Episode 6 –
late March
SBS meeting
report
Not much more than a week before the date of the meeting, vehicles on
the M74 motorway up to Glasgow were being used as impromptu and very
undesirable overnight shelters and if the bad weather had continued we
wouldn’t have risked the trip north, but thankfully the temperature
started to rise a little and we were able to make it without difficulty.
After our usual
stop over at Robert Nelsons, it was on to the meeting and I was really
looking forward to this one – Michael Richardson on his ventures into
hybridisation. It’s strange that in these days of falling membership and
flower shows closing, we have such a growing interest in breeding new
varieties. All new tuberous double varieties come from the ‘amateur’
grower these days, but the word amateur surely only refers to the fact
that they do not earn a living from the process, because in all other
aspects their approach and attention to detail is nothing but
professional and when this is accompanied by the infectious enthusiasm
of someone like Michael, it’s no wonder that the interest is growing. In
a short space of time, he has made a good number of crosses with a range
of varieties, many of which are to try and achieve his dream of a strong
yellow with a wavy edge to the petal. I hope he does this but some of
the other crosses he has made should give some very interesting
developments in the years to come.
As part of the
talk, we were also treated to some images of recently released new
varieties, all bred by society members that are now starting to appear
on the show benches – Joyce Champion, Ken Gallagher,
Dena, Derek Telford and one that I didn’t catch the name of
that I’m not too sure about. It didn’t have a very symmetrical outline,
the centre was a funny shape and it certainly looked a bit ‘short of
petal’. Intrigued – sorry but you had to be there to understand! On the
subject of new varieties, could this be the year that I get to see an
example of Lo La - I wonder.....
First set-back
of the season
A couple of days after the March SBS meeting, I had a check of my first
batch of cuttings to see how they were doing. I often pull the odd one
out of the compost to examine the business end of the cuttings but this
time I was immediately concerned as a few of them were showing the first
signs of rot. So, what did I do? I had a spare Stewart propagator so I
got it ready but instead of filling it with Mother Earth and Perlite 5
to 1, I filled it with peat and coarse sand 5 to 1. Why – because I know
other growers root very successfully in just peat because they think
that fertilizer in rooting compost may not be necessary and could
actually be the cause of rot. The sand was just because I have been
thinking about trying it instead of Perlite, which I don’t like because
it looks horrible! I also trimmed the ends back a touch and dipped them
in a weak solution of Rovral to counter any remaining rot, then put them
into the new rooting medium. All seemed well and week later I took
another 50 or so cuttings – again in peat and sand and they also looked
well until the morning of the 26th March when I checked them
out and found some more rot. This wasn’t a routine check, I examined
them because to my horror, I noticed that the thermometers in both
propagators was reading an incredible 35° C plus! That was the
moment that I remembered that last year I had some concerns about my
small propagators, especially two of them running quite hot – concerns
that I had completely forgotten about until then! I suspect that I had
literally cooked the tips of my cuttings – probably nothing to do with
fertilizer strength but I still think that this is a very valid concern
that needs to be resolved. The two propagators in question were the ones
that I had used for the suspect batches of cuttings and were also the
newest, having been bought last year. On closer inspection I noticed
they were slightly different from my other three and were labelled
‘Essentials’. A quick search of the Internet gave me the information I
needed. I had always thought that there were two versions of this
propagator, the Premium with a variable thermostat and the Thermostatic
designed to cut out around 24° C. I thought I had picked up a
bargain when I bought these two for well under £50 for them both but
didn’t realise that the Essentials version are on permanently, hence the
high temperatures. Needless to say I am keeping a close watch on the
temperature and regulate it by switching on and off during the day.
Nights don’t seem to be an issue, especially as I moved them from the
conservatory into the greenhouse as soon as I noticed the problem. At
the time of writing, I may only salvage 50% of my original 90 cuttings,
which will impact on my plans, as it is nice to be able to pick the best
of the best when flowering cuttings. I am also lucky that I had another
batch of cuttings just about ready to take so in terms of cutting tubers
I should be alright, however I still can’t understand why I went all of
that time without checking the thermometers – my fault, lesson learnt,
move on!
Early cutting
material – uneven growth
The tubers that I started in early January for cuttings were a bit
uneven in starting which isn’t really a huge problem for tubers that
will be flowered – you have time to take bud number 3, 4 or five usually
without ill effect but when cuttings are needed at a specific time, it
becomes more of an issue. Two of the varieties that I set away were
Daisy Trinder and Symestar, both of which are normally fast
starters for me while Gipsy and Ann Crawford always take a
good couple of weeks longer, yet I put them into the propagator together
and still expected to have cuttings available from them all at the same
time.
