Hey all! I was curious about anybodies experience using carnivorous plants in their grow, to help control pests? This is mainly just out of curiosity, not any plan I currently have to utilize them. However I was doing some reading into how some researches believe cannabis to be a para carnivorous plant because of its sticky resin coating on the outside. This piqued my curiosity into the symbiotic relationship that cannabis and carnivorous plants could potentially have
I have a Venus flytrap but it does become a handful to maintain since their environmentals are different , besides I don’t really pay a lot of attention to them plants , truthfully it’s not the best way to deal with pest , it would be more of a hobby than a.useful way to deal with pest
Carnivorous plants aren’t usually used but assistant plants are to act as either bait to be a batter treat for the pests or attract bug killing bugs like lady bugs or centipedes . Then theres natural repellents like peppermint
I knew about some of these as well, my uncle has his outdoor grow space inside of a small hedge of juniper brambles. He claims that the berries attract robins, which will also eat the slugs and snails out of his crops when they get too tall for him to easily tend to the top.
I figured as much, but it seemed like an interesting idea. Especially for an indoor grow if you’re only dealing with fungus gnats, small carnivorous plants placed around the tent might act kind of like an apple cider vinegar type trap, except with the novelty of it being another fun plant to work with.
My wife bought me a venus fly trap during my first grow when I had fungus gnat’s. To be honest like was said above very hard to keep them healthy under powerful lights and you would need ALOT of them to even begin to combat an infestation. Just thought I would share that I have tried it and I guess if you had enough of them they might help some but at the end of the day it’s another plant that will need watered at different times and mine did not live underneath my 1000 watt HPS even underneath the canopy.
Interesting, so Venus fly traps are a no go. But what I’m really wondering, is if plants like sundews or nepenthes fly traps would do the trick.
(Nepenthes)
(Sundew)
The nepenthes in particular seems like it would be a powerhouse for taking out fungus gnats on an indoor grow. since it pretty much is a cup of funny smelling liquid.
Kinda looks like Trichomes on the last pic…
I’ve never had much luck keeping any bug eating plants alive outside of a dedicated terrarium, their humidity needs are just too high (over 70RH) as most are native to swamps or jungles.
So you’re telling me there’s a chance it could work with strains from places like Thailand? Jungle buds.
So… What about butterwort?? It likes full sun, handles temps 60-90°f and you can propagate from leaves like succulents…
Thoughts?
Man I’d love an update to this thread…
Commenting in case someone answers…