Colocasia gigantea seed pod looks strange

Did you wait for seeds to dry out or just throw them in dirt?

Lavina

I took them out of the pod, soaked them in water for a few hours, and then immediately put them on top of the soil. They sprouted and grew roots down into the soil. Usually spraying them would make bits of dirt cover the seeds too.

Another update. Some good and bad news. Bad first - my hodge podge container completely bit the dust - literally. I uncovered them for two days, and unfortunately they dried out so bad they were gone in no time. Humidity clearly important here - I should have known better. Argh

Good news is all the EE's I've been splitting off into their own pots are getting quite large now - and I'm hoping I can wait until spring to move the rest, or find a better humidity container to fit them all. Right now I'm using a plastic bag and a small cage to house those I've split, but I need a lot more room. And I am scared to leave them uncovered - I'm worried they'll wilt and die on me. I may give it another shot - some of these are getting to be a decent size now (maybe another month and I'll test them outside the hood).

Here's the tray - as you can see, not much has changed. Lost a few (either too dry, too wet, or something else). Most still seem to be OK and likely need to be moved, the soil has NO nutrients, so I suspect that's what's keeping them from growing.

And here's the babies that I moved back in early December (same as those seen in Dec 9 photo above). You can compare the size difference with some I just moved out Wednesday (quite the difference) considering they're the same age and all were grown in the same tray.

keon, You likely need to harden them off. When I propagate in plastic bags or sealed containers, I start by opening the bag to normal air fora few minutes,then close bag up. Gradually increase the time over the course of a few weeks. You probably knowthis, but I am stating this here in case this idea is newto others.

Thanks, I actually had not thought of that - that's an excellent tip. A nice way to slowly acclimate them to less humidity. Will give that a shot :)

So far so good.

When cats attack. One of our cats got in the room today while we were at work and did a number on some of my potted babies. I'm not sure about a few being able to recover being so fragile at this point. *sigh*

Will keep my fingers crossed on the others. Argh, very frustrating.

Sorry to hear about the cat attack. I hope some of them survive so the saga can continue and we can see how they grow and if they look different from each other as adults!

I saw this thread and decided to try growing some Maui Magic from seed from a pod I got before it started freezing here. I didn't rinse my seeds off first because they were so tiny maybe smaller than yours. I just smeared some on top of a few peat pellets and really didn't know if they would even come up..but they did!
In retrospect, I probably would have got better results had I rinsed off the seeds. They have tiny little roundish leaves. I had to keep a lot of humidity on them..it seemed when I took them out they didn't like it so I put them back into thier little greenhouse seed starter.
~Lenette

You have pics? It would be interesting to see them.

Thanks, guess I was putting the whole strongest survive theory in play, lol.

I'd also like to see the pics of your Maui Magic sometime.

keonikale, I had to laugh at the cat damage. You should see the number my female cat did to my largest Siam Ruby Musa...lol....she took out all the leaves but one and the whole top. I am just going to have to hack the whole thing down

the gigantea babies look good for having grown up over winter inside

Ouch, Siam Ruby's seem to be fussy to begin with too - mine died back to the corm in its pot this year, not sure why.

My brother suggested I try and give a very very small amount of fertilizer to the seedlings that are still in the black tray and refuse to grow any larger. Since I used a seed starter mix, it has no nutrients in it. Any one have suggestions on what I might try?

I keep hoping Spring comes early and that I can clear out my GH and just put them all out in there - the humidity would be great for them and I could start moving them into pots since I'd have more space. Right now I'm out of room for the pots and am having trouble keeping the humidity high in the winter.

I will try to get some pics and post them tomorrow. My camera isnt that great at close ups and they are tiny. They are green right now- I'm guessing the darker colors will come into the leaves later?

Okay here's the pics lol. I put several in diff. peat pellets. I tried to get close ups. The first leaves come out with two roundish leaves fused together. The next leaf comes out with a little more of a point at the tip.

Here is a different plant (same kind Maui Magic)

My Siam Ruby looks so bad I'm afraid it might not make it through winter even though I protected it. So I am ordering 3 more at the tropical agristarts co-op they have for Musa, Alocasia, Colocasia etc. right now on the co-op forum.

Those are Colocasias good luck. Would be interesting to see what comes of those.

Thanks I will take some more pics in a week or so. I just found another one that has a much more pointed second leaf with a tad bit of darker color to it ,so I will try to post that one when it gets a little bigger.
~Lenette

Looking good, thanks for posting those. Most of my larges ones seemed to have recovered from the kitty escapade, so I'm hopeful they'll all bounce back. Several of them are starting to get quite large, all things considered. Hope to put a few of these in the ground if they get a little bigger. EE's sure do grow fast once they get established.

