Connie, if you're seeing roots around the the inside, these Anacondas are getting close to shooting a leaf. A white leaf stem will snake around too, but you can tell the difference because it is larger in diameter. If and when you see that, you have to get busy fast. That's how I ended up potting that one pot ahead of the others--I saw four scales had bublets beginning to grow leaves even though the mother scale was fairly solid. Try not to have leaves anymore than half inch, inch at the most. No leaf is best. If you look close at that first pot--the one in the upper right, you'll see one bulblet had a leaf stem nearly two inches long. That seldom works well.

I planted many of these with the mother scale still attached. Kind of a judgement call. Normally I like to see the mother scale depleted but many of these bublets were developing ahead of scale depletion while some smaller ones still could use a little extra time.. So, I sprinkled Captan in my mix and crossed my fingers. No, not really. Actually, I know that I'll be alright as long as I keep them just barely moist.

Kind of a paradox isn't it. Most people would have probably called and asked for credit. Here we took it as a real opportunity to experiment and play around with it 'just for the fun of it all'. Now, what are we going to do with all these Anacondas anyway? I never even called them--did you? I forgot. I suppose I should--but they probably know by now anyway.

According to my little note on the baggie, I started incubation on May 4th, just under two months. I also had a note on the baggie that I had bleached the scale unit. I don't pay much more attention after that (my normol MO) because I have too many other plants to take care of . I really can't tell what is going on in the baggie with respect to how many and how big. I'm tempted to let them go a bit longer, maybe two more weeks.

A heat wave of close to 100 or more is expected by Tuesday and not much cooler in the following days. I moved all my potted seedlings to the front porch where they will have shade until very late afternoon. I have dozens of other potted plants to protect but I give the lilies the best place for protection. There just isn't enough room to baby everything!

I sure wish someone would scale an Awesome bulb and get some more of them circulating.

!

All I need is a couple scales and we're on our way!
Actually, I have 9 seedlings of Awesome X Emerald Angel from seed I got from Buggy (started 2012). There are a couple that look a little different than the others--different leaf syle--more Aurelian looking. So we'll see if those bare more resemblance to Awesome. I had 15 out of 20 seeds sprout, but the chipmonks got into that pot to bury Maple seeds. Why they picked that one pot out of about thirty to bury their seeds is beyond me!

Cloned Anacondas from spoiled bulb ( four pots)



Some still popping up here and there. Anybody want a cloned Anaconda?

LOL, Lorn, sure, if you can mail a whole pot all the way to Romania, the far-far away kingdom

From scale to bud in about 9 months!
Jan 19th, 2013
June 18th, 2013
July 25th, 2013
July 25th, 2013
Usually get a ladder the first summer but not a bud--a little unusual. It's a short version of L. Henryi.
Oh, the flowers in the background are disbuds that I use for vole bait.

This interesting write up describes the use of Oryzalin in tetra development with scales. It is pretty much the same as the write up in one of the NALS yearbooks, 93 or 94, I think. http://members.tripod.com/h_sy...

I think this is the next area of study I'll get into.

I'm also fascinated by this, and bookmarked that article. I even have a tiny little cache of oryzalin (life-time's supply!) given to me by a very generous orchid hobbyist (what the heck would I have done with five litres of the stuff from the rural suppliers!? ), but I haven't ventured in to actually trying it yet. It's daunting....

Though safer than colchicine apparently.

Let us know how your experiments go

Well, it shouldn't be daunting--it's stated as pet safe at even the recommended industrial dilution of 1 to 3 ounces/gallon. Here we're only working with a couple drops per gallon of extremely dilute solution. It's apparently not a very exact science with results all over the place as far as ploidy goes because scales don't develop all their bulblets at the same time and rate. Many bulblets could be undeveloped or over developed at time of exposure to Oryzalin resulting in a mix of ploid types. Identifying tetras from the resultant mix of ploids by existing methods used is not an exact science nor fool proof either. In any case, it would involve a large amount of scales from the same preselected cultivar and lots of pots, time, and ground space with an expected low yield of tetras.

I'm not surprised your orchid growing friend had Oryzalin. I just found out my orchid buddy has been experimenting with it too.

I also expect I'll have to buy another microscope because I do want to use stomata counts as one part of the identification process.

Up to my old tricks again! I put 12 bags in incubation today. I did only 4 back-ups this year, the rest are mine. Only 4 left to do. These should be ready for the fridge around Christmas/ News Years time.



Last year I ran out of moss at a most inconvenient time, so this year I took the whole darn bag! 2.0 cu/ft bale bag.

I use cotton balls to vent the bags if I have a little too much moisture. These started to show condensation after 48 hours at 70' F. The cotton balls do a nice job of holding the bag open a little to let the excess moisture escape. The top row in the first photo are safety back-up of some Mak bulbs, should something happen to the original. The bottom photo shows what I mean by 'too much moisture'.

"These started to show condensation after 48 hours at 70' F."
---- "These" meaning the bags, not the subject of the previous sentence: the cotton balls.

This is a really good tip to have something to hold open the bag that often wants to close by itself. Not too much, not to little, and comparable throughout multiple bags.

I am curious, Lorn. How many scales do you put in one bag? It looks like those are 1 quart bags.

Six in a 1qt. bag max. I vary the amount of mix according to size of the scale. If I double deck scales as with a full scale job, I use the 1 gallon size. It's interesting to note that the bags with Mac scales have only 2 each and another one of mine I just put up this morning has only one scale, but that's all I could comfortably get without stressing the bulb and still not worry about it. These are all 1 qt. size bags.

My three little buddies--sitting right under my table where I can peek at them to remind me of spring. Actually, they are safety back up scale bublets of Longiflorum X Henryi that nursed all summer long on very large mother scales and didn't come up until October when the old scales became depleted. So, while all the other scale bublets and seedlings were going dormant nicely, these wanted new life and in spite of getting hit by a several freezes, these would extend more green in the meantime between frosts. I made the decision to bring them inside the first week of November. I'll deal with seasonal shifting later.

They look well-loved little companions!

They're going to need more light in short order. Geez, I frown when this happens; but when they started shooting up growth from the center, I didn't have much choice did I. I don't really like dragging out two more banks of lights for one single pot, but--I do enjoy peeking down at them every now and then. Good company! I think there's a pretty good chance that one or two of these may even shoot a bud or two.

I took a peek at the scales I have in incubation today. Things seem to be developing slower this year, but there are good signs of lots of movement in the bags where scales are being pushed up near the surface. I have a few bulblets at the surface which I don't like and had to spoon in more mix to cover them. Here's one I was happy to see, regardless.