Is this normal for tropical lilies?...Kat?

[greenthumbnails]

I live in Florida zone 9a or 9b.
This year after the winter I lost 3 parent blink tropical plants.  The plants had rotted in their pots after the winter. I found only one tiny tuber in one of the pots and I am not sure if it is even going to sprout.  Is this normal?  I only noticed this with my Blink tropicals, and my Ostara (but at least it had a decent tuber in the pot).  Strangely the one Blink Vivip that I had grown out survied the winter and has sensor pads out.  If the Blink is so sensitive to the cold then how is it that the vivip survived?  In the same pond and depth as the ones that did not. 

I had those parent plants in huge pots (maybe about 1-2 gallons).  The vivip was in a large dixie cup.  Do you think its because it was in too large of a pot that it was not stressed enough to form a tuber for the winter? 

Kat- If your tropicals are in large 1 gallon pots are you still getting tubers?

[Kat]

I've heard that viviparous lilies are harder to get to make tubers/corms.  I've tried Blink 3 times now, even had a decent sized parent plant last year.  It failed to make tubers & I have a hard time getting even decent sized viviparous starts to prosper.  So I don't know what the trick is in getting it survive.  I also had a bunch of Islamorada plants, even blooming size that didn't survive this past winter since I didn't have enough room to put them in one of my coldframes.  I've found with young viviparous plants in dixie cup sized pots that I'm able to get them to come back the next year if in my warmer coldframe.  It could also be that I'm giving too much fertilizer to the parent plant & it doesn't feel it needs to kick into survival mode.

With any new tropicals I'm getting in, I start them out in a small pot with very little fertilizer (sometimes no fertilizer) in hopes of crowding it/starving it into that survival mode of making corms. 

I had ordered some lilies one year & when they came in they had HUGE long growing stem (not sure this the correct word for it) & I planted them in big pots in order to fit their root system.  Big mistake.  They didn't tuber & what I probably should have done was float them in order to try to force them into making tubers.

Did you know that if you get viviparous pads with well developed nodes you can baggie them with pond water & a decent sized air pocket, float them in the pond, change the water every couple days, & you'll get faster growth of the viviparous part of the pad?

Hopefully Sean, Craig, or someone one with more experience than I will chime in to help us get our viviparous lilies to corm/tuber better.

BTW, Ostara does tuber/corm easily.

[enzo]

This method works for me with Lindsey Woods, Blink, and Queen of Siam:

http://utopiaaquatic.com/nymphaea-fidelity/tropical-water-lilies/stimulate-tubering-in-tropical-water-lilies-with-a-drought

[greenthumbnails]

Kat & Enzo thanks for your posts!

[Jonna]

I have a similar question, how do I reproduce tropicals if it never gets very cold?  I don't really want to put them into stress mode because I'm afraid of losing the only ones I have and I can't easily get others.  I tried separating the tiny plants that formed on the bottom last year but very few of them survived.  Will they never form tubers if they continue growing and blooming all year?

[Kat]

Several great articles at Victoria-Adventure.  If you ever see tiny plantlets, you really need to leave them attached until they are big enough to survive on their own.  I've tried growing a really small Foxfire & it didn't work out.

http://www.victoria-adventure.org/waterlilies/cultivation.html

[gander]

vivip babies started from leaves are hardier than the parent plants here in Oklahoma. I always had tons of lavender lace and Tina when I first started playing with tropical water lilies. I had so many that I would leave them out over winter and the babies always came back but not the parents..I nver did get a vivip baby on my blink at all.

[Jonna]

It was Foxfire I was trying with the plantlets as well Kat.  I'll leave them on longer this time.

[Kat]

Gary I had some really nice sized viviparous plantlets from the pads from Blink, but most of them didn't grow.  This year I'll try them in a shallow pond by themselves with full sunlight if I've got the room.  Maybe they just got crowded out by the Islamorada starter vivips.

I usually won't pull a tropical plantlet off of the parent plant until there are at least 2-3 surface pads & a decent root system started.  Or if they've got their own tuber to feed from.  Otherwise I just don't have success with them.

[greenthumbnails]

Gary I had some really nice sized viviparous plantlets from the pads from Blink, but most of them didn't grow.  This year I'll try them in a shallow pond by themselves with full sunlight if I've got the room.  Maybe they just got crowded out by the Islamorada starter vivips.

I usually won't pull a tropical plantlet off of the parent plant until there are at least 2-3 surface pads & a decent root system started.  Or if they've got their own tuber to feed from.  Otherwise I just don't have success with them.

I had put something like 10 vivip starts in their own dixie cups and put them in the bottom of a 20 gallon bucket from Walmart/Lowes during the summer.  Many had sensor pads, but like Kat's failed to grow much.  There were only about 3 or 4 that actually had pads grow to the surface and 3 actually flowered.  I gave 2 away but am glad I kept two or I wouldn't have any Blink left this year since I lost the parents.  I did have a lot of hornswort in that bucket though so I too might have had a crowding problem. 

Kat, I accidentally pulled the little plantlet that sprouted from my unknown dark pink cup NB I got from you last year.  It only had one sensor pad developed at the time and barely one root... :'(  I hope it survives.  I still have the little tuber though that it got seperated from. 

[Kat]

Float the tuber in a plastic baggie (like a mini greenhouse).  Change the water at least every other day.  You should see some growth from the tuber fairly quickly since it already showed growth.