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Sender: Craig Smith
Subject: Re: Tuber Storage Question
[Moderator's note: Craig's note was sent to the list when he first posted
it, but for some reason appeared to have come from me (Steve) and was
preceded by several paragraphs of list processor formality. I hope this
was due to the list problems we had during that time, and that this
reposting will come through normally.]
Mr. Fisk and Others,
I posted this note last weekend but have not seen it on the Aroid list or=
received any comments. Since I had problems with my mail at about the
same time, I checked with someone on the list and they had not seen it
either - so I am reposting it. Sorry if it is a duplicate.
I too have experience only with A. Konjac (Rivieri) over the last 20
years. For many years I tried to grow them indoors and was rewarded with=
lots of offshoots but only one “flower”. On the screen porch I got
somewhat larger plants but again not flowers. With the short growing
season, windy summers and cold winters, it took a long time for me to
decide to get a really large pot and try one outside. Wow, what a
difference. First year the result was a much larger tuber - but no
flower. But the next year the tuber was bigger still and I had flowers
on two plants. In the course of all this, I have stored tubers in
several ways.
- Just leave them in the pot and wait for spring when the tip starts to
grow
- I usually dig them up to see what they have done over the summer and
how many offshoots there are. And sometimes I just replant a few in the
pot and wait till spring
- I have buried the tubers in peat moss in the cellar (65 degs) and
moistened them a couple of times
- I have left them out on some newspapers or on top of a bed of peat
The results have been the same. The last couple years I have had bigger
flowers each year in proportion to the size of the tuber. I’ve never had=
one rot and they don’t seem to shrivel up much if at all. I have noticed=
that they grow best / largest if I plant them in individual pots. Even
out in the garden in more sun is not as good. When I used to plant a
large tuber and a few smaller ones in a pot because they look nice as a
little forest, the large tuber doesn’t seem to grow nearly as large.
This last year I put about a 3-4 inch diameter tuber in a 10 inch plastic=
pot in May and by September it split the pot up one side it was so big.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Craig
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