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Variegated Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings – Winter 2016/2017

February 2, 2017 tarzan Comments 3 comments

First half of winter

In the late January, winter slowly starts fading, nights become shorter and days a bit warmer. We’re half way through winter! Since, I’m overwintering my variegated bamboo seedlings inside, they have no idea about our brutal winter outside. At this point, it seems, two of my Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings will gain in size a lot. The first and previously the largest seedling remained alive and still refuses to grow. For now, at least, it’s the smallest of three variegated seedlings. It grew many shoots as soon as I brought them inside and all but a couple of them died off and rotted. It’s getting better, but it lags more and more against it’s younger siblings.

Seedling #1

The oldest seedling, which grew quite well during last winter is not doing exceptionally well this winter. In the beginning, it was infested with aphids and it soon started losing even the youngest leaves. I decided to spray all three bamboo seedlings with insecticide to eliminate any possible pest I had brought inside. I also trimmed the seedling considerably, removing all the highly damaged branches, leaves and a couple of dead culms. At that point, it started shooting heavily, but ended up losing most of the new growth.

Eventually it started to look much better. It actually ended up being the only of three seedlings without the strange fungal infection. I have left old culms that were still alive and they soon started branching out. The leaves were miniature, but they showed nice variegation. On a couple of leaves, I could observe another type of variegation. Some leaves were not progressively turning from lime green to yellow-green gradient kind of variegation, instead, the variegation was present from the very beginning, (completely green) dark green stripes on yellow leaf. Like last winter, I have had difficult time preventing leaf tips from drying out. I’m still investigating what actually causes that issue as it sometimes appear on other seedlings as well. I’m almost sure it’s water or nutrient related.

Seedling #2

The weakest seedling that somehow recovered after being neglected for almost a year started strong from the very beginning. It merely had one shoot when I brought it inside, but it managed to push out one pretty large shoot. That single but large shoot used the energy from the previous stem, it died off when the shoot leafed out. The second seedling has shown incredible ability to survive and it actually grows much faster than the first seedling. To fight off the fungal infection I mentioned earlier, I regularly sprayed it with Aspirin dissolved in water. It looks like it’s working, the infection of the leaves slowed down considerably. Aspirin triggered another thing – growing branches and shooting. I’ve grown many bamboo seeds by now and I never used Aspirin. I have also never seen a bamboo seedling that would start branching out that much, or in the case of the third seedling – shooting insanely.

Seedling #3

Third seedling is shooting insamely — Third seedling is shooting insanely

The least variegated seedling ‘exploded’ immediately after I brought it inside. It also got infected by the same fungal infection as the second seedling. Fungal disease did not slow it down as it remained vigorous and looked strangely healthy, if I count out the darkening leaves. It produces a lot of green matter, which makes it heavy feeder. It shows signs of nutrient deficiency soon after I stop giving it daily dose of water soluble liquid fertilizer. After treating with Aspirin, it went completely insane, pushing out more than 20 shoots at the same time. At the same time, older shoots branched out on nearly all of their internodes. I can’t tell for sure if it was the salicylic acid that did the magic, but it sure look so.

The infection doesn’t seem to be spreading now, and the seedling looks even healthier. The seedling showed three types (perhaps I could call them stages) of variegation. There are some completely unvariegated green leaves. There are loads of seemingly unvariegated leaves with a stripe on the edge of the leaf blade. Stripe sometimes have gaps of unvariegated leaf tissue which makes the stripes look a bit fuzzy. Some leaves have more pronounced stripes that appear in the middle of the leaf as well as on it’s edge. Lately, I am able to see leaves with same kind of progressive variegation as on the previous two seedlings. Strangely, it only appears on some of the shoots and they then have the same kind of variegation through the whole culm. Perhaps that could show chimeric nature of the seedling?

More than 20 shoots at the same time must be the new record

It’s much darker than other seedling’s variegation, it looks very similar and it also ‘grows’ progressively from more uniform lighter green color. Darker parts get darker while leaf matures and paler stripes get lighter green. These stripes are never (so far) yellow, compared to other seedlings, which makes the leaves look healthier.
I am not sure if these variegations will change with time, if one of them will become dominant or just fade out eventually.

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Variegated Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings – fall 2016 update

November 3, 2016 tarzan Comments 0 Comment

Three variegated Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seedlings are now all around 1 year old. All three are still showing different degrees of variegation. As I’ve mentioned in my previous posts, I placed them into a more shaded position during the summer. The reason for that was the fact, that the most variegated seedling started showing leaf burn when exposed to full sun in the spring. The damage in the spring could also be a result of change of growth environment, not the light exposure alone. The reason for that was, because I wanted to see, if shaded location affects variegation level and if the leaves remain healthy – without burnt leaf tips. I planted them in the same raised bed with my chillies. I never expected the peppers to grow that large and bamboo seedlings got completely shaded out by early summer.

