Colocasia Breeding pics

Here are some pics you cannot find on the net. I have never seen a picture of a colocasia seed or of the fruit. I have seen drawings and thats about all their is. In this thread I go through how to clean colocasia seed and prepare them to grow as well as storing pollen for later use.


This first pic is me collecting pollen. Pollen is very important for a breeder. The problem here is I have pollen but only a few plants able to use it so now I must store the pollen to use maybe months from now. The best way to do this is to refrigerate the pollen in a test tube. Labeled and sealed it can be stored for up to 3 months enough time for me to use it on a few other flowers.

This pic shows the male section of the flower removed with spath and spadix inside next to the test tube.

This is a pic of the pollen as well as the spadix in the test tube. The pollen is still being dropped from the spadix that is why I kept it in with the the rest. Using a paint brush I can now use this pollen whenever I have a flower ready for the next few months. Giving me a much larger window of opportunity.

After pollinating waiting months and taking years to perfect. I have now been more productive in my Colocasia breeding. Last year I had one flower head and sprouted over 200 seeds to have only 5 live. This year I have over 15 seed heads and hope to do much better with seed development.

This picture may not look like much to most people but it thrilling to know what it holds. This is a seed head off of Colocasia black magic. It was crossed with two plants Colocasia pink china and Colocasia milky way. I am hoping for hardier colocasias and maybe just maybe one with black leaves and white spots. In each berry you see it can hold 1 to over 40 seeds.

Great pics and info, Brian - do you have to dry the pollen & spadix before closing in the test tube? Do you store in the fridge?

Thanks!

I do not dry to pollen I do add a piece of paper or paper towel to reduce condensation. It is placed in the fridge yes. I have heard of storing long in the freezer but have not tried it but twice on Amorphophallus pollen and it did seem to work on that hybrid.

In this pic you get to see the seed at the end of a pen. These seeds are very very small and hard to work with when young.

This pic shows what one berry can hold as far as seeds. 40 seeds were inside this one fruit. This means if I am able to keep out fungas attacks I should have a few acres of Colocasia hybrids next spring.

Great info, Brian. I'm always drooling over your ee's. I'm gonna short out my keyboard one of these days if you keep this up. LOL

BC

This last picture shows me cleaning the seeds in water. Usually the good seeds will sink to the bottom. I counted well over 200 possible 500 seeds from this one seed head. If this average is about right with the rest 15 seedheads I could have 7500 seedlings.

Wait - those teeney weeney itty bitty seeds make those HUGE Elephant Ear plants???? And then you have plants like lotus, cannas with big seeds that make normal size plants? WOW!

This is just as exciting for me as it is for you. I should have some amazing hybrids in this bunch and I am actually still breeding with plants in the greenhouses so I may have more to work with in the spring. Breeding is a whole new area of collecting for me. I dealing with plants that have never existed till now. Their is something to it like christmas you think you know what your getting but it usually ends up a big suprize in the end. If all I could do was collect then I think I would have out grown the hobby portion of it long ago. With breeding like this I have no end in sight.

I think seed size depends on a few things. Bananas have fairly small seed. It manly depends on how the seeds are getting transported. These are most likely eaten by brids or small animals and carried far off to start a new crop. But with some species like Colocasias berries and seeds are very rare. Philodendrons can get leaves 6ft or larger and it's seeds are about half the size of the colocasia seeds. Many large plants come from very small beginings. Tree ferns are started from spores.

Great! 10:00 in the morning and my brain has already popped! I forgot all about tree ferns. They are still ferns.... !!!WOW!!!

Great information, Brian. I wish I had seen this a couple of days ago. I planted the whole berry. Maybe i need to dig them out and try this. LOL

Fabulous pictures and information. You've got my attention and I'm definitely going to give this a try.

Can you give us a tutorial on applying the pollen to the flower?

Thanks

This information is not hard to come by. Aroid or plant in the araceae family have very uncomplex flowers. The flowers can be any size and range in color usually green to yellow white and sometimes red. The most noted flower is of course Amorphophallus titanum. But most all aroids use the same flowering system. When you see a flower its usually covered in as special leaf call the spath this is to keep out water dust as well to show off the flower. In side this covering you will find the spadix. The spadix if sectioned off into three groups the top portion is the male the mid section is sterile and the bottom section is female and holds seed producing area of the plant. If you are to breed a aroid you must get pollen from one plant to the female area. Sounds easy enough well their are a few things to worry about. Timing is everything put it on to early it does not take pollen gets old fast. Put it on to late and they are not receptive. You can usually tell if a flower is ready by smelling most aroids have a smell some are good like fruit others are bad like dead animals. The thing to do is to get pollen from a aroid in the same section or species as the one flowering place it on the female area when its smelling its best or worst.

In most cases the female section is first to be receptive then the mid section is tighten up and the top section releases its pollen. This tightening is to prevent self pollination which means the plant just had sex with its self. Macrorrhiza is well known for this thus the seeds on plants that have not been pollinated by other plants. Seeds are you best source for new plants even selfed seeded plants. But with pollen from other plants crossed on to a new plant your sure to have something completely new. Even if the cross has been done many times each new seedling is new in its own way. Much like cannas non are true from seed they are all genetically different when grown from seed.

Thank you Brian, that makes it sound simple. Now I have to wait for blooms (next summer I guess).

Like ahelms I didn't realize there could be more than one seed/fruit.
I planted the whole berry from my A. odora..
But I have sprouts coming up so........Lucked Out?

Great tutorial Brian!
Thanks!
Ric

I hope I'll be lucky and get sprouts, Ric.

Brian, I planted 4 different kinds of EEs in one pot and close to the end of the season I had a so called flower come up from the black stemmed EE..Im not even close to trying anything with pollinating...it was just cool to see it....Judy

It took almost 4 weeks for the first sprout.
Another 2 for the second.

Ric

Thanks Ric. I have awhile to wait. LOL

Alocasia seed a bit bigger and a bit easier to handle. I would still take them out of the berry. The berry is used to entice a animal to eat it and it is full of sugars and other compounds. If left on it can create fungus easily when removing the berry from the seeds it is simulating the digestion which cleans the seeds.

Brian
How large do you let the seedlings get before transplanting?

Ric

First seed is now sprouting notice the small leaf in the photo. It;s very small the trays should being to fill up with small leaves in the coming weeks of new hybrids.

How exciting. I found some online and plan to get them started today. Any tips? and how long should I expect it to take??

putting the pollen on the flower. The top portion of the flower produces the pollen. On this flower here it was removed so not to selfpollinate. The bottom section is were the seeds will form if pollination is done correctly. You should notice the berries swelling up if it takes.

I have not seen any germination on my seeds above that were planted Nov 5. How long do they generally take to start? Should I count them out?

Most should sprout in 1 month or less. They need to be planted as soon as possible the longer you wait the less chance of them growing. Alocasia seeds usually sprout in 2 to 4 weeks.

Thanks for all the info, Brian. But I dunno.....sounds too complicated for a newbie like me.
But I do have a question: if I keep the spadix off this bloom....gather up the pollen in a test tube......next bloom that comes along....can I use the pollen I've saved?