Green is good

[vft guy in SJ]

Back in late October I recieved some D. scorpioides gemmae from BCK which I sowed and put into my seedling tank. Out of 10 gemmae I had 7 actually sprout and grow. The other 3 remained on the surface of the soil and never did anything. About 4 days ago while watering I decided to top water the pots of scorpioides which washed the unsprouted gemmae around in the pot. Today I looked into the tank and low and behold, one of those unsprouted gemmae has decided to sprout now.

I never would have figured that 3 month old gemmae would still be viable. Guess I was wrong lol. So if you have any unsprouted, but still green, gemmae in your pots dont give up on em yet you may be in for a pleasant surprise..

Cheers
Steve

 

[noah]

Hi Steve,

Good to know! Most likely the sprouting was triggered by something, in this case probably the moving water. This is the reason for the squirting of gemmae that Tamlin encourages in order to mimick rainy conditions. Too often we assume that all a plant needs to grow well are the "obvious" things- nutrients, water, sufficient light, etc, when in reality there are many more subtle things at work that send the plant messages - slight changes in photoperiod, breezes, rain, and others. How much we humans have to learn!

 

[homer]

I have found that top watering helps encourage growth as well. I've had a few stubborn gemmae that just sat there while the others around it grew. Misting the gemmae every few days seemed to get things moving along.

-Homer