During most of the spring, the seedlings received full sun exposure. At that point, they had shown some growth, but not nearly as much as while they were inside under LED grow light. Even the smallest seedling that was about to perish, managed to push out two tiny shoots, both more variegated than it’s original shoot. Shade prevented it to continue growing during the summer. The largest, most variegated seedling stopped growing completely and only managed to unfold a couple of leaves. The leaves remained healthy and I think there was no difference in variegation strength. It was way to shaded to grow and it would certainly not survive another season like that. The least variegated seedling was also placed in deep shade. It somehow managed to grow a couple of new shoots and leaves throughout the summer. It’s showing a lot less variegation and most of the leaves remained dark green, which allowed it to photosynthesize in low light environment.

None of my seedlings had shown any culm variegation of the mother plant, Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’, so far. The variegated seedlings are not nearly large enough to show it. I am now deciding what to do with the seedlings, if weather permits, I could leave them outside during the winter. Much more likely, I’ll just bring the seedlings inside, not just because of the poor current weather forecast, the main reason is, that the seedlings are really not in their best shape. Full shade might not have been the best idea. 🙂

Update a week later…

We did receive enormous amounts of rain and weather cooled down considerably, so I moved the variegated bamboos inside. I have placed them into small pots where they can recover, before I up-pot them for overwintering inside. None of them had shown any leaf curl, which means there was not much root damage when I dug them out from the raised bed. A couple of days after I brought them inside, I have noticed some shoots that started growing when temperature increased.

Green seedling's variegation — Green seedling’s variegation

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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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Leaf variegation or not?

November 20, 2015 tarzan Comments 0 Comment

The first leaf showing minor signs of variegation

I’ve been writing about germinating some seedlings of Phyllostachys arcana ‘Luteosulcata’ seeds not long ago. One of the seedlings appeared a bit different than others and started showing some kind of variegation on its leaves from the beginning. Some of the seedlings are showing signs of nutrient deficiency and have leaves with yellow-ish stripes, but this seedling has different kind of stripes – it’s actually pale green with darker green stripe. With time the pale green part of the leaf gets even paler, almost yellow, but the dark green part remains green.

As the tiny plant emerged, it appeared slightly variegated. Even at its first leaf, when bamboo managed to get all the required nutrients from the seed, the first signs of variegation could be observed.

Some of the bamboo seedlings I’ve been growing before were albinos or were too pale to grow more than one or two tiny shoots, before they failed miserably. When second leaf emerged, it looked even more yellow than the first one, and it only had a couple of thin darker green stripes. I thought about nutrient deficiency, overly dry or wet soil and a possibility that the seedling was genetically too weak to survive like albino seedlings usually are. It was not completely white or yellow, so I hoped to see a variegation and at least a bit more green colour. Hopefully even a shoot that would also show the same pattern. Third leaf was again even lighter, this time almost completely yellow. At the time, I feared that the pot got over-watered before, which was most likely true, so I left the pot to dry out, perhaps even too much.

I have learnt before, that you should not watch the seedlings every day and start pampering them on regular basis, when I’ve lost almost all the Moso seedlings. The seedling remained quite healthy and unfolded another leaf, this time, it had thicker dark green stripe and was generally a bit less pale. At first green stripe was observable, but not as much as on earlier leaves. Within a couple of days, the stripe got evident and more pronounced.

At first the leaf had a bit more green... — At first the leaf had a bit more green…

... which soon faded even more — … which soon faded even more

Fifth leaf again looked similar with nice and thick dark green stripe As it can clearly be seen on the photos, the seedling is completely different than other seedlings in the same pot. It’s much less vigorous and it didn’t start shooting at the same stage (number of unfolded leaves) than it’s siblings. It did create a tiny shoot bud, but in over a month it didn’t start growing. It will be interesting to see, if the second shoot also starts showing the same variegation. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep the seedling alive that long.

With time when leaves get more mature, stripes become much more evident, overall leaves are pale

The first shoot bud finally started growing around 45 days after germination. The first stem was variegated and it completely lacked healthy purple tan that was caused by intense lights. All other seedlings had at least some purple on their stem or their tiny culm sheath. The thing is, shoot bud was exposed to air and light from the beginning and it actually turned purple. It might be a sign, that the seedling started turning into regular looking plant.

Is it, or is it not variegation? Anyone ever saw something similar? Did the seedling survive?