Winter tuber storage

calico20hill · 2023-12-31T00:08:04+00:00

I just did a quick check on my tubers and I am encouraged. No whiff of mold, no wrinkles, and these were small tubers that would not necessarily store well...

Teddahlia

Someone ought to invent a rotting scale from 1 to 10 where 1 is the best and 10 means it almost never stores as the tubers rot. HH Purely Purple would be an 8 or 9. Cornel would would be be a 1 or 2 as it stores without any effort. . Formby Kaitlyn an 8. Seabeck's Hilda is 8. Note that 8 means it can be kept and 9 would be seldom kept and 10 never kept. To get to the issue at hand Sarah Mae is a 7 or 8.

The rotting rating score could be part of of a "tuber storage score" where the number of tubers and the size of the tubers and ease of tuber division would be rated to give an overall score.

SteveM

Teddahlia and the size of the tubers

If i were a shipper, I would rate the smaller tubers higher than the larger tubers, assuming they were equally mature.

Using your Rotten Rating system:
SB's Star - 9
Seabeck's Hilda - 8
Chimacum Troy - 7
Cafe Au Lait - 3

Teddahlia

Chimacum Troy was inconsistent for us : three crappy clumps and then one nice one.
I will rate Cafe' au Lait a 10 as if I saw it growing in my garden I would yank it out and sterilize the soil.

BackyardBouquets_17

Teddahlia

I guess we just need a Hollyhill dahlia in Cafe Au Laite colors and all of us growing it purely for the color will join you in yanking Cafe Au Laite out of our gardens 😉

MissyWeitzel

Skipley Reboot is a 100 😅

Juliarugula

MissyWeitzel does it rot for you? For me it just only made a single replacement tuber. And had a tendency to blow its center fast. It was a bummer, because it’s such a gorgeous bloom at its peak. I discontinued it because of those two qualities, but not because it didn’t keep.

The two I’ve had trouble with are

HH Snow Queen (8 - I can usually get one or two tubers through the winter)
HH Wicked Witch (7)

I’d give Ryecroft Balackberry a 6. It gave me a good scare about halfway through the winter, but about half of the tubers rallied. And most of the ones that didn’t were just blind.

My votes for 1 ratings:

20th Ave Softer Peach
SB’s Ora (bonus because they’re adorable little grapes!)

MissyWeitzel

Juliarugula oh yeah I have had and lost it 3 times. Each year it gave me between 1 and 3 tubers and each winter they rotted. I tried rooting so many fall cuttings of it to make backups because I knew what would happen but none of them took unfortunately.

A friend told me that Snoho Monika is the seed parent of Skipley Reboot and is the same way and possibly worse. He sent me a very nice tuber of Monika and it rotted a month later. I have a couple 2nd year Reboot seedlings I love that stored great over winter thankfully.

Teddahlia

HH Snow Queen for some reason stores well enough here that we can even sell some. I would call it a 6 or a 7.

In breeding you are trying to breed a beautiful flower. When the beautiful flower has crappy tubers, you are forced to make a decision: Cull it and it is lost to the world or introduce it and people will have problems with the tubers. There is a point where the beauty wins. Dahlia enthusiasts will grow the beauty queens despite the tuber problems. One unexpected consequence is that the variety will probably go extinct. I loved Kenora Wow but it's tuber storage problems were terrible. Eventually everybody loses these varieties.

Juliarugula

Teddahlia HH Snow Queen for some reason stores well enough here that we can even sell some. I would call it a 6 or a 7.

That’s funny. And Seabeck’s Hilda stores really well for me here. I’ve never lost even one Seabeck’s Hilda tuber (but I lost it one year due to miscalculation and over sharing).

MIDahlias

Due to the harsh Michigan weather I covered my tubers with a lot of blankets. Possibly 20 blankets. I think I smothered them because most rotted. Next year, I'm moving back to my parent's garage. I had almost 100% success in their garage. It's an attached garage with bedrooms above it. I think the temps are more consistent and no matter what the temps outside it are never falls before 35. I only moved to my house because last year, my father moved the tubers from the his garage to the patio and they all dried up. So I thought I would take them home, and cover them with blankets, when needed. Notes to remember: *I spent two years trying 3 different storage methods and my parent's garage was best. *If it's not broke don't fix it. What works for one doesn't work for everyone. (Granted I still want to try building an insulated room on wheels in my garage and use an aquarium lamp to keep it warm on the inside. A few West Michigan dahlia peeps do this with success. However, do I want to try this next year after two bad years? Stay tuned.....

Teddahlia

Our three dahlias in 15 gallon pots:
We did nothing to store them and left them where they grew for the winter. The potting soil that is in the pots seems to be good for winter storage. The two important things are (1) Yield (2) Condition.
Yield: Below average as compared to field grown clumps. Tubers smaller and fewer of them. Some yielded better than others but all had useable tubers.
Condition: Above average with very little rot.
Notes: The fairly dry soil clung to the tubers clumps very tightly and since there were three clumps in each pot they were entangled and I used a short handled shovel to slice between the three clumps. Sounds easy but the hair roots were everywhere and it took some real effort to separate the clumps. We immediately re-planted the pots with divided and somewhat divided tubers of the same varieties. We now have the extra tubers to plant in the main garden.
I like growing dahlias in 15 gallon pots. and we will probably add plants of our best seedlings this year.
Where are they? They were in an area that was a dahlia row but was a bit too shady and we had planted grass there. It is not too shady for the pots as they grew very well. Keeping them together makes it easier to water them(we hand water) . Slugs were not much of a problem but Margaret noted some slug eggs on one clump. People who over winter in the ground have to control slugs in our area. They burrow under the soil to plant eggs. The baby slugs love dahlia sprouts and the plants cannot get the shoots above ground level.

Two flowers grown in the pots.

MissyWeitzel

Teddahlia ooooh is the one on the right a future release?

SteveM

Teddahlia If the color is displayed accurately, that seedling is as close to being "blue" as any dahlia I've seen. What color does it key out as?

Teddahlia

The one on the right is the sport of the one on the left. That essentially makes it a "first year seedling", meaning we have almost no tubers and no real good information on how good it is or even whether the sport will still be the sport this year. The one on the left has proven itself and is a deep lavender blue color or perhaps that should be "deep blue lavender." So it will undoubtedly be named.

Teddahlia

It is the bluest dahlia I have ever seen. During the time of the year when colors are at their best it is very blue.

calico20hill

I would like to
compare it with my Blue Mountains seedlings.

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