Might any of you tuberous aroid growers out there have any secrets for growing larger tubers? My main area of interest is amorphophallus..
I know high phosphorous fertilizer.. and big pots ... Anything else ?
Chris
Tuberous aroid lovers.. getting bigger tubers.. secrets?
The secrets to big tubers. Well good feeding good room to grow are all major componets to large tubers. The one I don't see mentioned very often is pup removal. What I mean by this is by removing sucker pups or runners from your main tuber you get more energy to focus on the main tuber creating a much larger plant. But their are somethings that can mess this up. If your plant flowers in some cases it causes large tubers to divide in two. Also if your center growth shoot gets damaged this can also cause it to divide. I have had some huge Konjac and paeonifolus tubers and as they get larger they also have a tendency to want to rot. They will not be as hardy in the ground sense they are full of much more water. Every season I dig mine up and clean off any sucker this will allow you to get nice 10lb pluse tubers out of them. If left alone you will get a big pot full usually one main plant with tons of smaller plants. But doing that you will not see as many flowers nor will you get the plants 10ft.
pic of the stems this is the same plant as pictured above but in leaf from. It grew about 8 to 9 ft tall. After flowering the tuber divided into three large tuber. I put them in the ground last year and they are all about 1 to 2 ft wide tubers.
Oh my god Brian !! I have attempted to grow Paeoniifolius here in the seattle Wa. area... I had no luck at all ! It seems to want much more growing time than our weather can give it . I have heard from other northern gardeners who have the same problem with paeoniifolius .. It is probly my favorite .. but I cant seem to keep it alive.
So for me its pretty much the easy ones ... Bulbifer.. konjac .. henryii .. albus .. napalensis .. etc
Brian had any experience with A. Symonianus?.. if so .. any tips ?
Chris
Symonianus is very easy just like bulbifer. The main difference is the tubers that are produced on the stems will mature inside the stems rather than on top like bulbifer. Once it does dormant the stem falls over and the tubes will fall to the ground. Here is a pic. The problem with these aroids and your first question is. These amorphophallus besides konjac will not get very large. Paeonifolius can get huge but bulbifer and symonianus will only get about 6ft tall tops and the flowers rarely get very large compared to the others. I grow about 50 varieties of amorphophallus and most are not the large growers. Some of the extremely rare forms are now fairly easy to find at good prices. Years ago titanum was impossible to find now it is everywhere at a very cheep price. The thing is plants like this come and go you may see them everywhere one year three years from now no one has it forsale. Just the way the market is with them.
here is a pic of symonianus
Here is my amorpho beds in the greenhouse. The beds are so full of tubres they are everywhere. I will probably clear it out a lot this year to full really. I have two beds like this. what zone are you ? You maybe able to keep some out in the ground.
