C. walkeriana fma.Coerulea 'Manhattan Blue'

[isurus79]

Autumn Child,
I gotta say, you should be giving us advice, not the other way around! Just log what your water/light/temperature/fertilizing regimen is and reproduce it next year. Then write an article here in on OB so we can all do the same! It sounds to me like you more than one plant in your pot, which is fairly common with seedlings. It would also account for the unusually number of new growths.

[Autumn Child]

Originally Posted by isurus79

Autumn Child,
I gotta say, you should be giving us advice, not the other way around! Just log what your water/light/temperature/fertilizing regimen is and reproduce it next year. Then write an article here in on OB so we can all do the same! It sounds to me like you more than one plant in your pot, which is fairly common with seedlings. It would also account for the unusually number of new growths.

I am very sure its not multiple plants. When I repot it after it arrived, I saw that the plant are all connected. I don't even know the concentration of the fertilizer. I just give half the recomended dosage. I use some locally made cheap fertilizer that has no mineral concentration information. Water and fertilizer is always present since it is an S/H set up. Light is somewhere between 1500-3500 candle foot. Temperature ....definitely way too hot and not ideal for growth. The plant have suffered over 40C or 100F temperature for a month already, but it still grows vigorously. another worrying fact is that the plant is basically a gnat and some small insect hive. They don't seem to damage the plant and I am not sure weather i need to spray insecticide which can potentially damage the plant.

[Autumn Child]

Today I just noticed this plant produce another new psb from an old, shrivelled and small psb. This is definitely not normal. This plant currently have 7psbs maturing at the same time. I contacted the grower to see if the plant from the same batch is growing at this frantic rate. He told me that their plant is growing only half the amount of psb as my plant. He also said that my plant might be receiving too little light and too much fertilizer. However, according to my own measurement, the plant is receiving about 1500-3500 foot candle with at least 4-5 hours of direct sunlight on clear days. I only add half the recomended dose of local balance fertilizer once a week to the reservoir. last month i started adding half dosage of high phosphate fertilizer once a week to promote flowering. So the plant is getting fertilized twice a week. I figure that the reservoir contain 150ppm nitrogen and 250ppm phosphate max.

Anyone have similar experience with their walkeriana?

[catwalker808]

Autumn Child.
I was following this thread for a while, & you just stopped. In my opinion, the multiple new shoots in your photos & descriptions are not normal growth. The shoots do look ok, but the emergence of so many shoots at the same time is not a normal occurrence.

C walkeriana coeruleas are capable of putting out more growths in a season than other varieties, but not normally 2 or 3 at once from the same older growth. In addition, the growths they are emerging from are not all very mature either. When you first mentioned several growths, I just felt that you were feeding very heavily & with the warm conditions, your plants were experiencing unusually vigorous growth. When you mentioned the numerous additional growths, some bells went off. Your plant is just producing growth after growth.

I thought that there might be two possible reasons for the unusual growth. There's an old saying that goes: "Think horse before you think zebra." That is to say, consider the more obvious before you consider the exotic or far fetched.

You mentioned that you are using a "cheap" fertilizer with indeterminate contents. You are also growing in s/h with this fertilizer solution. With your very hot temps, your plants may really be transpiring rapidly & sucking up & storing fertilizer in disproportionate amounts. There may be something in the fertilizer which is causing this unusual amount of constant new growth. Cheap fertilizers may also be very high in nitrogen & your plant is sucking that up first.

So your plant may have been experiencing a very long and intense summer growing season. If that is the case, and if you continue the heavy feed (even as your temps cool down a bit) you will continue to have new growth ... although to a lesser extent.

However, all of those growths may not have the chance to really mature & fatten up properly, since there are so many new bulbs to feed. Consequently, your plant may bloom, but with relatively small or weak flowers.

In any case, At this time of year, I would suggest cutting back your feed & also let your plants experience a good day/night temp differential of 20 F (if you can). This will fatten up your bulbs & make for better blooms later. Also, a shortened day length of 12-14 hours down to 8-10 hours should also help trigger blooms.

There is also a "zebra" (the exotic explanation), which may not be the case here. When walkerianas are produced in flask, when not handled properly, the very young growths (seed or mericlone material) can experience rapid & random uncontrolled proliferation or multiplication. For cloning, some labs actually use chemicals to induce this rapid proliferation. Whatever starts it, sometimes this proliferation becomes uncontrolled & even when plants grow and mature, instead of clean discrete growth (young bulbs, leaves, mature bulbs, flower spikes, flowers) the plants may exhibit only continuous production of new growths, which may never bloom or may bloom deformed flowers.

I just mentioned the "zebra", but I don't think this is the case here. Although the growths are excessive in number, they each seem to look ok. If cutting off the fertilizer, combined with more temperate weather, enables the plant to bloom, then I think we're really back to the issue that the excessive uptake of fertilizer by the plant because of the s/h & high temps may have been what was causing the unusual & excessive new growths.

Post some recent photos. Hopefully by now there are fewer new growths & they are fattening up as your weather has cooled somewhat.

[silken]

I too am curious as to what is now happening with your plant!

[Autumn Child]

Thanks for the explaination catwalker! I don't think its the "zebra" either. The more likely cause is the fertilizer overdose problem. The plant is stabilizing at the moment. No new growth, just finishing up and maturing all the excess growth. The new growth is fattening up, but like you said it is not as big as the the psb that have chance to grow more exclusively.

The plant moved indoors now. The weather outside is about 10C. The vendor said that it can stand up to 3C, but I am not willing to risk. The downside is that I don't have a bright south facing window and shanghai winter is mostly cloudy. So on average I would guess it is only getting a light level that is optimal for phal growth and not for catt growth. I don't think it will flower this year, just hoping it won't die. I guess i will have to wait for a better artificial lighting system next year.

I have also cut back on fertilizer and water. I let it dry somewhat before adding more water with weak fertilizer. The colder condition should prevent it to dry excessively.

[catwalker808]

Autumn Child.
Confucius say: "One picture is worth ten thousand words."

[Autumn Child]

Confucius say: "One picture is worth ten thousand words."

Can't argue with that. Will try to post some pics this weekend.

[Autumn Child]

Here is my pic update of the plant. It seems healthy, but the newly grown psb is not as large as it should. Another problem with the plant is that the roots tend to abort when the tip touches the medium. But in general the roots are just not growing as well as it should. The tip tends to get brown easily and it abort.

The first four image is the most recent photo, the second last photo is from a month ago and the last photo is from 4 months ago.

[Izzie]

I'm not sure if you've told us- if you're using tap or pure water? Perhaps your dissolved solids are really high. That and excessive fertilizer can burn root tips.