Chitting Frit. meleagris

[Len Rhind]

I wonder if anyone has tried multiplying Frit. meleagris using the chitting method and if it was successful?
Cheers,
Len (from cold, wet and very windy B.C.)

[Gerry Webster]

There is an article by Joy Bishop in Fritillaria no. 9 (Autumn 2001) on  slicing up fritillary bulbs which, she claims,  when successful, can produce flowering size bulbs within 3 years. I've never had the courage to try this myself. 

[Anthony Darby]

How would you chit them. This is a way of pre-sprouting seeds or potatoes, but I've never heard it used for bulbs.

[Maggi Young]

"Chitting" or sometimes "chipping" ( another term perhaps more associated with  spuds!!  ) is a term often used to describe "twinscaling" bulbs, or even just  cutting into two or more pieces to gain an increase.

[Anthony Darby]

Maggi, chitting and chipping are different. Chitting is where seeds or potatoes are allowed to sprout before planting. 

[Maggi Young]

Yes, for spuds, but the two words are used interchangeably, in my experience, to use for bulbs.

[Anthony Darby]

Maggi, the word chit means "to sprout" and it's a definition our pupils need to know for their Intermediate One Biology course and refers to "any dormant stage of a plant that can be forced into growth early [i.e. before being planted]". In the syllabus under seeds it has the following: "Pre-germinating (chitting) seeds. Seeds with thick seed coats are pre-germinated (chitted) before sowing. Carry out an investigation using sweet pea or other leguminous seeds to show the effect of chitting." I do know that potatoes can be sliced in two or more to reduce the number of seed potatoes needed. It encourages eyes (on slices away from the apex) which otherwise would not sprout due to the effects of apical dominance, so if chipping and chitting meant the same confusion would reign. Perhaps in bulbs one leads to the other and the words have thus become synonymous?

[Maggi Young]

It may well be that the synonymous usage re bulbs is incorrect, anthony, and I fully accept your words re germination etc.... it doed seem that some Bulbaholics are confusing the issueb as these two words are widely used .

[Anthony Darby]

I always tell prospective biologists that they need to be good at languages because of all the terms they need to learn. However, there seems to be a move to amalgamate words such as "graze" and "browse". I was lead to believe graze meant "ate grass". If you "ate bush" you were a "browser" (black rhino is a browser, hence the pointed lip; white rhino is a grazer, hence the flat, wide lip which gave it its Africaans name, corrupted to 'white' in English) but now we use the word "graze" to mean an animal that eats bits of a plant (or animal, e.g. parrot fish feeding on coral polyps). Predator is another word that has changed meaning. Up to 4th year, pupils are told that predators hunt prey, and they have a picture of a lion hunting and chasing a zebra. At Advanced Higher, pupils are told birds, such as finches, are "seed predators", because they eat the whole seed. Do they ambush them as they drift by on the wind? Does this mean that the Vampire Finches of Wolf Island in the Galapagos are grazers because they don't eat whole Boobies but just nip at the bases of new feathers until they draw blood?

[Lesley Cox]

If it's a matter of pre-sprouting, could one say that colchicums left in a paper bag until their buds are well developed are "chitted."

[Anthony Darby]

I suppose you could Lesley, unless the bag has just been overlooked? Then, having rediscovered it, I suppose you would utter the words "oh chit"!

[Lesley Cox]

Exactly. I did that just yesterday.

[fermi de Sousa]

  this thread encapsulates what this Forum is about:
discussion/debate
wise words
wise cracks!
I love it!
cheers
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