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Starting seedlings with some help from friendly mushrooms

January 30, 2016 tarzan Comments 0 Comment

Bamboo seedlings sprouting among mushrooms

Last week, I started germinating the remaining Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seeds. I used cheap half composted potting soil that actually looks more like peat moss than soil. It works great for my seedlings when I mix it with sand and some garden soil. The last bag I bought was infected with mycelium and fungal spores that decided to start growing when I opened the bag and started using the soil. Even after a couple of months when the soil remained completely dried out in the corner, waiting for the next batch of seedlings, fungus remained active and when I started germinating the seeds, small mushrooms appeared all over the pot.

Albino seedling growing next to a mushroom

I don’t think there’s any symbiotic relationship, mycorrhiza, between fungus and the seedlings, but who knows they are not harmful to the plants and if nothing else, they help to break down the dead plant matter in the soil and unlock nutrients that can be used by neighbouring bamboo seedlings. I was thinking, if these small mushrooms can dwell happily inside the potting soil, there must be other, hopefully beneficial mycorrhizal fungi as well. I’ve seen there are several albino seedlings growing among the healthy bamboo seedlings, hopefully they can use symbiosis with fungi and live long enough to decide and become a nice variegated bamboo cultivars. 🙂

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Variegated Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedling

January 9, 2016 tarzan Comments 0 Comment

Transition from light green to variegated leaves

I’ve already been trying to figure out if one of the Phyllostachys arcana seedlings is variegated in one of my previous posts. Since then, the seedling remained variegated and new shoot(s) that appeared also showed the same pattern. Three months after germination, the variegated seedling started to lag a lot. It also shows a lot of issues that were never evident on any other non-variegated seedlings. Despite nearly identical conditions, variegated seedling only managed to push out 4 (quite weak) shoots. Two of them may actually be branches of the shoot. At the same stage shoots on green seedlings appeared at least three times thicker, grew faster and seemed much healthier. Seedling also couldn’t grow roots as fast as it’s green siblings and only managed to grow the roots enough to become visible through the drainage holes after 3 months. Green seedlings “colonized” their pots in around a month.

Compared to other seedlings, variegated Phyllostachys arcana did not take first re-potting well. None of the green seedlings had shown any signs of stress, on the other hand, the variegated seedling started wilting the leaves and further slowed down growth. I kept it shaded for a couple of days, so it had a chance to recover. After two days, I was able to expose it to strong growing light again without signs of stress, which means it was able to regenerate or replace the damaged roots relatively fast. Growth speed remained slow and like I already mentioned, roots needed at least a month after I placed it in separate pot to reach the drainage holes.

In the end it did start showing some increase in its growth speed just after it passed 3 months mark. It managed to put out two small and pale shoots at the same time. Shoots of non-variegated seedlings appear much darker green with a hint of purple. Shoots are much smaller and fewer in number, which can be expecte. Variegated seedling lacks a lot of chlorophyll which is present abundantly in the green versions of the Phyllostachys arcana seedlings. Increasing leaf mass should improve overall growth a lot in the following weeks.

Dark green vs. pale variegated seedling. Same age, same growing conditions.

Huge difference between green and variegated seedling

When culm sheath falls off, the culm is much paler than culms of green seedlings. It also gets ‘sunburn’ when culms are exposed to sun or strong growing light, but again, not nearly as intense and dark, possibly due to much brighter culm colour. Additional details about culms will become available later, when the stems get thicker. Possible sulcus colour will also start appearing when seedling matures enough.

Normal green seedling — Sunburn on normally green seedling

Gradual tanning of variegated seedling's culms — Variegated seedling

Interesting variegation pattern continues on all the new shoots. Leaves are less robust and are more prone to show drought damage.

Did any of you ever see a variegated bamboo (or any other plant), that changes leaf colour the same way. Usually the leaf emerges variegated and it doesn’t change it’s colour as it matures, this seedling, however, gradually turns from almost completely lime green to variegated colour. The stripes are visible from the beginning, but you have to inspect the leaf really closely to detect minor difference in colour, stripes appear a little bit darker than the rest of the leaf. First leaves on young shoots take longer to transform and then, each additional leaf seems to variegate quicker.