In reality,
each variety performed true to type so how can I change this for next
year? One thing that I have noticed this year is that my adult tubers
were virtually all pipped when I put them in the propagator and I think
this is because of the fact that due to my garage being colder these
days I brought the tubers into the house at the beginning of January –
around a month earlier than normal. I think that the extra warmth and
light were responsible for this and a recent chat with Ronnie Welsh just
makes me think I am on the right lines, because he told me that because
his tubers are kept relatively cool in his greenhouse in the propagators
which are set for frost free throughout the winter and never brought
into the warmth of the house, they never show any sign of growth when he
starts them up, even towards the end of February. So armed with this
knowledge, how can I use it to my advantage? For next year, I will
select tubers of the varieties that I think take longer to pip and bring
them into the warmth around mid December to see if that evens things up
a bit – but this will just be for the tubers that I am going to use for
the early cuttings. This isn’t a new technique, just an old one being
applied in a different way, after all, for years now growers have been
starting the likes of Tom Brownlee, Tequila Sunrise
and Roy Hartley a couple of weeks earlier than other varieties
because they take longer to reach maturity so why not apply the idea to
cutting production?
Tuber progress report
All of the cutting tubers are now potted up; the majority went into my
normal loam compost with only a few needing the half and half mix. Most
of them went into one litre pots – see below top, with a few that had
big enough root systems for a two litre and some of the smaller ones
went into ½ litre pots. With regard to M2 issues, I think that I have
had some variation in quality even though the bags all came off the same
pallet. The first bag I used didn’t look that great and after use seemed
like it had lost an awful lot of structure but I was happy enough with
the roots on the majority of the cutting tubers and the earliest of the
adult tubers to be potted on into 2 litre pots, Tom Brownlee and
Tequila Sunrise looked fine – see below bottom. As a general
rule, the bigger the tuber the less they seem to be affected – for
example, I have around 30 small tubers from last years’ seedlings that
were just grown in cells so are only around 1 cm in size. They really
struggled to get going in M2 but as soon as they were moved into 3 inch
pots of Mother Earth they romped away.
All of the potted up plants
were moved into one of the 16 x 8’s but not before I did my annual
‘greenhouse fleece jigsaw puzzle’ – 55 separate pieces – very satisfying
once it’s done – see below. The fleece I use seems to last fine for a
couple of years but at the start of the third year looks like it is
showing it’s age. It must be affected by U.V. light as it eventually
starts to break up, so by alternating, I will only have to do one of the
big greenhouses each year.
Ingleston plants
Things seem to be progressing well, I am about to move them into 4 litre
finals and the compost will be half and half with Mother Earth for the
soilless portion. They have grown well in this for their first potting –
see below left, and the first buds have appeared – see below right, so
over the next couple of weeks I need to think carefully about timing. My
thoughts are that they will be smaller flowers with less petal so will
open quicker so I am not expecting 42 day blooms. If I aim for 35 day
blooms, this will mean that I now have around 4 weeks before securing
but I will consult the Ingleston experts before I do anything.
Bleach treatment – the final
chapter!
I had a really interesting chat with Phil Champion at the February SBS
meeting on a variety of begonia related topics, one of which was the
merits or otherwise of the use of bleach. Phil made the point, regarding
bacteria that every living thing, including us is surrounded by bacteria
that are required for survival, so why would we kill them off
unnecessarily? I’ve thought about this for a few days now and although
I’m not exactly sure how relevant or scientific my thoughts are but I
keep thinking that if begonias have an immune system, could we be
affecting it by killing off the good bacteria, if that makes sense?
Additionally, along with most growers, I never treat my cutting tubers,
yet have never had any issues because of this so I have decided next
year to not use bleach on any of my tubers. They will still get a warm
water soak and I will think about the use of fungicides and
insecticides, but the bleach treatment will stop.
What’s keeping me awake at
night?
Obviously my cutting saga is a big concern but it’s not the only one! I
knew that it was inevitable, but finally the eviction notice was served
on all of the begonias that had claimed squatters’ rights in the
conservatory. They had to be out before Easter and this was
non-negotiable, so the move into one of my 16 x 8 greenhouses started
around the 27th March. The trouble is that any plants in here
will not have any bottom heat facilities as both of my 16 x 8’s have
tiered staging, so when the outside temperature falls I have to rely on
heating the air. I have to be very careful in selecting which plants get
moved, any that need bottom heat I’ll try to keep in my 10 x 8 but space
is very limited because as soon as the large tubers vacate the big
propagator I will be using it for my main batch of cuttings. To sum it
up, I am aiming to flower 200 plants but only have the propagating
facilities for 100 plants in terms of bottom heat for young or
struggling plants and rooted cuttings. I’m busy thinking up a plan to
make a temporary platform to put onto the middle tier of the staging
that will be level with the top tier. This will give me a width of
around two feet, which will then mean I can then put some form of bottom
heat into the big greenhouses. I’ll make my mind up later on in the year
but already my earlier idea of putting a propagator under the staging is
being challenged!
Next episode – completing
first potting and taking the main batch of cuttings
