Amorphophallus-Forum.de

Hi Willem,

well, I made the same experience. I ordered the tubers via a friend in the USA, who bought them at ebay/US and sent the tubers on to me.
This journey took of course some days....

The tubes where packed very firm in newspaper and the leaf buds got definitely too much pressure on them; no idea, if this would have been OK for a sending within the US, but I doubt it.

The hildebrandtii was rotting -
I cleaned the rest of the tuber, but it dried out totally of course (last picture); the pictures are from 09.01.2016

The taurostigma was more or less OK, but the bud was squeezed, too.
The tuber looks still the same and is growing a tiny green bud; I will pot the tuber these days and hope.....

One erythrorrachis had a squeezed bud and I cut away the soft parts...
The tuber is unschanged till today and I have no idea, if it is still alive; I guess so....

A second erythrorrachis was more or less OK -
It is growing a tiny green bud, too and I will pot it and hope.....

I agree with what you write about the risk to order wild collected tubers.
BUT, the circumstances were not OK...
First the tubers where collected when they were in growth. This can be seen in the fact that a small new tuber had grown above the main tuber and then the growth was forced to stop.
Secondly, the company did not send them well packed - I was temped to ask for another hildebrandtii and for a better packing, but the state of the tubers held me back from doing so.....
Well, it's OK when a company asks a good price for rare tubers, but the hole handling suggests that they are more interested in a quick US$ than selling proper material.....
I doubt that I will buy again from them....


In regard to your question:
I would suggest to treat the tubers with a broad band fungizide like Alliette or Alliette plus; Alliette plus has a contact fungizide additionally to the contact and systemic component...
I will buy the latter these days......
The suggestion of Cyrille Claudel to post them in pumice / Bimskies is a good one - I will use pumice a well; not a fine one, but 3 - 8 mm to give a good aeration.

Good luck!
Bernhard.

Hi Willem,

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Bayer-Pilzfrei-Al…3kAAOSwt7pXMbVQ

No idea, if they would send to NL......????

Haven't you got a sending from Duitsland recently.... ;-)

Happy "posting", Bernhard.

I think you will get these fungicides also in NL

Interesting Thread, but my question is how about the legal situation?
Maybe these companys trading with wild collected tubers have a way to get the tubers to Germany,
but they are still wild collected plants and i think nobody knows exactly how endangered and rare they are in wild nature.
Madagaskar is a Country with a great nature, but most of it is already destroyed by human....I think we all should prefer tubers from controlled reproduction

Well, that is a wide field......

When there are tubers from controlled reproduction they can be preferred, but how did they get in cultivation.....

As far as I know no Amorphohpallus spec is listed in CITES
http://www.wisia.de/FsetWisia1.de.html - search for Amorphophallus..
and Amorphophallus spec are not protected species covered by the German species protection regulations

How the situation in the habitat is, I do not know, but atlleast taurostigma is found in not protected areas
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?f…on_id=242417512
for ankarana there are no sites outside protected areas listed
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?f…on_id=242417509 ,
but that species is available form controlled reproduction

if hildebrantii is available from controlled reproduction I do not know....

Neither do I know, if the collection was permitted, but due to the offer from Out-of-Africa, I would suggest that it might be so:
http://www.out-of-africa-plants.com/prod…amorphophallus/
I cannot imagine, that illigal material is offered in such an open way......

A friend of mine got a few years ago an Amorph. aff elegans collected in the habitat - since then the plant is in cultivation / controlled reproduction.... - in the location where it was collected you can only collect oil palms nowadays......

Just my 2cts.....

Happy growing, Bernhard.

Amorphophiles,

just to update what happend to the tubers I got from Out of Africa.......

The remains of the hildebrandtii dessicated of course..... so R.I.P.

The taurostigma looked like this in October 2016:



So it did not look too bad, but the little tuber dessicated due to the big surface without a real "epidermis" or wound... so R.I.P.

Unhappy, Bernhard.

... in October 2016:




Unhappy, Bernhard.

... in October 2016:



This tuber survived the storage 2016/17 and started to grow and looked like this in June 2017:



.... and on Oct, 2nd:



So to make a long story short..... I ended up with 1 tuber out of 4 that made it so far and looking back at the price I will never buy from OoA again.

The remaining erythrorrhachis tuber looks pretty good and it will surely survive dormancy; the next critical step will be not to pott it too early next spring; doing this I have lost healthy looking tubers from spec. from Madagascar.
The very nice point is that this tuber looks like it will grow offsets..... :-)

Happy growing, Bernhard.

Hello Willem,

what a pitty, last it didn't look so bad, but tubers can be deceitful... wish you better luck next time.
One of my gigas also passed away, probably it was my fault, I kept it too wet.
Your gallaensis still is in growth.

Michael

Folks,

to add something to my post #13....
I was very happy how the tuber looked at Oct, 2nd... I left it on the paper tissue in order to let it dry; after about 1 or 2 weeks I had a look again and I found a dark (wet?) spot on the paper tissue under the tuber:

and the tuber had a dark and soft spot; VERY frustrating!- I did not take a photo, but scraped out the soft tuber tissue:

In the end I am lucky - the hole dried and today the tuber looks like this:

Well, if you ever have a tuber like erythrorrhachis, check it daily till you are sure that the tuber is really OK.
I have my tuber now lying on top of the totally dry substrate in my homeoffice at room temperature.

(Un-) Happy, Bernhard.

Looks like I had good luck.....

I will be very cautious to pot the tuber - I will definitely wait a couple of weeks before I pot it in order to ensure that the growing temperatures in my wintergarden are high and stable....

Still happy, Bernhard.

update - looks like I have to pot it soon....

Still happy, Bernhard.

picture from 04.07.2018 - looking good again - hope for a good season...



Still Happy...