Went to a meeting of the Baltimore AVA and Paul Sorano of Lyndon Lyons was there. He is a close friend of one of the members. Here name is Marie Barns. I found out that she has won 5 national champion awards from AVSA.
Two points from the meeting.
1. I brought one of my questionable plantlets with me to get some advise about what was wrong with it and what I should do. The business of the meeting was about the show and sale in May. When the discussion went to plants for sale one of the women mentioned that she had problems with tight centers and didn't know if she would be able to provide the 200 plants that she had promised. Mr. Sorano said that many of the growers were having that problem this year. I raised my hand and held up my sightly sealed ziplocked bagged plant. He took it to the bathroom for good light and to open the bag so the plants in the room would not be exposed to any potential harm. He examined it for quite awhile and them said that it was suspect but he did not know what it might be. He leaned toward mites or a virus and hoped it would be mites. He suggested tossing the plant if I wasn't attached to it. I asked about my collection and he said not to worry. The plant I showed him was very green and healthy looking except for the tight center. Mites travel only when there is not enough juices to keep them happy. He said to keep a watchful eye on the other plants. If the problem begins to appear with the mature plants, spray with Avid. I told him that I wasn't able to buy it and he recommended Kelthane.
Also talked about a virus that has wiped out several growers. Thrips spreads the virus as they moved from flower to flower and from plant to plant.
Here's an important piece of information. Mites and diseases can continue in the leaves. When you plant an infected leaf the plants produced will be infected. Although it was never said, it was implied that I had probably received some bad leaves. SOOOoooo, be carefull and as Allison says "Keep everything new away from your healthy plants until you know the new additions are healthy."
2. The main part of the meeting was about propagation of chimera. They defined a chimera as a plant that can only be reproduced by sucker or flower stem. The pinwheel bloom is not the criteria any longer because several growers are working with the chimera effect on the leaves of plants.
Marie, ( we were at her home) demonstrated both processes. She took a beautiful flowering plant (everyone gasped) and removed all the flower stems. Then removed the blooms from one stem, pinched the stem to about 1 to 3/4 inch and nestled it in the soil. (that is bloom stem prop). Next she removed the middle leaves around the crown of the mother plant leaving about 4 or 5 leaves to the crown and about two good rows of outer leaves. The leaves were removed with an exacto knife. She then removed the crown with the exacto knife and planted it very snuggly in the soil. Both plantings, the bloom stems and the crown, were planted in a small plastic salad container that you get from the salad bar at the grocery store. The mother plant was then bear in the middle and ready to produce suckers. She had another mother plant that had a full head of suckers on it. She then removed one of the suckers from the second mother plant and took off two of its outer leaves so the sucker had a neck and planted it in the same salad container.
It was very interesting and helpful to see everything being done and then be able to go to the table and look very closely at the results of the demo. The mother plant that had the suckers on it had been producing suckers for over a year. Marie said a good mother plant would produce 25 to 30 plants and that the sucker method was much faster than bloom stem.
It was a lovely evening. My friend and I enjoyed ourselves very much.
Hugs and kisses
Nanna
Paul Sorano Discussion on Chimera Propagation
Additional information. Needless to say, when I got home I chucked anything that looked suspicious.
thats very interesting Nanna.Thanks for the info.
Thanks for the info. Sounds like a very interesting meeting.
Nice fun interesting meeting Nanna ! Thanks for sharing with us. virus's are very bad and their not new. You can pick-up a 40 year old AV bokk and read the same thing. You can't do anything about your AV's having a virus other than throwing them away and it spreads fast and easy.
Not just by Thrips though Thrips carry very bad virus.
If you had this virus chances you would have to throw away all your plants.
Mildew, fingus, algea can cause virus too. Thought certian things might not be bad for AV's like Mildew ... but the reason's why you got them . The reasons why you got them is dangerous to your plants.
Nanna Jill ordered 8 OZ/ of Avid. smallest size she could . she was thinking she could sell some to help her with the high cost. My two cents if you think some of your plants have or had mites even if you thre some swayI'd treat them. .
Now on to Chimeras. I did that method to a couple beautiful Chimeras to grow suckers. I killed the plamts
Now I have been Blessed with suckers And bloom stalk basket
Nana, what a great meeting! Do you know if normal (not chimeras) AVs can be propagated using the flower stem method?
Yes they can, Spider07. All you need is the two lateral leaves on the flower stem. There is a thread about that.
The thread is called Bloom stock propagation. I bumped it for you
thank you Nana!
I had wondered about the leaves from diseased plants, it makes sense, but I was sort of thinking that you might be safer buying leaves vs. buying plants, but no. Thanks.
I use to think leaves were safer April but now I know their not.
Spider Nanna did bloom stalk thread with pictures and I did Bloom Stalk Basket baby with pictures thread. I'll see if I can find it.
Question: how far away is safe to keep plants isolated?
My personal opinion is a different room. Marie would not allow the ziplock bag to be opened in her living room where some of her plants were. She sent Paul to the bathroom.
Yes it correct. Though if you work on the , or work outside in the gardens bed , they say change your clothes wash your hands take a shower wash your hair. So it can get hard. I have to use a mini green house or other room. Now I got a bunch of plants the other day and I had hubby take everything off the TV entertainment center. It's by windows and I can keep them all on this. I also took the plants a part they got new bleached pots, they got washed with warm/hot water and dish soaps, the got sprayed neem oil. You can also bag them.