Dahlia Talk article, unedited by the person they assign to clean up my typos.
Dahlia Talk 07/23/24
Sugar Coated Dahlias
Twenty eight very enthusiastic participants engaged in the monthly Dahlia Talk Zoom meeting. It was a lively meeting full of interesting content. I have been growing dahlias for over 30 years now and feel that if there is something to learn about dahlias I have already heard of it. There are not many surprises for me and most things people suggest are something I have already heard of or even worse, I know it does not work or there is a better way. But tonight I was ambushed by an idea so simple, so inexpensive and so easy to do and it is eminently effective. Yes, as the title above implies we need to sugar coat our dahlias. I will explain in the second portion of this short article as I tend to write the meeting summary in chronological order. Yes, we need to sugar coat our dahlias.
It was publicized before the meeting that pot tubers would be the major discussion subject and two very experienced growers were especially invited to the Zoom meeting to share their decades of experience concerning pot tubers. Mark Oldenkamp grows thousands of cuttings each year and uses pot tubers to do this. Dick Parshall has been using pot tubers for decades to increase the stock of his breeding selections and for several other reasons that he explained to us.
We have discussed pot tubers in several prior meetings. I will try not to repeat what was covered previously.
Mark Oldenkamp described his pot tuber procedures. He grows pot tubers primarily to produce cuttings that he donates to our club and other clubs for fund raisers. He grows thousands of cuttings and this requires lots of pot tubers and multiple pot tubers of the varieties. Mark uses 3.5 inch pots placed into a 10” x 20” flat(18 per flat?) . He uses Wilco potting soil in the pots. He grows his pot tubers outside on a table and has set up an automatic watering system that waters them as many as three times per day. He uses no fertilizer in the pots and the plants typically do not bloom. Again, the reason he grows them is to provide cutting material. We discussed two issues concerning the production of the cuttings. The first issue was “waking up” the pot tuber to produce cutting material. Mark cuts back the dead stem down to the tuber material and slightly exposes the location of the “eyes” to the air and light. He waters his pots and places them under lights in a 70 degree location and they begin sending up sprouts in about a week. Mark almost always harvest the sprouts by removing them very close to the tubers and does not generally do “node”“ cuttings from higher up on the sprout. He uses the smaller Oasis cubes for the cuttings having found out the larger ones are less effective and more expensive.
Dick Parshall grows about 200 pot tubers each year and he does so to increase his stock of seedlings and to produce many, many cuttings that he donates to the Washington clubs for fundraisers. He generally does not plant his rooted cuttings into his own garden unless he is short on a variety. He prefers to plant tubers in his garden. Dick grows his pot tubers in 3.5 inch pots in the same 10” x 20” flats as Mark above. However, Dick grows his pot tubers on the ground(slightly buried in the ground) and uses t-tape to water them. Dick goes through a procedure to “wake up” his dormant pot tubers and places them in a plastic bag with some moist potting soil and places the bag on top of his refrigerator or freezer where it is about 72 degrees. He says they show sprouts at about one week. He commented that he wants to see hair roots on the tuber material on both his pot roots and tubers that he wakes up in the same manner. He says hair roots indicate that the plant will grow well.
I have left out lots of detail from the presentations of both of these growers and you should have “been there”.
One short item: People in many parts of the USA have difficulty buying small pots that are not flimsy. They must pay exorbitant shipping costs when buying in bulk. I mentioned that here in Oregon, we have horticultral stores where you just go there and buy all your supplies. For example, OBC in Canby, Oregon sells anything you need for a commercial grower from green houses to plant tags, potting soil or just about anything. Small pots are sold by the thousands in bales. You can specify the heavy duty pots for re-use. They can order special pots from the manufacturer. Now when I mentioned all of this, most of the people in the Dahlia Talk do not live in Oregon and I detected a slight amount of jealousy here. I offered this suggestion, if you need a heavy duty 4 inch pot and all you have are flimsy pots, nest two of them together and that will be almost as good as a heavy duty pot. Or, move to Oregon.
Sugar Coated dahlias was the last thing I expected to hear. Our subject discussion left pot tubers and we generally talked about insects and pests like rabbits and voles. Rabbits had no definitive answer. We went on to wire worms that are also known as Click beetles. They are very infectious and if you have them you cannot get rid of them. We were all hoping for new “miracle cure” for them but there was sadness in the room as a person who conferred with Washington State University announced they have stated “there is no cure” for wire worms. I asked about the people who suffer from Japaneses beetles and whether pheromone traps were effective. I was told by the victims of the beetles that if someone puts up one of those traps within a half mile of their property, the traps attract beetles from miles away and they are deluged with beetles. Oops, I had foot in mouth disease concerning beetles.
Finally, we get to sugar coating dahlias. Two people were enthusiastic about testing the sugar(brix) levels of the juices in their dahlia leaves. There is a belief that the higher the sugar level, the less insect damage you have. The meter for testing the sugar levels costs less that $20- on Amazon.
There is a pod cast they refer to and I have not had time to watch it but am posting the link. https://notillflowers.libsyn.com/the-magical-brix-number-that-stops-pests-an-exciting-conversation-with-dr-tom-dykstra
In order to increase the brix level in the plants one person is using a spray she bought from Amazon that has has some sort of brown sugar in it . She has used it and it has increased the brix levels. All of this sugar stuff is new to me and we will be following the progress of those who are using this method to control insect damage.
