Almost no fertilizer talk. I was asked to write a summary about the meeting for our club bulletin.
Dahlia Talk Minutes 05-23-23
by Ted J. Kennedy
Our President Dan Baulig was drafted by his grand daughter to attend her first pitching assignment in Astoria, Oregon. He chose to delegate the host duties to Randy Miller in Idaho. 22 people participated and I am sure the number is lower than usual as people are busy and/or tired from planting their dahlias. Two people from Australia, were there and we got to talk a bit about digging dahlias and a giant tuber clump was shown to us along with the information that his harvest of tubers was especially productive. The other Aussie reported that the unusual Fall rains wiped out one of his plots and the majority of the clumps rotted. His main garden appears to be in better shape.
Lots of the meeting was a discussion on spider mites and broad mites. I was not familiar with broad mites and was sorry to find out they are one of the worst plagues that can befall a dahlia garden. They are so small that they are invisible to the human eye. A story was told about the dahlia gardener(Chicago area) whose garden was decimated by an unknown vermin. Our Dahlia Talk member, being all knowing on the subject of mites informed that grower that his garden had been invaded by broad mites. He pointed at a bucket sitting near the garden and informed the grower that the bucket was completely covered with live broad mites. He went through the complicated miticide program needed to handle the mites and explained the difference between laminar miticides and those that were not laminar. Now you know that laminar means the chemical will enter the plant tissue and kill mites whereas the others have to be sprayed on the bottom of the dahlia leaves. Another short discussion was on the protective gear worn by the miticide applicator and it included a full double respirator and a set of protective goggles, special shoulder length rubber gloves. Talk about scaring little children.
Another informative discussion was on the positive benefits of Mycorrhizae, the beneficial root fungi that causes plants to grow extremely vigorous root systems. The miserly presenter said he bought his supply for $26.00 at a marijuana head shop. The benefits are numerous and a story about a Santa Cruz, dahlia book author using it to on every tuber was related to us. The reason is just not the increased root mass but that the land of said person is infested with a millepede that eats dahlia roots. Dahlias inoculated with Mycorrhizae have increased root mass and there are more roots than millipedes when using it.
Not to be outdone, Max Olleue the big spender, related that he was using a product called Root Shield on his dahlia tubers and it has several beneficial fungi that have been proven to kill most other fungi infections in plants. He extolled his positive results of blemish free(my words not his) tubers and the positive effect on growth and vigor. He almost guaranteed two or three best in show awards if you use it(again my fake quote of Max but you know what I mean). He said he may pop for the improved version called Root Shield Plus that has even more bio engineered ingredients. Did I say, Max spent $200.00 on his Root Shield but he also said it goes along way and he has enough product to treat several years crop and even to give some away.
We had other interesting discussions and the fine points of pot tubers were discussed, including some of the ways that they are grown. We decided that pot tubers can be used for cutting production, for preservation of a difficult variety, and for just regular dahlia planting where you remove it from the pot and just plant the tuber clump into the ground. This discussion was also related to our discussion on the vigor of plants grown from a rooted cutting versus growing dahlias from tubers. I will not share that answer as there would be too many words and too many opinions.
An interesting question involving the hardening off of dahlia seedlings was posed to the group by a multiple medal winning dahlia breeder. So many good answers were offered that I will not attempt to list them but a consensus was reached that the seedling plants need to be about 6 inches tall(8 inches from one expert) and when they are grown to that height they do well when transplanted to the garden.
