Lately we’ve been fielding a lot more questions about fertilizing seedlings than any other topic. Here at ACG, we’ve been experimenting with fertilizing for about 3 years and there is a noticeable difference in the growth rate of our seed grown Sarracenia when they are fertilized. While this topic is still relatively new and untested, lots of experienced growers have shared their advice on fertilizing and methods are quickly becoming understood for how to safely fertilize your plants.
Because Sarracenia are carnivorous plants, they are specially adapted to growing in low-nutrient soil, and instead obtain the necessary nutrients through capturing insects. There are 2 major methods of fertilizing Sarracenia which we will cover, and each have their pro’s and cons. You will need several simple tools in order to fertilize your plants depending on the method you choose. See below for our recommended purchases!
We’d highly recommend any newbies check out this thread on the Sarracenia forum where some experienced growers share their experience with fertilizing seedlings. A special thanks to Calen Hall, who is one of our most preferred vendors for Sarracenia for being so generous sharing his knowledge and experience with us in order to make this post. If you’re looking for great Sarracenia, definitely check out his sales list and order from him – we is a fantastic vendor and knowledgeable grower!
The Tools of the Trade
- Maxsea 16-16-16 Fertilizer: The first thing you’ll need to start fertilizing is, surprise – fertilizer! Maxsea 16-16-16 is the standard for growing carnivorous plants. A 1.5 lb container should last a very long time so it is well worth the investment. We’ve had success with other fertilizers, but for simplicity’s sake we’d highly recommend just using MaxSea
- TDS Meter: These handy little meters are very useful for a number of purposes for serious carnivorous plant growers! We use ours to check our water purity, the strength of our fertilizer and the output from our soil. TDS stands for “Total dissolved solids” and provides a reading into how pure your water is. For regular water, anything under 50 PPM (parts per million) is safe for carnivorous plants, although you could likely use water with a slightly higher reading safely.
- Bottle Syringe Applicators: These are only necessary for the pitcher injection method. We’ve tested out a few different applicators and find these style bottles to be the best balance between holding enough fertilizer and being maneuverable enough to easily complete the process.
Method #1: Pitcher Injection
The pitcher injection method is the easiest and safest way to get started fertilizing your seedlings. If you’re just starting out, this is a wonderful method that eliminates some of the ambiguity around nutrient build up in your soil. This method is recommended for growers new to fertilizing in order to become more comfortable with it before moving on to using a fertilizer solution in your water trays.
This method is exactly what it sounds like, you’ll simply mix your Maxsea into a gallon of water to make your fertilizer solution and then use an applicator of some sort to fill up your pitchers. It couldn’t be easier! To start, we mix about a tablespoon of Maxsea into a gallon water jug and shake it up. Reading this solution with the TDS meter shows about 250-300 PPM. Remember that none of this is set and stone and you should definitely play around with stronger and more diluted solutions to see what works for you. Once this is done, we fill our bottle applicators with the fertilizer and fill up the pitchers!
Fill pitchers as high as you can, but remember that taller, lanky pitchers are very likely to topple over if filled all the way, so make sure you go a little lighter on them. On shorter, stouter pitchers feel free to fill all the way up! Below are the pro’s and con’s of this method:
Pros of Pitcher Injection
- Stronger dosing: Because this method does not introduce fertilizer & nutrients into the soil, you don’t need to worry about minerals and nutrients building up in your soil. You can be more aggressive and use stronger solutions which means this is the most effective way to fertilize your plants.
- Close to natural process: Because Sarracenia leaves are specially adapted to absorbing nutrients, this method is the fastest method to get your plants to grow up quick!
- Safer and less guesswork: Again, because you’re only fertilizing the pitchers this method is far safer and easier for beginners. We recommend you start here!
Cons of Pitcher Injection
- Required time, does not scale well: For those of us with large collections and limited spare time, unfortunately this method is not very practical. For our operation at ACG, filling one shelf takes nearly 20 minutes, meaning it would take us hours to do our entire collection!
- Not effective for very small seedlings: Until your plants are at a size where their pitchers are large enough to be able to use the syringes and hold a decent amount of fertilizer you won’t be able to use this method. This can be very frustrating as Sarracenia can typically take months to reach an adequate size to begin this method before exploding with growth. For impatient growers such as myself, this means you’ll have to wait a few months before even beginning.
Filled to the brim! 
Seedlings fertilized at this stage will quickly reach maturity 
Method #2: Tray Fertilizing
For those of us with large collections, limited spare time, and many small seedlings pitcher injection can be impractical. Under these circumstances, the best way to still give your plants that boost to grow faster is to introduce nutrients to their soil with fertilizer via adding your fertilizer solution to the water trays your seedlings are growing in. It’s important to note before we go any further that the dosing and readings here are all just guidelines. It is important to experiment for yourself and see what works. Start with a conservative dose and then gradually increase until you notice your plants are at a growth rate that works for you.
A note about mineral/nutrient build up – over time, as you fertilize your plants more and more, slowly nutrients will build up in your soil. The best way to deal with this build up is by aggressively top-watering your plants several times. Take your plants outside and water from the top of the soil. Wait for the water to drain through to your tray, and then use your TDS meter to read the PPM of the water that comes out. Then, if the number is still too high, dump it out and do it again. Over time your PPM reading should steadily decrease until you reach a level about the same as your clean water. Doing this is a good way to re-set your soil if you are concerned. Additionally, we repot our seedlings up to 4 times in their first 2 years, so we have a little bit more wiggle room with soil buildup. Regularly repotting your seedlings is highly recommended and a great way to get them to grow faster as well!
For this method, we will mix a fertilizer solution using the same process as the pitcher injection method, however we will use less fertilizer and target a weaker PPM reading. For large seedlings, we target between 150-200 PPM and for smaller seedlings we target around 125 PPM. This is because the larger seedlings will use the fertilizer much more quickly as they are growing much faster by this point. Once you have your fertilizer solution mixed, simply dump it into your plants’ water trays! At this point, monitoring the TDS in your tray becomes the most important step in the process. Until your TDS drop to a level where you feel like you should add more fertilizer, simply continue watering the plants (top watering whenever possible) and checking the TDS of the water in the tray. Here is a great sample schedule of what this might look like, courtesy of Calen Hall:
Saturday: Filled tray with fertilizer. Measured tray water at 185 ppm.
Monday: Top watered, measured water from plants at 190 ppm (can be higher or lower than when you added fertilizer.
Wednesday: Top watered, measured water at 165.
Friday: Top watered, measured water at 130.
Second Monday: Top watered, measured water at 65.
Second Saturday: Refilled tray with 180 ppm solution.
As you can see, there is some room to play here if you want to be more aggressive or conservative depending on how hard you want to push your plants. Top watering is always a good practice, but especially so when fertilizing so that you can get an accurate read on the TDS situation in your soil. Additionally, keep in mind that you will be fertilizing larger plants much faster than smaller plants so remember to use a weaker dose on small plants and be patient before adding more fertilizer.
The most important indicator as to whether or not you’ve been succesful will ultimately be the growth rate of your plants. As long as they are growing quickly and you are happy with their rate, you should be good to go!
So when can I start?
Realistically, you can start fertilizing your seedlings from a very early stage. Remember to be more conservative with the strength of your fertilizer with younger plants. The most important thing to remember is never add fertilizer to plants that are in a humidity dome. Because of the stagnant air and increased humidity, adding nutrients to the soil could be a disaster which ultimately kills your plants and turns their pots into an algae-filled mess. You are likely to see an increase in algae when you begin fertilizing, but this is to be expected and as long as it’s not out of hand, you can simply ignore it or try to wipe some of it off the surface.