The shortest length of time to maturity(flowering)that I know of is 18 months. The longest I have experienced is 14 years. I have bulbs of Pasadena which are more than twenty years old. This variety offsets often,most having one to two offsets per year. I have never lost a bulb to anything I could attribute to a natural death. The bulbs I have lost were almost all due to my own fault. Overwatering,Having them in a not porus enough mix,letting them freeze,trusting the wrong person to care for them in my absence,letting the weeds take them over,when I was sick,are a few of the reasons for their deaths.
Del

Hello.
Del, may be the bulbs you lost that you think were due to your own fault were lost due to their natural death.
In my experience, atleast all fruit bearing plants have a productive life and have to be replaced.
Lets see what others have to say.
Arif

Arif, perhaps Ann or lora might know the answer to this question. I do know for certain, that I have, as well as the Pasadena,seedlings which have never offset,which are more than twenty years old. I only have one of each of them, and they are blooming now. So, I know that under my conditions, the bulbs will last twenty years.
Del

Hello,
Here is an openion of an expert from HADECO. I am in confirmity.
Dear Arif,
All of these aspects vary according to many factors, but I will provide estimates:
THE LIFE OF AN AMARYLLIS BULB
A. Birth to maturity (years). 3 years from bulblet, 4 years from seed
B. Young productive age (years). Blooms from age 3 to 8 (can continue well beyond though)
C. Old age (years, frequency of blooming, production of bulb lets). Will continue producing foliage and offsets in old age, usually flowers and stems reduce in quantity gradually until eventual no- production of blooms.
D. Life expectancy and natural DEATH. I regret I cannot answer this confidently, I have heard 15 years, but I suspect all figures on this are guesses. All Amaryllis kept this long have also been replaced by their offsets and I am not aware of any accurate experiments to this effect.
What do you mean by degradation and degeneration after a time. Whether a variety is increased naturally or by twinscaling etc the qualities of it deteriorate over time. The reasons and insight into this are beyond the scope of this email, but suffice to know it occurs usually after two decades.

Kind regards,
Charles