Vriesea hieroglyphica update

[Andrew]

Have had my group of seedling hieroglyphica's for almost 5 months now, and they have done very well, over what has been a cold & wet winter. While they are in a basic plastic house, they receive no additional heat. The plastic house temp dropped to a low of 40'F overnight during July, and has recently peaked at 90'F coming into our Spring.

The original group have been given slow release fertiliser N 14 P 8 K 15, and a diluted liquid fertiliser (Phostrogen) 14-10-27.

Over this period I have experimented with the grass pups. Removed 9 grass pups from the group. They were between 20mm & 30mm tall. Lost one grass pup that came away with little base tissue. It actually started forming two rosettes a couple of weeks after removal, but then developed fungus in the cups, and just slowly rotted away. Other grass pups, removed carefully, came away with base undamaged, or even with a couple of roots. Grass pups have done best when potted into a palm peat / perlite mix at 50/50, and given liquid fertilser.

Recently, I have noticed that a couple of the plants that had their grass pups removed, are starting to sprout a new batch of grass pups. Hopefully this will continue, & my small group of Vriesea hieroglyphica seedlings will keep growing in size and in number.....!!!

[Timm Stolten]

Hi Andrew,

what ist that "palm peat" you mentioned above ?
Is that some kinda coco fibre or what is it made of ?

Greetz Timm

[Andrew]

The palm peat I mention is a natural growing medium made from coco coir. We buy it as "Aqua Palm Peat". It comes in a compressed brick form, & will make up to 10 litres when soaked in water.

I have found it to be excellent for a range of uses. It holds alot of water without becoming soggy, and does not compact down as much as normal peat tends to do.

I now use this palm peat as a media to germinate seeds. Then when the seedlings are ready to prick, I put then into a flat, or community pot, with a 50/50 mix of palm peat and perlite. Have found this media is easy to work with, and encourgages very good root growth.

Another use of the palm peat is to root difficult pups. Vriesea, Tillandsia, Guzmania etc. Once pups are removed from the mother plant, allow them to heal for about a week, then pot them into the palm peat. Roots form within a couple of weeks.

Regards,

Andrew

[Timm Stolten]

Does is look like this ?



Then I know what you mean. They sell it over here as COCO PEAT and it's a
very fine sort of coco fiber dust.
I am not too happy with it. If I try to grow seeds on it, even in a mixture with
sand, perlite or other stuff, after 4 weeks its all full of algae.
They start covering the seed completly and thats it.
Maybe also because it is too dark in my greenhouse, especially during the
wintertime.
Di you use artifical light for your seedlings to germinate?

Are you able to publish some fotos of your seedlings ................
to "get a picture" of it ?

Regards Timm

[Andrew]

Looks about the same. Ours is not so fine, seems a little more coarse and fibrose.

I have never had a problem with aglae. Although do have a small moss that gets into small pots in the plastic house. I think the algae must be introduced somehow, as it is not naturally in the peat. Maybe comes in with the watering system.........
My set up is small scale so easy to manage.

Used to breed aquarium fish, and now use the aquarium gear to germinate my Brom seed. Basically set up little 120mm dia containers, 1/3 fill with media, seeds on top, lid on, then float them in the aquarium which is half full of water heated to approx 80'F, with a 40w fluro tube (grox lux) over. When seedlings are say 50mm tall or more they are pricked out into flats & put into my basic pastic house outside.

Will borrow a digital camera & take a few photos.........may then have to email them...???

Cheers,