De-eyeing your Caladiums discussion

Ok, continuing on. Hope I got the right names to the right questions. If I don't forgive me.

Marie... Think it was you asking about removing just the leaf. I got a reply and no it willl not work. Basically it is the same as what I said, plus what the article reads. When you remove the eye a whole different chemical proces s kicks in to make any eyes grow. This will not happen when just the leaf is removed.

Now if your worried about trying to get the eye out, just think of your Caladium as a potato. Maybe some of you folks do this when you cook potatoes with the skin on. I leave the skin on but use a knife to cut the tiny eyes out in a tiny circle so I am not eatimg the new leaf trying to emerge. Your going to be kinda of doing the same thing with your Caladium. Instead of using a knife it might even be easier to a small melon scoop if you have one. That way you can kinda scoop around the eye and get the apical dominant tissue out.

Pril.... Depending on what type of bulb it is and what it looks like, depends whether I leave a bulb out or not. If I have like for example on my Gingers and Canna, no eyes showing, I will let them sit out. The light will start the bulb to try and get some eyes going. Just found out you can do this with Dahlias too. ( New to huge Dahlia tubers.)

Once I se e an eye developing on a bulb, then I plant it. The reason being this. The bulb will sit there and the light is getting that eye to start to leaf out so it can start to photosynthisize and make sugars, but in the meantime, the bulb is using all its stored energy to produce that eye. The eye can only feed the bulb for so long.

If you plant the bulb as soon as you see the eye emerging, then the the bulb realizes hey I am in the dark, I can't see , let me grow some roots to take a look around with and grab some nutrients while I am at it with these new feelers I growing. The roots will anchor the bulb, provide the necessary nutrients that the bulb wil need to push out thoses leaves, but it will also create a reservior to help produce a stronger plant and better blooming.

With the bulbs, your right, it so easy to over water or under water and rot them out. When I first started workign with bulbs I found a good way is when ya first going to plant, take your soil media and get it damp , put it in a bucket or wheelbarrel if your doing alot and moisten really good. You should be able to feel the dampnes but if you can pick up the soil and have water dripping off your finger s it too much. Let it dry a bit.

Then plant your bulb. after you plant your bulb, water it til the water runs through real good if your doing it in a pot. If in the ground, give it a good soaking. This will set the bulb and it gives it enough wate r to rehydrate it and start some life back into them.

if you are a person who has a tendency to overwater, then build a little mound to put your bulb in. That will allow the exces s water to run off from the bulb and the roots.

if your a person who tends to under water, or not sure when to water, then get you a popsicle stick or one of them wooden paint paddles from the store and just stick it down into the soil and pull it back out. I prefer the popsicle sticks. You can get a bunch from the craft department at Walmart and that way you have a clean stick for each bulb , so your not transmitting any diseases and then you can gather them all, dip in bleach water to sterilize and use again the next time. Also with the popscile sticks you don't go any deeper than most bulbs planted.

You will see the line where the soil is still moist. If the soil is moist , paticles will stick to it and be a darker
color. If the soil is dark in the top 4" you don't need to water. The roots are under the bulb, if you water then you take the chance of rotting your bulbs, drowing your roots and allowing pathogens to attack your bulbs.

Going back up to watering, if your using a pot, when you first put your bulb in before you give it a good watering, pick up the pot. You will feel how light weight it is. The after the good soaking, pick it up again. You can immediately feel the difference. When the pot feels really light then time to water. You can also run a popscile down the side of the pot too, and see the same water moisture line as if you had planted in the dirt. here, you only want some moisture mark showing to the bottom few inches of the pot then give a good watering til it runs through.

Riverland.... I believe in sharing. Your right, it a good thing to share your knowledge. Different soils and parts of the world all have different enviromental factors. What works for one in one part of the country may not even work around the block if all the conditions aren't the same. Our main goal is to grow nice healthy plants to enjoy and to share and the only way to achieve that is by everybody helping everybody else.

A way to look at it too , and this the pathologist in me, if I can help you save your plants and grow them healthy , or you can do the same for me, then that one less chance of a disease or pathogen affecting not only my crop , but my neighbors and those of whom I share and trade with as an average of 1/7th of all virus diseases are passed through seed transmission.

Thanks so much for the thread and the great info. You directions are very clear and complete. I love the popsicle stick method of checking the soil before watering. It's kind of like using a toothpick to see if a cake is done.

I'd make sure it was a small melon scoop.

Bill

Good analogy marie! Thanks, starlight - it's much clearer now.

Wouldn't the tip of a narrow peeler (as in peeling carrots) work well? It's smaller than a melon baller.

Bill. ... Your right. I have one that has a inch scoop and a tiny scoop on the other end. I use the tiny end. Maybe you know of somethign that would work better for them.

I know when I couldn't find my scoop I used one of them fingernail things that you push the cuticle back with. Have no ide a what it called. It has a shallow edge, gently curved and not very wide.

