Here I started repotting of Crocus collection. Corms in general looks very good. There are some losses, but that happens every year, but at present no one stock was lost completely. Seems that I found reason why last year and this spring suddenly collapsed around 1 sq.m of pots in greenhouse. The reason was Dosatron what adds concentrate fertilizer solution to watering water. During rest it slowly sent to watering tube concentrate of fertilizer and some sq.m. suddenly got around 10% strong fertilizer solution what killed roots. Last year I got damage on Crocus michelsonii, this year on Crocus salzmannii and C. caspius. But now at least I know the reason, why it happened. I suspected fertilizing, but now I got proof of this marking concentrate solution level in tank when I stopped watering and before I started new watering.
This week I repotted Crocus scharojanii. A little early as some individuals still had partly green leaves, but they all started forming of new roots. As usually well grew var flavus and quite poor were both - scharojanii from N Caucasus (Russia) and C. lazicus (Turkey). Still I have few, but really it is not plant for me. Was schoked by 5 cm long new shoot on scharojanii corm - so it soon must to flower. So both pots were left outside greenhouse to be in cooler conditions.
Another species which surprised me was Crocus banaticus. They quite well increased this year by splitting making up to 3 and sometimes even 4 new corms instead of one, but not all individuals did this. Some died, too. Don't know - why. But many individuals (not all in same stock) of banaticus from Rumania and from Slovakia started to make new roots. So it was best time to replant. One of best increasers and growers was cv. Snowdrift. Less good was First Snow. It was interesting that in last years I collected seeds of both albinos. Generally all seedlings last autumn bloomed blue, but in each pot (16 corms in each) of seedlings 1-2 individuals had white flowers. In same time I replanted 9 corms collected this spring in E Carpathians (Ukraine) - the most NE located population of C. banaticus. No one of them formed new roots at present, but regardless of collecting early in spring all corms grew up well and formed most likely blooming size corms.
Some corms of C. vallicola and C. suworowianus had small white shoots and one was observed in C. autranii, too. All those pots were kept during may-june outside and we had unusually wet and cold weather all this time. May be this caused so early start of growing. Now they are placed in greenhouse, so I think some watering will be needed from time to time.
Janis
