you wrote:
>Are you saying that without at least some direct sunlight that VFT's will
>eventually die?
ABSOLUTELY false - I grow hundreds of vft's indoors without any sun at all.
>While some plants seem to have adapted, I have several that act as if theey
>are bug infested, with malformed and partially formed traps. I have no bugs
>(I have checked and checked, in the soil, under the leaves, sprayed with
>pyrethrums (sp?) etc). The teeth don't want to develope on the top (far)
>end of the trap. The traps end up looking like a small case letter "b" with
>the petiole attaching to the fat part of the "b" and the top of the trap not
>developing. Several have put out smaller and smaller leaves/traps until
>they departed for that big bog in the sky.
This sounds as simple as light deprivation. I keep the standard sized
greenhouse trays covered with the humidity domes and place them DIRECTLY
under the lights. I have just enough room to slide the trays in and out.
You would never know my plants aren't growing in a greenhouse. They develop
wounderful color and grow VERY fast for vft's. (What a shame I can't do
this with my neps....)
>traps (reversed seasons) but my more recent additions of "red jaw",
>"dentata" and "red dragon" have yet to show much red at all.
VFT's loose their color once disturbed and don't regain it until they become
established. Don't be alarmed about this at all. If you want to speed up
their color enhancement, brew up some peat tea by whatever method you
prefer. I pour boiling water through a 5 gal. bucket of wet peat, and
others swear by boiling the whole mix for 15 min. Whatever the significant
other will allow....... (if you have one!)
>The Drosera's in the same setup are doing just fine.
Drosera tend to do well in much less light than vft's perfer.
Place those vft's closer to the lights and I bet you will see immediate
results!
I actually put my plants through two seasons a year and run the lights about
18 hrs. a day for the summer cycle and 12 for the winter. Putting them
through two cycles a year and growing them under such bright light (speaking
of light, I use 1 cool white for every gro-lux bulb) achieves amazing results.
Hope this helps & keep on growing,
-Tom-