LOL Guess we all typing at the same time. Don't see why not. I don't have one of them and haven't use d one since I was a tiny tot, so I don't really even remember what they look like.

Ah, so I have 60 or so assorted Caladium bulbs I bought; should I do the de-eyeing before I plant mine? They are still in the bags.

This will be my first Caladiums, so be gentle.


Regards,
David

I like your sense of humor, David, and we will speak well of you in the morning - have no fear!

I use a small paring knife.

speckledpig: You can only de-eye a Jumbo or Grade #1 size bulb, I wouldn't recommend it for a Grade #2 or smaller. Which varieties did you get?

Bill

David... Yep. you wanna do it before planting. You might want to do some with de-eyeing and some with not, since your doing it for the first time.

Somethign I always do with all my bulbs especially, is giv e them a quick dip in chlorine/water bath. Your gonan be making a wound on your bulb. You don't want to giv e any diseases that hiding on the outside of the bulb a chance to get into that wound.

I would also recommend keeping a small glas s or something filled with alcohol next to you to when doing this and though it a pain, dip your scooper in the alcohol everytime you do a bulb to sterilize it before going on to the next one. Sometime s their latent diseases or you find you have a bulb that looks good on the outside but rotten inside and if you don't sterilize yoru equipment then you gonna spread disease to your other crops.

For thos e coming in on the tail end of this discussion, her e the link that started this conversation.
...
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/697761/

scroll down to March 07 post.

Bill,
I'm pretty sure they aren't anywhere near "jumbo"....maybe I'm off the hook! :)

Anyone have any pics to share of this eye removal process?

Bill - can you show us a photo that would exhibit the various sizes? Thanks, in advance.

Sizes:

If I could find my darn camera I'd be happy to post some pics. When I find the darn thing, I'll take a pic of a Jumbo, a Grade #1 and a Grade #2 next to a tape measure.

This is the grading scale I and a vast majority of the farms uses:
Jumbo's: 2 1/2" - 3 1/2"
Grade #1: 1 1/2" - 2 1/2"
Grade #2: 1" - 1 1/2"

No, we don't use a ruler or anythig like that when grading bulbs, it's all done by eye. You just know what a #1,#2 and a Jumbo look like after a while.

De-eyeing:

I'm looking for the site I had seen that showed a great demonstration on how to de-eye a bulb, I wish I would have bookmarked it now. I will if I can find the darn site.

Bill

The ones coming off the co-op are I believe 1-1.5

The notmartha co-op is for Grade #2 bulbs.

They're going to be really nice bulbs!!!, just not big enough to de-eye.
I wouldn't de-eye a #2, somebody else might but I wouldn't recommend it.

Bill

Bill - you're both a pleasure and a treasure! Thanks for all of your help. I'm sure many of us would like to contact you before we order any next January or February. When are your selections the greatest? December?

The thing about a potato is the eye and underlying tuber tissue taken with it will grow another tuber -- won't Caladiums do the same? Root in water?

There is a nice post by HollyAnn in the propogation forum describing this with Sweet Potato Vine.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/694728/

Suzy

yep.. Bill has some really nice stuff. Unfortunately I found his classified and after I had gotten in on the co-op, but I now know about his place.

A Caladium is similar to a potato and it isn't, it has alot of the same characteristics but I wouldn't put one in standing water.

Bill

No, not the tuber in standing water; I meant the eye you dug out should root in water and make a new plant.

Suzy

Well Bill, it's too late for me ... as soon as I read this about De-eyeing the caladiums, I went and got my 'very small' caladium bulbs. I keep them in my basement. Some had even begun to grow. I bought a bag of 30 from Walmart last year, very tiny. Got one leaf from each. when digging them up in the fall, I ended up with about 20.

Several were very easy to find the eye and de-eye it. After having that small amount of practice. I was able to find the main eye on all but 2 of them. Some of them I had to remove some of the old dead growth in order to find the eye.

So Bill, have I killed my tiny caladiums by forcing them to put out too much energy to produce a lot of leaves?
If so, then you may have a new customer next year. :o)

I'll try to remember to come back and let you all know.
toofew!

This message was edited Mar 14, 2007 10:43 AM

toofew,

It's not a good idea to de-eye a small bulb. Wait and see what happens. Those little dinky bulbs you get at Walmart aren't going to produce a lot of leaves anyway. I saw some at HD the other day and about cracked up, they wanted $2.99 for a bag with 4 bulbs that were what I would consider a "small" grade #2 bulb.

You get more bang for your buck with a Grade #1 bulb, you should see the plants you get from the Jumbo's!!

Bill

Bill, I picked the bag up late in the season ... it was discounted ... 30 bulbs for $5.00. Figured I couldn't go wrong. Really it was a waste of $5.00. They didn't look good with only one leaf and I doubt they will ever grow any bigger here in my climate, and then me digging them up and bringing them in for the winter. And I lost 10 of them. So now I have 20, wonder how many will be left in the fall?

Still, I will think of this as an experiment ... poor things.

toofew~