Why did they die?

[ktulu]

When i looked at my plants today i was shocked to see that all four of my small D. anglica are brown and wilted.  Just the yesterday i was looking at them and they looked fine, a few had one dead leaf on them, but they all had new grown coming from the crown.

I have no idea why they died, the conditions where they are grown have not changed at all in the last 3 months since they germinated.  I have no idea why all 4 of my plants died over night either.  Does anyone know what would cause a sudden die off like this.  The only thing i can think of is the temps in here are getting a bit cooler, but they are from Alaska, so the cold shouldnt kill them right.  Plus it wasnt that cold the rest of the plants around them are doing fine, infact the rest of the plants are growing like mad.

If anyone knows what would cause such a sudden die off i would really appreciate it if you could tell me why they died like this.

Thanks in advance
Ktulu

 

[Vic Brown]

Rather than too cold, I think perhaps your plants are too warm. My own D. anglica, from the UK, formed their hiburnaculae (winter-resting buds) over a month ago. My plants are outside, the soil was frozen on the surface when I took the picture below, just now, of the hiburnacula of a fairly young plant. Plants from Alaska presumably go dormant much earlier and experience much colder conditions in nature than mine. Are your plants under natural light or artificial? They would need a fairly drastic reduction in day length too in order to form hiburnaculae under artificial lighting.

D. anglica hiburnacula

Vic

 

[ktulu]

Thanks for the response,
They are under artificial lights with a photo period of about 14 hours, so im pretty sure they are not trying to go dormant. Also it dosent look like they formed hiburnacula as they had new growth coming out that looked like leaves forming. plus would they have gone from green to black in one day if they were going dormant?

Thanks agian
Ktulu