I would put it a southern window sill and/or fluorescent light and when it gets warm enough to put outside - do so.

It is on a south facing window with a SAD* daylight (VERY bright) right over it (about 3-4 inches above the leaves).

The one thing that's bugging me is that the traps have not gotten smaller. The leafy parts have gotten shorter. So when you compare them to the size of the light starved leaves they are much shorter. But they are hugging the ground. Should I be expecting tall leaves? Am I providing too much light?

So is dormancy indicated by the leaves hugging the ground? or smaller traps?

There does not seem to be any dying off of any significant amount of leaves. The really old ones are taking a really long time to turn yellow and only have a hint of turning black at some edges.

The single plant (I checked, it's out of one bulb) has over 16 traps (2 unopened yet, 4 non functional old ones, the rest are ready to eat).

Thanks,

Adam

* Seasonal Affective Disorder

I think you have a couple dynamics going on - an upset plant and perhaps dormant. Dormancy is accompanied by shorter, wider leaves, that are at the soil surface. Yellow and blackening can go with dormancy and/or shock. I would get them in good lighting and wait it out. Too much moving around can set them back, and hence smaller traps

The plant is not upset, I don't think. Nothing is dying and all new traps are large, well formed.

The yellowing etc. is only found on the oldest of all the leaves.

The smaller traps were due to the poor conditions at the super market. The recent traps are the largest.

I'm not going to be moving them except the entire pot to the deck in March at equinox. I think it's too late to diminish lighting for dormancy - or does it matter with artificial lighting?

These may be dormancy leaves. Nevertheless, I'm putting them close to 120W of fluorescent lighting (3 times that which is recommended, I think) for 14+ hours a day.

I just hope that this plant will have enough reserves to grow for 10 more months for the next dormancy period.

Actually it is the daylength of light, not the intensity, that affects a plant's seasonal cycle. The intensity will just affect leaf growth... underlit VFT produce extremely long, thin petioles with tiny traps on top. The average VFT with normal light will produce 4-6 inch long petioles and traps in total length as adults. A short dormancy or light dormancy can be attempted, but your photoperiods would have to be modified over a months time, so it really is too late to worry with it. The bare minimum light intensity would be about 10,000 lumens for VFT health.. and that is barely going to keep them alive and not indefinitely. Supplement with window light or place them outside when possible. Actual sunlight is far more intense than most any light humans can produce (except a metal halide lamp... and those are costly in every way and produce way too much heat), and VFT really are light greedy plants.

If you are talking about 120 watt compact florescent bulbs, those can work, but the tubes are 40 watt and provide greater coverage and are technically equivalent to 100 watt incandescent (I use four tubes and made an entire shelf to house my plants and lights in a window)... the 120 watt compacts are equivalent to about 1300 lumens. Since you can place them close to the plants, it can work for a while, but they need more lumens than that to survive in the long term.

Hi Adymitruk,

Are you in the UK? It's just you said you got your VFT at Safeway!

@ organic trickster

no.. BC, Canada.. we have Safeway here too :0)

@ mutant hybrid

the plants are situated right against a south facing deck sliding door (a floor-to-ceiling window, effectively). So they get both any winter sun/ambient-cloud-light and the fluorescent light for 14+ hours.

As I said, it's not showing any sign of distress. It's been fed 1 large insect per month and has caught some small flies by itself as well. No traps have rotted due to any of the feedings.

It's being watered from the top only until the overflow on the bottom is 1.5 inches deep. The mix is 50/50 peat/sand. The pots are 5 inches tall, so the bulb is not sitting in the standing water at the lower levels. There is a half inch layer of pure peat at the top of the soil as the sand grains get displaced easily by watering. The peat topping prevents that.

I'm really worried since it is winter time and all the discussions here say "If you don't allow your plant to go dormant, it will die." I guess what I'm getting at is that that statement has a caveat:

"... unless you provide a lot of light during the dim months."

I can see how suboptimal fluorescent light provided in the winter will not feed the plant enough while keeping it out of dormancy because of the # of hours it experiences light. It will want to grow (not dormant) but will not have enough energy to do so and will die trying. From further readings, it's the light hours and not the temperature that's important. A high temperature will allow fungus and other things to kill the plant. Hence the temperature is important, but not for putting the plant into dormancy. It's to stifle the growth of the organisms that don't need light. Is that a fair assessment of missed dormancy deaths that people experience?

Adam

PS. As I snipped off 4 really old traps that were starting to turn black, I also pulled those old leaves as far down as I could by using the pointy end of my wife's nail file to get down into the earth pull away at a deep level. I put them in a jar with very, very wet peat moss and covered it with plastic wrap and a rubber band. I'm hoping to get 4 little plants by July. Anyone try that before?

That is a fair assessment of dormancy, however; temperature is fairly important in that it actually informs the plant to go dormant. The light daylength only informs the plant that winter approaches. The lower the temperature in winter, the deeper the dormancy. The plant will basically rest, which will help some, if the light length is short yet the temperatures are higher than 60.

Some people have had VFT that bypassed dormancy indoors in high levels of light, however; those are the exceptions, not the rule to caring for VFT. They can bypass a dormancy occasionally, but will survive only if they have enough starch reserves in their rhizomes and very strong illumination to help them along.

Hi Ady in BC,
I wouldn't try to make the VFT go dormant now, that will just mess with its head. Two of my 30 or 40 VFTs are actually wanting to come OUT of dormancy now, and are just starting to develop flower stalks (they've been dormant since late/Sept).

Most supermarket plants will be maybe 1 year old tissue cultured plants, and you can grow a young plant without dormancy for the first two years. So it's not going to die on you, the worst that might happen is that it goes dormant on its own sometime during the summer, earlier than it might otherwise. So wait until next fall and then start giving it a rest in winter, and growth in summer.

Also, I wouldn't worry about the length or shape of the leaves. Artificial light has a huge effect on that, so you can't relate that to how plants normally develop under sunlight. I go by trap size -- trap size increasing means an actively growing plant. Trap size decreasing means either bad growing conditions or that the plant is telling you it wants a rest.

BTW, I'm in Alberta, and I grow my plants outside during summer (which is May-Sept.), but I keep them in a south-facing basement window during winter. I have to keep them in "dormant" conditions for 7 months of the year, which is much more than the 3 or so months they are dormant in their native range. Not ideal, but whatcha gonna do? Right now it is -10C outside (14F), and the plants are at 11C (52F). We are expecting some -20C to -30C weather this coming week, so the plants may get down a few degrees above freezing. But I never let them freeze, except perhaps some very light frosts they might get outside in late September.

-Don