Re: Making cats and sarrs happy

From: Chris Teichreb (cjteichr@sfu.ca)
Date: Mon Sep 13 1999 - 11:00:12 PDT


Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 10:00:12 -0800
From: Chris Teichreb <cjteichr@sfu.ca>
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg3220$foo@default>
Subject: Re: Making cats and sarrs happy

Marcus,

>see what will happen. I have to add, that this S. purpurea always had only
>little red
>color and wasn't too big. Well, after a week THAT changed. The pitcher's
>color changed to
>a bright red and the plant started to grow more new and bigger pitchers
>than ever. Alas,
>the season for ticks seams to be over, at least my cat isn't bringing them
>home anymore.
>But I know on what diet I put my sarrs next year.
>Has anybody made similar experiences with feeding sarrs? I'd like to know.
>I really can't
>believe, that the blood did it, but maybe it's a good idea feeding them.
>
>Greetings, Marcus

        I agree with David's comments. Most of my Sarrs pitchers,
especially S.purpurea, take on a reddish colour in the spring and in the
fall. However, if you want to see if your plant really is responding to
the ticks filled with blood, you need to set up a controlled experiment.
Essentially, you'll need two S.purpurea plants of the same clone, planted
in the same media, pot size, watering levels, light levels, etc. Then,
feed one plant with the ticks, and leave the other one alone. If the tick
fed plant grows much more rapidly than the other plant, you can assume the
blood did indeed help it's growth. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the
plant did respond to feeding of blood, but you can't say for sure unless
you try.

        Incidentally, my old entomology (that looks misspelled?!) prof.
often said that ticks were the only invertebrate in North America which he
could not find an ecological reason for their existence. They rarely kill
their hosts (they don't take out the weak or diseased), they spread disease
themselves, and are unpalatable to birds and other insects. Maybe feeding
them to Sarrs will provide a good use for these nasty critters :-)!

Happy growing,

Chris



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