

again, thanks for the reply.