What is the highest "water" temperature, tropical w.liliy tubers can tolarate?

[tugo]

For the minimum water temp have found several information but for the "maximum" water temperature could not find any info.
Your personal experiences will be appreciated. Thanks.

[miguynmkoi]

When I first started growing all the decadent varieties of lilies from Kat I started them in a kiddie pool with about 8" sides and about 4' in diameter.  It sat in full sun on cement.  The water got too hot for feed fish and mosquito fish (cooked!) but the lilies were fine.  The water felt like a good warm bath.  I would occasionally put an umbrella over the pool during the hottest period of the day so the new fish would survive the heat.  Sorry I don't have the temp for you.

[landey1230]

When I first began water gardening, I used a large tub of water to place a couple of hardy water lilies.  The summer temps ran up to 110+ that year.  They didn't survive the heat.  I need to have the water circulating in order to keep the water temps down.  Hope that helps. 

[CoolShades]

The answer it depends.  In general tropicals do better than hardies in warmer water.  Some questions though...how deep is your pond?  You will get significant thermal gradients for every foot deeper you go.  At my families nursery in the Redlands (Near Homstead where there are over 2000 registered growers) the air temperatures in the summer never went below 90 with water temperature 78-84 F.  The lilies are not as prolific, but they still  out perform hardies.  We had over 30 varieties of Tropicals with typical stock around 5,000 lilies.  However, the lilies do produce more tubers and we were frantically propagating during the Summer, i.e. the real season in South Florida is February - end of May and Septemeber through November.  Note the crew including me worked from 3 AM to 10 AM and late evening 7-10 PM to beat the heat.  Not a job for the faint at heart. 

What always unnerved me was running into the Pygmy rattlers on the drive on the way to the ponds.

[tugo]

Thank you all for your detailed posts..
I got several trop.tubers some days ago, small but with 1-2 leaves and some even with 1-2 buds.
Could not place them into my main pond because of the Mr.Koi. They are in a kiddy pond with water abt 2” over the soil level.
Yesterday when I checked the tubers, almost all had started giving white roots and new floating leaves  but the existing leaves and buds were falling down ( 4 days in the post ).

Water temp was over 96F ( 36C ) in midday . (Today it is raining:)))

What worried me was that the tubers were getting a bit softer.
In this case do you recomend me to move the tubers out into plain water in shade, till they get better or any other solution?
Thanking in advance.


 

[Sean]

No, just raise the water level to at least 8" up to 24 inches above the soil, The roots and tuber do not need to be exposed to the sun, they will benefit from being deeper and allowing the pads to climb up to the surface.
A water temp over 96 will not affect them adversely but you must remember, the warmer the water the more fertilizer they will use, warm water and fertilizer = high vigor.

Cheers,
Sean

[turtlemike]

   It is HOT here for the last few days and I have trop tubers in black shallow tubs in full blazing sun in 98 degree air temps and high humidity all day long. The water gets so hot that it almost burns my hand to sitk it in there. Definitly to hot for a bath or at least you would have to be pretty tough and inch your way in over time.

  I haven't killed any with heat yet.

[tugo]

Thank you both, also.

It is a very good feeling to learn somethings new and proceed your way with necessary knowledge
given by the people who have experience.