Crocus August, 2018

[Janis Ruksans]

It seem that this forum now became my Crocus diary. But I want to share my observations on them.
Today I continued harvesting. But it was possible to work only in very early hours - it still is enormously hot. Last night we had outside temperature + 26 C. Incredible for Latvia. So I took fiesta and slept midday for 2.5 hours. Then swimming in pond and back to crocuses.
Today I potted crocus cartwrightianus, starting with form from Crete (var. cretensis). Is it worth of species status - I don't know. Not easy to tell without DNA, but getting of this after my critics to Kerndorff became almost impossible, as analyses were done in Gatersleben where are researched his crocuses. Even long time friend joined with him not replies to me more, too. But truth is most important thing!
Then harvestinmg followed with Crocus longiflorus. This Italian species didn't grew well. Corms were unusually small, although some stocks splitted unusually abundantly, but formed small corms. Just opposite was situation with Crocus niveus from Pelloponesus. I never before had so huge corms of it - just just fit 9 corms into mine 15x15 cm pots. Bot no splitting. Losses were very occasional and very few corms mummified, but for the first time I observed baked crocus corms (yesterday in greenhouse was + 54 C). They were on pot side exposed to sun. Earlier I occasionally had this with frits, tulips, corydalis, but it was first time with crocuses.

[pehe]

Janis, just keep on writing
I really enjoy reading this "diary". It is not so often we get information on how the corms had performed, so I find it very interesting.

I have also been repotting, but of course in a much smaller scale than you.
We had a very warm spring and it is still unusually warm here in Denmark. I can see that on my crocus corms. they are in general smaller than usual, as they got dormant very early.
Wattiorum has split in many very small corms, so no flowering this year . In general I find it difficult to get flowering sized corms of this species. It seems to go dormant very early. Maybe someone has a good advice?
In general all corms are very healthy and I have only lost single corms. This is much better than previous years, and I think that the main reason is that I sterilized the compost last year and added Promot Plus which contains Trichoderma koningii and Trichoderma harzianum.
A few species has performed better than expected:
Hakkariensis, lycius, nevadensis, ligusticus and sativus has very big corms.
Balansae Chocolate Soldier, which I got 2 medium size corms of this spring from New Zealand, has been growing until recently and has multiplied to 5 medium sized corms
The last success I will mention is 2 year old seedlings of my own cross of vallicola and scharojanii scharojanii. One of the pots was repotted for the first time this year, and I got 19 corms which is 6-10 mm.

Poul

[Janis Ruksans]

Thank you, Poul. Having no replies or comments I felt something idiotic with my entries. Happy that those are interesting for someone.
Yesterday I harvested Spanish autumnal crocuses. They grew very well. For most I never before had so good corms. Single exception was my own gatherings from Portugal. Corms again were small, two pots were marked with slip "bad corms". Although it means nothing - quite often they grew erven better than those in unmarked pots. As always with Spanish autumn bloomers were problems with correct identification. OK, no problems with nudiflorus - stoloniferous, forming leaves only in spring, although this year it was not so distinctly stoloniferous as before. Identification of serotinus again isn't very difficult - its more or less, but always coarsely reticulated tunics allowed to separate it. Problems are with separating of clusii from salzmannii - even under glass it is not always easy to decide are the tunics parallel fibrous or finely reticulated. Clusii usually are without leaves at blooming time but my most proliferous clusii (received from famous German grower) always has long and wide leaves at blooming time. I apologize to my customers, if I sent them wrongly named plants, but by other features it +/- fit clusii. I well understand why Brian Mathew regarded them as subspecies.
Another species from yesterday was C. ligusticus. I have 5 small samples of it and contrary to Poul I can't be proud with successful growing of this species. Yes, it alive and may be this year corms are better than usually, but they are small and I only can to hope about their blooming this autumn.

[Janis Ruksans]

