Pot tubers

15 years ago

I had to lift or cut down a plant today, so I decided to lift the pot tuber. First, the 4" plastic pot was completely intact. Roots had grown over the top and out from the bottom, but no tubers escaped. Since I want to keep this one growing over the winter, I could've taken it and put it straight into another pot, but I decided to remove the plastic pot to see what pot tubers looked like.

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The entire Sandia Joy plant.

Notice how small the tuber is for this plant. The plant itself is ~30" tall and wide, with many blooms and buds still.

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A close-up of the pot tuber clump after cleaning.

Apart from being smaller, there's really no visible difference between it and a field clump. Of course this is what I expected, but its nice to see it myself.

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Another view of the small pot tuber clump.

It will be interesting to see if there's any difference between this clump, and say, one from Gladiator or some other tall A/AA.

Cheers,

Russ

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Comments (5)

triple_b
15 years ago
Seems almost out of proportion. Amazing how something that big can come out of such a small root base.
j_nail
15 years ago
Jeez! That is pretty amazing!
vikingcraftsman
15 years ago
Good to see this. My pots are huge so the tubers are the same as the ones I grow in the ground. That plant is big, so where are you going to keep it? I have a big cage so I can grow to 6 feet if need be.
sturgeonguy
Original Author
15 years ago
Well, let's not confuse "root base" with tubers. The plant had tons of roots, which extended way beyond the 4" pots perimeter. Those roots are what sustained the plant, and IÂm going to struggle to keep this bush growing after cutting them. We took a knife to the sides of the 4" pot and simply cutÂalready the bush is wilting inside because of the root trauma.

Tubers are the storage of "excess" for next year. We canÂt totally judge whatÂs happened until we see the growth from these tubers next year. I can say that right now, the tubers look great, definitely viable. But!! I havenÂt cut the stalk off the plant (and will not, for this one.) So I have no idea about eyes. After all, a clump is nothing without eyes, right? When I say itÂs definitely viable I mean thereÂs nothing visible that suggests it wouldnÂt eye up.

I re-potted the clump into an 8" pot and put that pot into a dish. I have replenished the water twice already, yet the bush is still wilting. No surprise, really, as IÂve likely removed 80% of its water roots. I will keep trying to revive it. It is not under any lights at this point.

The bush doesnÂt like to sit flat, it wants to fall over. Tomorrow I plan on pruning it somewhat, like an arborist might a treeÂtrying to achieve a balance.

Cheers,
Russ
vikingcraftsman
15 years ago
I was going to suggest that you cut it down a bit. I used to play around with bonsi's. You allways had to cut down the plant when you try to make it smaller in conjuntion with the roots.