Pirl - my tuber trades have been all through the mail with folks like you that I "meet" on garden chat sites. I don't know any other Dahlia growers in my small town, other than the friends I have given my extras to. Shipping makes the actual cost about a dollar a tuber.
I have been using the saran wrap method for my tubers for 4 years now. After dividing, I dust the tubers with sulfur (shake & bake style) Then wrap them individually in saran wrap, and layer them into plastic tubs with newspaper in-between the layers. I keep them on the floor of my studio/workroom, which is a concrete slab (converted garage) room that is kept about 50 - 55 degrees in the winter, the floor is closer to 40 degrees. Last year I lost about 6-8 tubers to rot, out of over 250. Not bad I think. It takes a while to get them all labeled and wrapped, but it is much more successful for me that any other method I have tried.
I read recently that cinnamon will do as well as sulfur as an anti fungal treatment, it will be so so much nicer to work with than sulphur!
Apparently, Cafe Au Lait was featured by Martha Stewart in the last year or so, and the popularity went through the roof, which is why S.I will be able to sell them at such a high price. Its a nice flower, and a healthy plant, but like most of my lighter colored blooms it was hard to keep the bugs off of it, and it has not been a prolific bloomer in my garden.