Today I finished harvesting, not repotting. Contrary to my usual practice I decided to harvest last pots and then in early morning to start repotting. The first was Crocus cancellatus s.l. Excellent quality although corms were something smaller than usually could be, but losses were absolutely minimal. All corms  had 1-2 cm long shoots and I accidentally broke the shoot of the first cleaned corm. In general I'm very satisfied with all crocuses from C. cancellatus group. May be Greek mazziaricus were not so healthy (there were more mummified corms) and were larger than Turkish cancellatus, but I'm very happy with them.
Then followed assumaniae from pallasii group. Again corms were very healthy, although much smaller than usually were. They didn't like this extreme climate, but I'm satisfied - a lot will be blooming and one stock perfectly increased by splitting, too. The growing and shape was so special and different from other "pallasii" relatives that I even labeled some unknown stock as assumaniae only after corm shape and size, of course using question mark on label.
And then came Crocus turcicus. It really shocked me. Corms were huge, incredible size and huge were losses. Where I had 5 pots for harvesting alive for repotting only for 2 pots. Mummification, fusarium - I was really shocked about results. No one other pallasii s.l. was so bad. I checked died corms with loupe and on one corm was really shocked seeing a lot of small insects quickly running between died tissue. They were of size of Rhizoglyphus mite - the pest which destroyed a lot of collections in Germany, including collection of Erich Pasche, but looked something different. Mites usually are slower in mowing and are dying or at least sleeping in so high temperatures. But I was so shocked that I put the corm in plastic bag and stopped harvesting for running to laboratory. They checked for me the corm and insects and found that they are saprophytes which eat dead tissue and reason for bulbs death was fungal problem - most likely Fusarium, but it was impossible to check it so quickly. So I breathed more freely, but in any case losses from Fusarium between C. turcicus was enormous. As I wrote before - the greatest losses were between pallasii group. If I would line them starting with the best growers the line would look so - kofudagensis, assumaniae, mathewii, pallasii from Syria, Israel, Jordan, macedonicus, pallasii from Greece Islands and W Turkey, type pallasii from Crimea and as the worst - turcicus, especially turcicus from Lebanon. If it would continue in following years in same way - without sawing of seeds some stock would be certainly lost.
I must note, that I'm every year repotting in fresh pots, in fresh sterile substrate, so no reason for infection. This year I checked health status of repotted corms very carefully and all suspicious were destroyed. Only some rarest species where corms looked poor were marked with slip - bad corms. But I think I already wrote that sometimes so marked corms grew better that those without mark.
Returning to Rhizoglyphus mite. I think that I have minor problems (I only once found this mite on single died corm got a year before from Germany) for several reasons. At first it is sanitary, then my growing style - repotting and immediate replacing of pots in greenhouse where temperature this summer reached even +54 C. Mite stop increase in temperatures over 25 and dies at 44 C. Pots are kept dry up to temperature falls down in autumn to 10-15 C. But mite again inactivates at such temperatures. So there is very short period when it can increase and damage corms. I agree with Henrik Zetterlund that mite makes damage only together with fungal disease, especially with Fusarium. If your bulbs are healthy - no problems.
So for me remained potting of harvested corms, then harvesting of some 40 pots with 4-5 years old seedlings, and then will come line to frits etc.

[Maggi Young]

A difficult year of growing, for sure. Thank goodness there are  good results also.

[sokol]

Janis, thanks for writing this diary and keep on. I am reading it very carefully. I did not start repotting at all, everyday 35°C is too much for that job.

[pehe]

I have just finished repotting the last 100 pots of crocus. In general they have performed well. Almost all has increased in numbers, but some of them were smaller than expected. On some species there were many cormlets, which I just have send to the Crocus seed exchange together with my spare seeds.
When I put the pots back in the frame I saw the first sprout of Crocus mazziaricus, so in a day or two I have the first Crocus flower of the season. I was surprised as Crocus suworovianus is normally  the first one in flower at me. (Except Crocus scharojanii scharojanii, which is the very first but unfortunately it does not flower every year for me). Shortly after suworovianus follows scharojanii flavus and vallicola. But this spring and summer has been very warm and dry, and that could explain that the order of appearence has changed.
Out of topic I could mention that Colchicum parnassicum and kotshyi flowered in July, while Colchicum montanum and Cyclamen hederifolium have just started flowering.

Poul

[fermi de Sousa]

A bit of a surprise a couple of days ago to find a bright coloured shoot appearing in a seed-pot.
Sown in 2016 from Goteborg seed Crocus gargaricus ssp gargaricus (J&JA 344.090, Turkey) 
Today I brought it inside to get it to open in the warmth!
It is tiny, so definitely one for a trough rather than the garden, unless it's just because it's only 2 years old
cheers
fermi

[Maggi Young]

A nice reminder of  Jim on the anniversary of his death. Thanks, fermi

[Janis Ruksans]

I finished repotting of main crocus stocks 9 days ago. The last to plant was species from pallasii group, and very last was C. turcicus. As I wrote already - there were greatest losses from Fusarium dry rot. I'm attaching here picture how looks infected corms. Although C. turcicus had the greatest losses in the same time it made hugest corms. On the second picture are 15x15 cm pot in which was possible to plant only 5(!) corms. For you can better compare on next picture is pot with Crocus pallidus seedlings where in pot of same size were placed 25 corms.

