Seedling Questions

[Tarzanus]

It's not excess water. It's misted every day but nothing more than that, soil is moist, but certainly not wet. The leaf burn might have had occured because I used mild liquid fertilizer on it week ago. I remember similar problems on Borinda fungosa, which at this age, wrinkled it's top leaves without any reason when branching out or shooting. New shoot is growing larger every day though, and it remained darker green, compared to other, older culms. Might be that it's focusing on new growth and sucking reserves out of oldest parts of the plant. Hopefully it gets some sun exposure soon...

[Tarzanus]

Still without even one sunny day to give it more light and around .5 m of fresh snow, yet seedling seems to be growing faster. Inside ofcourse





On second picture it can be seen that nodes got swollen on the bottom parts of each culm. One even seems to have air roots forming on it. Chimonocalamus pallens it is.

moss started to grow when I started spraying it. It looks quite fancy inside the pot.

[stevelau1911]

If there was enough time for moss to start growing on your soil, it might be about time to manually aerate the soil which usually gives any kind of plant a nice growth spurt.

My 2 pallens seedlings are doing pretty bad as I have moso under 1 month old starting to catch up in size, but they are only getting window light which doesn't amount to much when we rarely have a day with sunshine. I have also noticed that my 3 ensete banana plants have turned a bit less red, and started growing longer leaves while the pseudo-stem stays around 1 inch in diameter because we simply won't get a sunny day.

[Tarzanus]

Soil is fully aerated. It contains whole large wooden particles in large amount and when watered, water goes into the soil instantly. It's more related to misting the soil surface twice a day. The same kind of moss can be found in plants from nurseries.

I've started germinating remaining seeds. It will be nice to see how it goes with larger batch.

[stevelau1911]

I was thinking more about the top 1 cm of soil that can sometimes get compacted from watering blocking out the air even though the soil underneath is nice and loose. I like having wood particles too in my soil mixes, but when they are watered so many times, the surface sometimes hardens up so I will just break up the top layer to make sure that the air breaths well.

[Tarzanus]

As I've said yesterday, I moistened two paper towels and in only one day (and one day soaking in water), most of the seeds started germinating! Some of them were cracked in half, with only 1/3 of the grain and sprouted instantly. I've never seen any other bamboo germinate that fast! (Chimonocalamus pallens)
Today I've noticed they have white spot on the bottom of the grain, took them out of the towel and put them one by one into plastic cups filled with soil.

Seeds that had not sprouted yet are back in the bag, resting on wet paper towel.

That's what I've got after only one day...

[stevelau1911]

Here are some of my moso that got started about a month ago. They look like they are doing fine with just north facing window light because of the reflection from the snow.


The only problem that seems to come up is whenever fungus gnats lay their eggs on my plants while they are still small, and they chew off the stems. They seem to become immune to this after the seedlings grow 2-3 leaves and their stems harden off, but I did sprinkle larvicide on the rest of them to prevent any more problems.



It is almost time to start some seedlings indoors. For example, a plant like a luffa gourd takes around 90 days to start getting harvests. I directly sowed them last spring, and they didn't produce until mid August as seeds were sowed in mid-May. Each vine still produced around 250 gourds, but it could have been twice as much if they started fruiting 2 months earlier. Hopefully a 400 watt metal halide light has enough power to produce nice strong plants that can transition to outdoor light without any problems. The goal is to have harvests some time in June so starting near April sounds about right.

Here's the blog on the luffas.
http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/2 ... -from.html

[johnw]

Word had it that the Chusquea culeou seeds were going to be a challenge. I planted 2 flats of 144 x 2" tall pots. All of 5 seeds sprouted, most after a couple of months. Of those 5, 2 have gone white and 3 are normal. The white ones with me were normal green and then suddenly the whole plant went white.

About 2 weeks ago we moved the unsprouted pots up to a friend'sgreenhouse bed with bottom heat and more have started sprouting. They look good so far - see second photo.

However friend's batch that started to sprout a little faster than mine - and continue to sprout some 6 months later - mostly are getting the same white foliage but only new leaves are white - see first photo.

Is this a genetic defect? I remember Markj mentoning he had to toss a lot of culeous.

Next week we will put the kwang seedlings from a September sowing in 2 gallon pots. They have snapped out of a Vapona-induced coma.

[stevelau1911]

I've seen albino kwangsiensis seedlings before, but when they are too variagated or completely white, they don't live for very long. All the gold stripe or variagated moso seedlings I have ever dealt with have been on average slower growers than the straight green ones. If they start out with green leaves and turn white, then it could be deficient in anything from iron, magnesium as well as other micro/ macro nutrients. Sometimes lack of aeration and drainage will cause it too.


I found this video which may be useful for anyone who starts vegetable seedlings indoors. This guy has light on for 24 hours a day with very good results. I guess one idea would be to put seedlings by a window, and then turn on lights only during the hours without daylight.

[bronze4art]

Hello All: I now have about 3 dozen tiny Sasa senanensis seedlings in the ground from previous plants that flowered/seeded (harvested most of the seeds from a 5' by 10' bed). Currently planning on not letting them get buried in leaves during winter (Southeast Michigan). Planning on using a fine mulch around them. Wondering if snow cover will hurt or protect them. What's the best way to help them winter-over? Thinking of putting clear plastic lids over a few of them. Will share a few and bring a few indoors. All suggestions appreciated.

Spring update:
Ones brought in --- most survived.
Ones outside under snow o.k. until slushy/ wet/ ice--- very few survived.
Ones outside under clear plastic feeder cap
( funnel / witches hat shape with 1/2" hole )--- all survived.

[Tarzanus]

My Moso seedling started to show some strange variegation. Some of the shoots show mild variegation, and some of them are quite interesting. Last year there was no variegation, all culms were green and all leaves were dark green, thick and healthy.

This year, first shoot appeared that ran out of the clump during last summer. Well actually 3 large shoots emerged, but only one decided to continue, others will most likely abort, if they had not already.







I'm not sure if this kind of variegation only affect leaves growing out of the culms or perhaps show some drastic change in this seedling's growth. It upsized considerably this spring and had only minimal number of aborted culms that all still look alive. Any ideas if this striping could be winter damage related or something else. I did use manure on this bamboo, it got its share of epsom salts in early spring and it doesn't look to be suffering any kind of deficiency. Older culms that started branching out do not show any variegation, they are all the same as last year - dark green.

[dependable]

One seedling from a unspecified F nitida survived from the tray I had going last winter. It is in a 4 inch pot and growing nicely on back porch. It is about 12x12 inches now and adding new leaves regularly. This specimen does not like full sun, its leaves curl up, but is growing rapidly in part sun.

It is probably ready for bigger pot. Should I keep it going as potted plant another year or plant it into ground soon?

[johnw]

Seedling nitidas an inch high come through the winter in the city here but you may have to protect your small seedling in the countryside. Voles go for roots and tops I think they're fine once a metre high.

[dependable]

If I plant it out where it won't get eaten, do you think it would be better off than inside in the same cool room it was in last winter? There is always a slight chance the cat will decide to shed it indoors.

[Tarzanus]

If you can place it somewhere with as much light as possible, without heating and with temperatures slightly above freezing (5 to 10C), that would be ideal. Next spring, after last freeze, you can place it outside, protect it against voles with wire mesh and hope for the best. It will love garden soil.