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Phyllostachys arcana seedling’s culm coloration

October 29, 2022 tarzan Comments 1 comment

Seedlings maturing

Dark green coloring of arcana seedling's culm — Dark green coloring of arcana seedling’s culm

It’s been a while since I’ve germinated Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seeds and it seems they are finally starting to get a more mature form. This year, most of the bamboos refused to put out a lot of shoots. Only small number of shoots emerged and with an exception of P. pubescens ‘Moso’ seedling, there was hardly any upsize. Despite similar sized shoots, new shoots exhibit more pronounced details regarding culm coloration. When I plant the seedlings out somewhere into an open field where their space is not that limited, they will mature further much faster.

Seedling no.1

Sulcus on some of the culms got completely green

The seedling with heavily variegated leaves did not shoot at all and it ended up getting quite weak due to drought. I need to move it from its raised bed ASAP. Its culms are now getting 2 years old and they all turned bright yellow. The largest one is pencil thick though as it’s suffering the most. There were many older culms that dried out completely this season. The raised bed ended up a bad idea. It’s draining well and it doesn’t hold enough moisture. Despite regular watering, bamboo suffered from severe drought during hot summer weather. Most of the time leaves were wilted and it showed signs of stress.

Seedling no.2

The second seedling has grown a couple of shoots, roughly the same size as last year. From all 3 variegated seedlings, this one is showing the most interesting culm coloration. Shoots have now turned completely yellow with dark green sulcus and with more sporadic dark green striping pattern around the culm. Lower internodes without the sulcus only have the sporadic stripes.

second seedling's leaves — The leaves on two year old second seedling’s culm

young culm leaf coloration — The leaves on two year old second seedling’s culm

Seedling no.3

The least variegated seedling has grown the most. It had escaped the raised bed and pushed a few larger shoots outside. Its culms are the least variegated as well. They appear green and only have lighter green striping pattern, sulcus color is also not expressed. Leaves are almost completely dark green color with only light striping.

Dark green coloration in the sulcus of bamboo seedling.

Mite infestation

This year’s hot and dry weather promoted the spread of bamboo mites. This growing season my P. arcana seedlings got hit the most. Some leaves are completely ruined by heavy mite infestation. I refused any kind of chemical control so far, but it looks like I’ll have to consider spraying some sort of miticide to reduce their numbers. Photosynthesis of variegated leaves that are already affected by reduced photosynthetic activity, decreased even further.

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Variegated Phylostachys arcana seedlings – Summer 2018 update

August 1, 2018 tarzan Comments 0 Comment

Second seedling looks extremely well at this point, and the best part of the year is still in front of it

Sunburn recovery

As I’ve mentioned recently, two heavily variegated seedlings are prone to sunburn damage. To correct the issue, I decided to plant some fast growing plants in front of one of the seedlings. As bamboo started branching out, the canopy started shading itself, which further helped the seedlings. Both seedlings started looking much better when days started getting shorter in late July. After wet and rainy start of the summer – well, not that spring would be any better, temperatures rose well above 30°C. Both bamboos resisted the heat and wind pretty well. Way better than strong sun exposure in late spring and early summer. There was some leaf curling, but not nearly as much as I’d expect. Actually, they didn’t curl as much as a non-variegated seedling next to them.

Culms coloring up

Regular green seedlings have dark green colored culms that turn dark brown if exposed to intense light. Variegated seedlings have much less green and can be almost completely yellow with some green striping. Culm variegation occurred on both seedlings. Most of the culms that were at least a bit exposed to sun started tanning up and turned out quite nice. The seedling with darker culms had more green variegation and turned light brown. The first seedling has much paler culms that are almost completely yellow. There are some stripes involved, but they are hard to spot at the moment – the shoots were way smaller and the variegation much paler.

Pale culm of the first variegated seedling

Brown tanned culm of the second seedling

Rhizomes

I haven’t been digging dirt around the seedlings, but there is some serious rhizome activity below the soil level. I have seen them pushing the soil up and dolphining. Soil is also cracking due to underground bamboo growth. None of the highly variegated seedlings started shooting for the second time in the season (August 1st). The third seedling that is also variegated, but has dark green appearance, compared to yellow colored first two seedlings, started putting out second round of shoots when the rhizomes got above the soil level. All of them were nicely variegated.

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Culm color of variegated Luteosulcata seedling (1)

February 14, 2017 tarzan Comments 0 Comment

Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ & yellow sulcus

The seedling has suffered a lot and is still in early stage of growth

There was a debate recently on bambooweb forum regarding seeds sold as ‘Yellow groove’ seeds. It’s known that Phyllostachys aureosulcata (and other bamboos from that gang) flower from time to time, without resulting viable seed. Since it’s also not in gregarious flowering, there’s no way someone could get viable seeds of Yellow groove bamboo. However, there is a bamboo with similar characteristics (including zigzag and yellow striped sulcus) that is flowering recently and has given a lot of seeds already – Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’. Despite the fact that there are many growers, trying to get a Bamboo seedling with yellow sulcus, no such plant had been found so far.

The seedling that does show a bit different culm color

3 months old culm with older culms in the background

My first variegated Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedling has a very pale leaf variegation. It doesn’t only have pale leaves, culms are also lacking green pigmentation. In early stages of seedling’s growth, I could see that culm color was different than any other seedling I’ve grown, including other variegated seedlings. As soon as young shoots loose their sheaths, the culm inside looks almost completely white to very light green. Within days, light exposure makes the shoot turn more and more red. It can turn into unbelievable red color, unlike I’ve seen on any other bamboo. It later fades out into yellow. Seedling is still in a very young phase (it actually lost some weight due to chain of wrong decisions I’ve made :)) which means it can change considerably as it matures. It may end up looking much greener further down the road. We will see …

Culms of other Luteosulcata seedlings?

The seedlings I am growing have shown no culm stripings so far. They are young and will perhaps show some kind of culm variegation later, but there are slim chances. So far, there are no reports about a new generation seedling with culm variegation. My other seedlings do show some difference regarding strength of light induced color, though. All have dark green culms with red coloration that colors the sun exposed culms purple/brown. The second variegated seedling also has a bit less intense green culms, that do not turn red, instead, they look quite similar to majority of other seedlings – less intense purple green.

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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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