Will take some new pics tonight. Ever since the kitty escapade and me moving them into the larger container, some of them exploded with growth. Looks like all those damaged are going to make it - they are tougher than I thought once they get out of the smallest stage. I tried a VERY light mix (drops) of miracle grow in some water spray, hoping to beef up the smallest seedlings left in that tray - at least until spring comes and I can move them into pots. If they don't respond, I may try a bit more. I'm worried they won't be patient forever - they seem to have maxed out growth wise in that tray. It's funny looking at the largest and smallest side by side and knowing they are the exact same age - they look like two different harvests months apart.

I have been potting tons of them as well.

OMG - tons might be an understatement, lol. Did you just sprinkle the seeds over the soil? How on earth will you separate all those - I had trouble separating just a few of them.

I have over quite a few trays like this. I put by hand clusters of 10 to 30 seeds per cell in each tray containing around 215 cells. I am currently repotting them up into trays of 94 cells with 1 plant per cell. It is not a easy task.

Here's a shot showing several of them at different sizes. Even the small one I split off from the tray a week and a half ago is already much larger than when I moved it. The long leggy thing in the middle is a Caster plant - which I just started last Sunday (now those things grow REALLY fast).

I swear now that I've got them in this new container the EE's get bigger by the day. At this rate they'll definitely be ready for the ground by April or May.

That just sounds like a lot of work Brian - but it's gotta be cool seeing all those little guys grow at once. This has been a really neat experiment for me, I never thought so many would grow (fingers crossed on those left in the tray).

Here's another closeup.

Brian, I had another question too. Why do these not pup? Or at least I assume they don't. Neither of mine did last year and that seemed strange to me for an EE. Almost all of my other Colocasia and Alocasia are more than happy to pup regularly.

keonikale, those are nice little plants. They sure did grow fast! I like the leaves they look thick and waxy. One has an interesting crinkled look to it.

Well I have a few theories on this plant. Their are two forms one that does pup and rarely if ever flowers and does not get large. The other form Thailand giant gets huge and rarely pups but often flowers. I believe the that the Thailand giant form is more common for the species and that it puts all of it's energy into forming a large plant and often self seeds which is also unusual for a colocasias. The other form I believe it is a odd seedling that originated from the Thailand giant form. This one is slightly genetically different possibly a mutation. From what I have seen it does not produce functional sexual parts. This and other reasons maybe why it puts more energy into suckering and producing offsets rather than forming one large plant.

Interesting, thanks - learned something new :)

I need to pot up some of these now. The poor things lol

Here is a better photo. These are still the Maui Magic babies.
~Lenette

I think this one has a nice darkish color for a little guy :)

WOW, I'm so impressed. It's been a while since I've checked in.

Keonikale, where in Columbia are you. If you need help growing those babies out and want to sell some, let me know. I love to start seeds and my colo and alocasias bloom but I've never gotten a pod.

a-t-b, good job!! And Brian, of course fantastic as usual. Update please.

The Giganteas were all grown out into 4 inch pots and are looking very healthy. Their are a ton of them and I have been scanning the seedlings looking for mutations and oddities. I have pulled a few with longer looking leaves as well as odd crinkles and some odd mutations that may stick. For the most part all of them look very similar but I believe their maybe a few with different habits possibly producing pups more easily or even producing runners. It will be interesting to see. I have seen runners produced on this species before but in most cases it only happens in perfect growing conditions. I will try to find the photo of this for those interested.

How exciting. You must have a greenhouse full if you potted up all those babies above.

I am so glad to have found this thread! With Keonikale's help, I located a seed pod on my TGEE this morning and am currently separating the hundreds of seeds from the little raisin-like pods attached to the main pod. Tedious doesn't begin to explain this process! LOL

Any ideas on storing these seeds? Do they keep in a cool/dry setting? Fridge? Suggestions?

Clearly, I found some answers to my questions, LOL. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1073536/

That's awesome, they'll really start to take off soon. I found out I could grow mine almost completely submerged in water once they got a little bigger than what you have now. You'll soon have more than you know what to do with :)

I unfortunately lost a lot of mine last year just because I got so distracted with RL events. Most of what I planted the mole crickets in my yard ate up. The few I had left in pots I think I under-watered this winter and/or accidentally left outside too long and they died off. I have a few left though from my seeds and I already purchased some new ones, so I'm hoping next fall I'll get another bloom.

It's fun creating so many EE's from such tiny seeds.

Well, I'll be down your way in a few weeks (Darlington Race Mother's Day weekend). If you want to meet me there, I'll be happy to bring you a few. We're rolling into town Friday night (when traffic isn't bad), and leaving Sunday morning to head back to Raleigh.

The three TGEEs I had last summer are showing no signs of life. I left them in the ground with some mulch, but maybe not enough. Not sure yet. I'm always worried about the stuff in the ground because my other EEs in my pots are already coming up, but I need to keep in mind the ground takes longer to heat up than the potted ones.

I have tons of cannas coming up now though in the same area as the TGEEs, so I guess we'll see.