ROOT ROT!! What now?

One day, as you're watering your Venus flytraps, you notice some blackening and yellowing leaves. "No big deal", you think to yourself, "It's probably just dormancy kicking in". However, as you observe closely, you notice the new growth looks shriveled and black, despite watering them with low-TDS water and keeping them in direct sun. You notice a faint foul smell, unlike the smell of damp sphagnum or peat.

What's happening?

You may be dealing with root rot.

What is root rot? What causes it?

Root rot, as the name implies, is the deterioration and death of a plant's root systems due to a lack of oxygen. In a horticultural setting, root rot often is caused by overwatering, which raises the water table in the pots, pushing out air and oxygen from reaching the roots. Plant roots, despite being underground, NEED to have oxygen for cellular respiration and nutrient uptake. When they become suffocated, bacteria and fungi in the soil invade the dying tissue, causing massive damage to the plant's root system. Lack of oxygen also breeds anaerobic bacteria, which infects roots and feeds on dying tissue. Root rot must be treated as quickly as possible if plant death is to be avoided. In Venus Flytraps, root rot can be devastating, but if the right measures are taken, infected plants can recover.

This plant is severely waterlogged. Oxygen cannot infiltrate the soil, causing the roots to suffocate and rot

How do I save my Venus Flytraps from Root Rot?

Unpot your plant

Immediately, remove your plant from its pot and clear off as much growing medium as possible. This will allow you to assess the damage, replace the contaminated medium, and treat the rot.

Trim off Dead or Dying Tissue

This step is the most important. Root rot is an infection, and you must as much of it as you can from your plant before moving on. Otherwise, it will return worse than before. Remove any foul-smelling or mushy tissue, dead and mushy roots, and use a clean knife to remove rotting sections of the rhizome. Be careful to not remove living roots, however; these remaining roots are more precious than ever now. Living roots are wiry,

odorless, and have often white tips. Living rhizome is white or a pale off-white and firm.

Notice the thin, mushy roots. These are rotten and should be removed.

The brown section of the rhizome is rotten. In contrast, the pale white section is healthy.

Notice the thick, wiry roots of this healthy flytrap. Just under the rhizome, you can see white root growth tips, a sign of a healthy root system.

Repot into Fresh Medium

After trimming up your plant, it's important to repot it in fresh medium. The old medium that it rotted in likely contains high populations of bacteria, fungi, and other pathogens that can and will enter the fresh wounds on your plant.

If possible, repot your plant into long-fibered sphagnum moss. Sphagnum moss, especially live sphagnum, contains compounds which lower pH, making the medium acidic and inhospitable to microbes and bacteria. For this reason, I always use LFSM when rehabbing death cube flytraps and ones suffering from rot, which have impaired immune systems. For more information about the benefits of LFSM, visit this article: https://albertlulzh.wixsite.com/snapgarden/post/peat-moss-vs-sphagnum-moss-as-a-growing-medium

Sun, Sun, Sun

An overlooked factor that can reduce root rot is light. Plants under stronger light have more energy, larger stores of sugar, and can build larger root and rhizome systems. This makes them much less likely to suffer from root rot, even in unfavorable conditions, than plants in the same conditions but under inadequate lighting.

The same logic applies to growing plants from seed. Seedlings have meager root systems simply due to immaturity and thus are more susceptible to rot and are more likely to die if even a small portion of their roots develops rot. Mature plants with large root systems have thicker, larger roots, which can tolerate waterlogged conditions better and can rely on the rest of the network if one portion dies.

Water Carefully

Going forward, avoid waterlogging your plants by allowing the surface of the soil to lose a little moisture before rewatering. By allowing the medium to slightly dry downwards from the surface, air can work its way down into the pot, preventing anaerobic bacteria growth and allowing root respiration. Be careful, however, not to allow your plant to dry completely. Just wait until the surface of the medium feels like a wrung-out towel, then water again.

A detailed explanation of this technique and its benefits can be found here: https://albertlulzh.wixsite.com/snapgarden/post/a-little-watering-trick-to-increase-the-size-of-your-venus-flytraps