Sarracenia and root rot

[iluvsarracenia]

Hello everyone! I would like to share an experience as well as some resulting questions specifically surrounding the topic of Sarracenia and root rot. Before I get into the gist of my anecdote, I feel as if I have some PTSD regarding root rot. I live in central Texas and we experienced a VERY rare winter storm/ice incident in February 2021. This event killed a number of my Dionaea as well as Sarracenia; they all succumbed to root rot. A small handful made it though so I have a fear of root rot now. With all this being said, I have a super special Sarracenia I grew from seed about two years ago. It's still pretty small in size and it was doing pretty well this year. About three weeks ago, the pot it was in got dug up by squirrels and these squirrels chewed off the one growth point on the plant. Last weekend, I noticed that the main plant has turned brown and mushy; looks like root rot. I decided to repot the plant since most of the sphagnum moss was dug out by the squirrels. In doing so, I noticed the main plant did not have much of a root system and most of the roots were brown and the crown of the plant was brown/mushy as well so I cut that portion off. The remaining section was where the new growth was emerging but it was also chewed off by the squirrels. On that portion, I saw growth areas in the root system. They were white small white segments on the roots. So I'm hoping this is a good sign that the plant will be ok? So here are my questions: 1. When I looked at the rhizome, it is completely brown. Based on what I have seen online, a sign of a healthy rhizome are white tissue. Do you think my plant is going through root rot? (I am attaching two photos for reference. Sorry they're not the best quality). 2. Is it possible to have a rhizome have rot but still produce healthy roots? 

I appreciate you reading my post. I know the best thing for me to do is to basically take a chill pill and sit back and wait for nature to take over to see if my plant will come back in the spring, but I wanted to pick everyone's brains to get their feedback. Again, thank you for your time and I appreciate your feedback! 






Best wishes,
-duc nguyen.

[Eolian]

I'm not experienced enough to answer most of your questions, but I do know a bit that might be helpful. I definitely think your plant might have a chance even though the main rhizome is totally brown mush, so long as some little bit of the rhizome is still partially-white and crisp to the touch. Here's why-
This year I had rhizome rot for the first time, probably thanks to a cold overcast spring and my new batch of peat being worse quality than I thought. I didn't dump the tray water or flush out the pots at all during summer since I was afraid of running out of rainwater during no-rain August. Rain and snow are my only sources of acceptable water. The salt built up badly in the pots without me realizing it. The peat must have been slowly releasing it so it built up over time. First to show signs of rot was a rubra after a spring rain, which I chopped up into little divisions potted separately. Any rhizome with a streak of brown was sliced away, since I thought that meant it was hopelessly infected. The only piece to live was a tiny rhizome bud that was already halfway cracked off from the main rhizome before the rot had set in. Oh, and one rhizome chunk that still hasn't sprouted any foliage but still feels crisp so I'm still keeping it. However, the rest of the plants that caught rot happened later and acted different.
During the peak of summer my plants started showing worse and worse pitcher burn, but I had no spare water to waste on rinsing the peat clean. About a week after one day that I had left my sarracenia out in the rain, several caught rot one after another, apparently from the salt getting washed into the pots' root zone. The rosea got chopped into six pieces, but just for the heck of it, I saved several growth points that did have brown streaks in the rhizome where the knife cuts exposed it. I thought those would die. Every one of them lived! So then, when a catesbaei that had a pollinated flower on it got withered pitchers and brown mush and mold on one cluster of growth points, I crossed my fingers and instead of unpotting it and doing surgery, I just flushed extra water through the pot to clean the soil, picked away anything mushy from the bad spots, and generously sprayed them and the other growth points with Daconil. It worked! The rot stopped progressing and my lovely seed pod survived. The same treatment saved a Hummer's Hammerhead that had mushy growth points all around the clump.
So I guess my thoughts are that there might be different types of rot, and depending on which type is at work in your plant, its survival chances could be different. My rubra probably had the normal kind of rot and only the perfectly crisp white rhizome piece lived. The rest of the plants started rotting from high TDS peat so far as I can tell, and even the divisions with part-brown part-white rhizome lived.

As for your sarracenia, it sounds like you did a good job treating it, sphagnum is what I put mine into too. I would recommend squirting Daconil on the rhizome if you can get ahold of the stuff. It's not systemic, but it apparently still helped. Move the plant into its own personal water tray if you haven't already, since rot can spread to other pots through tray water. So long as there is at least some little hidden bud somewhere on the rhizome that doesn't turn to brown mush, it could still make it. I don't think the roots themselves are a very good indicator of life, I think it's just the rhizome that matters. Also maybe watch for a bloom of green color spreading around the surface of the sphagnum where it touches the rhizome; my divisions that lived didn't get this green stuff, but the ones that died did. Only watching and waiting will tell for sure. I hope your plant pulls through!

[iluvsarracenia]

Hello and thank you so much for taking the time to respond to my post. As of this morning, the root system still looks pretty healthy to me and the new root growth appears healthy as well. I guess my best course of action is to just wait and be patient (which is not one of my strong points) but I will just wait to see what happens in spring. The plant had a pretty healthy growth season so I'm hoping that will be enough for it to survive dormancy.

I appreciate your feedback again and have a wonderful day!

[Deleted]

I usually discard any rhizome which is brown on the inside. If there is any white inside, it might be still worth saving.