Taking Dahlia Cuttings

blown_dry · 2023-02-04T23:34:14+00:00

Continuing from https://cubits.org/Dahlias/thread/view/92091/#end_of_thread

MIDahlias

Teddahlia thank you. The 30pk is on sale for $9.95 (if anyone is interested).... i purchased and delivery is tomorrow.

Teddahlia

"...breakaway utility knives and just discard the break-awayed piece." This site spawns excellent ideas. Scalpels are cheap and easy to use and I have been known to use my Zenport bonsai scissors when I was in a hurry. Yes, my Felco hand loppers are bitt too big.
random picture from September

Teddahlia

"When cutting flowers, sanitize tools with disinfectant wipes or 70% ethanol before and in between uses to prevent mechanical transmission of DMV"

JessieC

Juliarugula
That’s what I use. I think an exacto might be a bit more precise, but I like the convenience of the retractable blade. When I was in architecture school, we used a lot of #11 blades for model building, and there were always stories of gruesome trips to the ER resulting from stray blades and overexhausted students 🫣
The smaller Olfa type knife seems safer to me.

Juliarugula

JessieC When I was in architecture school,

raising hand Umm, that would be me (the architecture student who cut the tip of her finger off with an exacto). Funny. What architecture school? I was at Rice.

JessieC

Juliarugula LOL that’s too funny. I was at UVA. Never made it to the ER with a blade injury, but I remember how many #11 blades we’d store in big jars after they were spent. Just looking at a fresh pack of them brings me back to the long days (and nights) in the studio.

MIDahlias

I did start a few leaf cuttings in pots last summer and did get some small clumps. I started some leaf cuttings last month for fun and cut them up today to start six more. Look at how cute this tiny tuber clump is. I'm
in love with how cute it is.

Juliarugula

MIDahlias that’s darling!

DarcyD

MIDahlias Ha. I had like twenty of these little mini clumps. I grew them out this past year after not getting a bunch of cuttings planted the previous year. They grew into some healthy plants and tuber clumps.

blown_dry

MIDahlias That's adorable! It's so perfect at scale; it reminds me of doll house furnishings.

MIDahlias

DarcyD Besides being very cute. I'm sow thrilled. I have purchased cuttings online and at auctions that gave me no tubers. I didn't have cuttings in my 2023 garden except for my experiments. This honestly gives me the same feels as puppy breath or a new born baby.

Teddahlia

When you buy an expensive cutting. how do grow it to be sure you get some tubers?

Bessie

Teddahlia if it was my cutting that I wanted to make sure made tubers, I'd drastically cut it back(and make some cuttings 😁) when it was about 18" tall. I had a plant that the gopher ate almost to the ground, and at the end of the season the tuber clump was really big. I'd also make sure the cutting was fertilized with an n-p-k( with micronutrients ) throughout the season.

Krista

Teddahlia If the cutting was done in a way that doesn’t include node material, I don’t think there’s a thing you can do to get tubers? If cutting includes node material, I’ve heard reducing/preventing blooms helps but I’ve always been too greedy for flowers to have ever tried it. I’m looking forward to finding out more about this though!

KitCMC

Teddahlia has anyone mentioned planting deep and burying leaf nodes - similar to tomatoes?

I often grow these cuttings (or expensive, new release tubers) in 7-10 gallon grow bags. It allows me to grow them later into the season. I pull them in and out of my garage at night/in morning all fall to give tubers extra time to develop. Would work even better in a greenhouse/high tunnel. Probably not an issue for warmer zones.

SteveM

Teddahlia When you buy an expensive cutting. how do grow it to be sure you get some tubers?

A couple of ways to "force" tuber formation:

Grow the cuttings under short day lengths to promote tuber formation. I define anything less than 12 hours as "short day" but that is just a general guideline and could be off by a few hours (might be closer to 10 hours?). Also, it is actually the length of the dark period that is important and not the day length (even though I say 'day length').
grow the cuttings in small pots to stress the plant and induce tuber formation. Other types of stress might also work but I have never experimented with other stresses. Maybe nutritional stress would also work?

Teddahlia

There are two issues with tuber making:
(1) size of tubers
(2) number of tubers.

Teddahlia

I have some ideas about getting tubers from cuttings and have written a short article. Before I share it, I thought I would ask for suggestions so I can plagiarize them for the article. 😳

Bessie

Teddahlia I noticed LinkedIn has been doing the same tactic for gathering info. They ask a question posed as "you've been selected to give your answer to the following question". Yeah, I wanted to show I knew the answer, but Dahlia questions are much more interesting.

Bessie

Teddahlia don't forget the ability to store the tubers. Quantity and size doesn't matter if the tubers have been grown in a way that they are too soft or lack the nutrients to store properly.
I've been obsessed with the Yara.com website...
Here they discuss how magnesium contributes to good potato tubers.
https://www.yara.co.uk/crop-nutrition/potato/nutrient-deficiencies-potatoes/magnesium-deficiency-potatoes/

Magnesium is important for
Boosts bulking
Increased yield of tubers
Improved disease resistance and skin quality
Increased tuber dry matter content and starch levels

SteveM

KitCMC has anyone mentioned planting deep and burying leaf nodes - similar to tomatoes?

That is a great way to increase tubers. Bending a branch over and burying it will form nice tubers at every buried node. Can be a bit tricky to find when digging if the location is not marked.

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