I spent the weekend expanding my "cheesie" wardian case to twice it's
size. Originally, I had a metro wire rack surrounded by plastic with
a 4 quart bowl of water and aquarium heater for humidity. This gave
me an area of 3' x 3' x 1.25'. I bought another wire rack and connected
the two to add depth and surrounded the whole thing with plastic.
Now I have a 3' x 3' x 2.5' container. I maintain a minimum temperature
of 70 F with about 80-95% humidity. The whole thing is in front of big
sliding glass doors which give about 3-4 hours of strong sunlight and
bright light for most of the day. The new depth allowed me to
move the more share loving Nepenthes like N. Rafflesiana away
from the window. I use this container only for lowland Nepenthes.
This seems to work great for me. I'll keep the members of this list
posted on how it works out.
I do have one concern with this structure and that is mold. I bought
a N. Reinwardtiana at the BACPS meeting this weekend and it looks like
it may be growing some mold. I've applied some Greenlight Systemic
Fungacide 50% (1-Benomyl, 2-benzimindazolecarbamate) to try to combate
it and insolated the plant. But, this raises my general worry about
mold. So, I wanted to pose a couple of questions:
1. Has anyone used the same fungacide? A nursury in the bay area
told they have been unable to get Benomyl recently and are
concerned that it may be discontinued. Anyone heard anything
about this?
Slack says that Benomyl seems to stunt the growth of Nepenthes.
How about Captan? Has anyone used this? Is it available in
the United States?
2. For those of you who use heated terrariums: How do you
prevent mold from growing in an environment which seems ideal
for mold? Do you spray your plants regularly with a fungacide?
If you use air circulation, how do you preserve humidity while
circulating air? How do you circulate your air?
It might be of general interest to the group (and certainly to me)
if you describe what your Terrarium setup is like and how you
maintain it, water it, etc.
--tom