I don't think that it would be possible to keep C. turcicus in collection without regular pollinating and re-sawing of seeds. Fortunately species from C. pallasii group set seeds very easily and abundantly. They germinates very well and I'm usually throwing away smaller sizes of seedlings, having far too much for my needs and current size of nursery.

[Janis Ruksans]

Very important is labeling of all your acquisitions. I'm using labels made in Germany, they in full sun last at least 3 to 5 years before became brittle. I found that no one of markers are sufficiently sun and waterproof regardless of producer and label on packet ensuring for use just this product. Some lasts longer, but no one is permanent. So I turned to old standard graphite pencil. Most of my labels are handwritten, but in winter months some are printed by laser printer on special film (very expensive) which are attached on plastic label, but again problem is in glue - sometimes didn't fix the printed film on label for long time, so nothing is better than old standard black pencil.

On labels I'm writing main important information - name, acquisition number, locality where it was collected or from whom it was received, altitude where it grows. In some cases on top is special number. It is used for species in which I'm specially interested. For example - all localities from where I'm growing crocuses of biflorus group are numbered from 1 (Italy) to 99 - E Turkey and Caucasus, those biflorus from Iran has locality numbers starting from 100. It allows easier placing on beds - in such a way neighbouring species are placed side by side.
Similarly labeled are crocus localities for large group of C. mazziaricus relatives and this winter I will give similar numbers for C. pallasii group.

Crocuses from chrysanthus group (annulate species with yellow flowers, not always relatives) are "numbered" by alphabet starting from A which is used for locus classicus of chrysanthus in Galičica in Northern Macedonia.

I'm sure that under name of C. danfordiae are hidden several species, so their acquisitions again are numbered starting from West in direction to East. Putting on map my acquisitions of those crocuses they formed 2 separate groups - Western populations and Eastern populations - so for danfordiae crocuses in label near locality number is attached litter "W" or "E" - showing from which region it comes.

Another labeling system is used for seeds. There always on label is year when seeds were collected and sawn. So S-18 mean that seeds were collected in 2018. Most of my seeds are from hand-pollinated plants, but if they are from open pollination - then is attached small liter "o". Sometimes such labels show amazing things. I this summer harvested pot with some Iris species sawn already in 2008. There were blooming size corms and still a lot of seedlings which germinated only last spring and there were still seeds which looked good, but still waiting... There were similar situation with crocus mathewii sawn in October, 2011. That only confirms how important is early sawing - I try to saw my seeds immediately after harvesting - then germination is very abundant in the first spring.

[Janis Ruksans]

Sometimes are attached special red label. It is used for pots where special attention is needed, from where herbarium must be made because it is supposedly new, still unpublished species. I still have a lot of crocus samples without name, where only acquisition number is written on label. Some of those are selected for deeper research during following blooming and growing season - and then red label allows easier to locate the pot between almost 4000 pots with crocuses.

Crocus repotting is finished and top-dressing with stone-chips started. Watering will start only in September. But still almost half of greenhouse needs working. Today almost finished Colchicums - remained 8 pots! Were too tired to bring new potting mixture into greenhouse. Will finish tomorrow and then will be line for Cyclamen, Fritillaria, Corydalis etc. etc. I was out of repotting during almost all last week. After finishing with crocuses came Open Door Day for my wife's Phlox collection (more than 200 cultivars). We had almost 500 visitors and my help was very essential. Then 3 days I worked with bees and honey harvesting. The best crop from one family was 70 kg, but in average 30 kg from family - not very good, but excellent for so dry season. And then followed packing of inland orders for Latvian customers. So only yesterday I again returned to repotting of my bulb collection.

[Janis Ruksans]

Surprised that regardless of long shoots at repotting time still no one autumn crocus are blooming. May be too hot? And no one reported their blooming from other places. With me now nicely blooms only few Colchicums, several (many of kotschyi, paschei) were repotted too late - finished blooming in boxes. Between not repotted yet bloomed pictured here C. lusitanum from Portugal. Blooms some Acis and Cyclamen hederifolium (were repotted with blooms).

[pehe]

The weather has turned back to normal for Denmark, about 22 degrees and cloudy. That is cold compared to a week ago where it was sunny and +30.
Maybe that is the reason that many of my Crocus has shown their noses:
Crocus suworovianus, vallicola, scharojanii flavus, cancellatus. Only one is in full flower: Crocus mazziaricus aff. I will see if I can show a pic tomorrow.

Poul

[Janis Ruksans]

Here still is very hot. Some cooling offered only next week - down to 20 C.