Despite the lack of overall vigour and relatively slow growth, it does upsize and increases the number of shoots

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Phyllostachys arcana Luteosulcata seedlings – part 2

December 18, 2015 tarzan Comments 0 Comment

Clump of young seedling's shoots — Clump of young seedling’s shoots

Like promised, here’s an update on my Phyllostachys arcana Luteosulcata seedlings. They all started shooting, even the most neglected ones in the back that get dried out occasionally and are growing much, much slower. The pot with two planted seedlings that is located directly under the light, has enough water and good drainage is performing unbelievably well. At this point it’s not possible to compare them to any of the bamboo seedlings I’ve grown in the past, Borinda fungosa was growing vigorously, but not nearly as aggressive as these seedlings. As soon as first shoots managed to grow first two leaves, the plants exploded with new shoots, this time, two or even three, combined with first sets of branches on original stems.

Only one shoot by now, but it's also showing variegation — Only one shoot by now, but it’s also showing variegation

The variegated Phyllostachys arcana Luteosulcata seedling is growing much slower, with only one shoot next to the original stem, but the shoot also shows signs of variegation, which is excellent news. Compared to other seedlings with 4 or more shoots, it’s rather slow, which can be expected from a seedling that is almost completely yellow with a couple of stripes on each of it’s leaves. There’s another issue with the pot it’s placed in – there are several seedlings growing in the same small pot and the soil often dries out too much. Other seedlings seem to take the drought way better than the variegated one that starts showing dry leaf tips instantly. When I plant them into separate pots, hopefully things will turn for the better. It’s growing nicely though, but it could do better.

In the near future I intend to get all the seedlings into separate pots and use trays to retain water longer. That should make the neglected seedlings take off and keep the variegated one from curling and drying leaf tips.

Hopefully variegated and normal seedlings in the same pot

In 2 months, roots were escaping from every drainage hole of the pot — In 3 months, roots were escaping from every drainage hole of the pot

Two seedlings in one pot got crowded way too soon

I tried placing two seedlings into milk carton that catches overflow water when I water the bamboo. It seems to work. These two bamboos are the most aggressive. I intend to use the same method with all my seedlings. On the bottom of the pot there’s a lot of healthy looking roots that don’t really seem to bother if they stay submerged in (non-aerated) water that flows into the milk container.

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Drosera capensis color

December 6, 2015 tarzan Comments 2 comments

D. capensis 'Alba' under grow light — *D. capensis* ‘Alba’ under grow light

As mentioned numerous times, I’ve used two LED chips as growing light for quite a while. To induce coloring on Drosera seedlings, I decided to use cool and warm white LED chip, and they worked good enough. The regular Drosera capensis seedlings were getting red tentacles, Drosera capensis ‘Alba’, on the other hand, remained white, despite showing some pink coloring while positioned outdoors for the summer. All the plants have been growing OK, but Drosera seedlings did suffer a bit when I got them inside for the winter and started to get pale, lost some of their vigor and had hard time flowering.

Drosera capensis before — Regular *Drosera capensis* before changing its grow light with 380 – 840nm LED chip

d-capensis-regular-red — *Drosera capensis* under new light

d-capensis-regular-red1 — *D. capensis* under new grow light

Drosera capensis 'alba' before — *Drosera capensis* ‘alba’ before

Drosera capensis 'Alba' under new LED — *Drosera capensis* ‘Alba’ under new LED

When I found extremely good offer from Chinese vendor on-line for a full spectrum 380-840nm grow light, I decided it’s worth a try. I placed two weaker, 50W LED chips, instead of two 100W white LEDs. The light intensity was seemingly lower, but after a minute spent around the plants, and leaving the room, I could see that normally lit room suddenly appeared dark. Well, beside that, colors were completely screwed for a couple of minutes due to brains correcting algorithms :).
After 14 days under new grow lights, Drosera seedlings got noticeably more colored. Regular Drosera capensis was dark red, looking almost like the red variety and Alba finally got the pink color. Both varieties also began to start growing flower stalks, which might indicate they like their new grow light.

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