I'm up to my ol' tricks again--only this time with a twist. In this case I used an incubation mix roughly of 33.3% Canadian peat moss, 33.3% generic potting mix (my favorite brand) and 33.3% coarse hand crushed, dried, raw sphagnum moss. To make things a little more interesting I used this mix to make safety backups on the three most expensive cultivars I bought last fall. And for a little more suspense, I did not pasteurize the base mix of peat and potting soil. Of the three bags I potted up today, the pictures below were of the last bag, but they all were alike. Each bag revealed a tangled mass of moss and roots with some roots longer than 10 inches, making separation a little difficult. There were many tiny little nub bulblets forming. These were put in incubation mid Oct. Pulled and put in refrigeration Dec. 20th, Pulled and put in cold room 58'F on Feb. 20th for the wake up, and potted up today, Feb. 26th.

Of course, not all this goofyness was done without some degree of confidence on my part. I had experimented with scrap scales, unpasteurized garden soil and lots of dried raw sphagnum moss some time ago and got bulblets. This Spring I plan to do some scaling using live, green (as grass) raw sphagnum moss as the growing media by itself. I plan to keep the moss alive and green throughout the process. Curious minds make like interesting.

Rick, if you magnify one of the close ups you can see the pink color pattern formation; it's a little different.

Somehow I'd never pictured your computer getting dirty!

Onward into the brave new unpasteurised world!

Della, speaking of computers, I got a new microscope for Christmas. I''m going to try tetraploid inducement with scales if the opportunity presents itself and if I have time at the time. It has the USB with a great software package for on-screen viewing, etc. It also provides me the opportunity to teach the grandkids a few things, too.

ooohhh. That will be fantastic! It's still on my wish list too. Love to see how it works for you.

Go ,Lorn!

Sounds like fun, Lorn. And I always love seeing those propagation pictures.

I enjoy cloning a lot, Tracey. It keeps me involved with lilies in some form or another all throughout the year. Last fall, I cloned a virused plant for the assurance of a seed and pollen source in the future. Bulblet development was fairy quick with good quantities. They were the first ones out of the chill and I now have 12 up and showing so far. I'm pretty happy with that because this particular plant was one of those brought to me from that estate sale dig and the one on my avatar (also, picture below). But I have real disappointments, too. This year I had trouble keeping things as warm in incubation as I wanted and some samples were stubborn with really slow development. Many days it was around 67'F/68'F. So I bought a thermostatically controlled heat mat. With a dry run and proper bedding I could regulate temps pretty well, no higher than 75'f. But one night the thing malfunctioned, the temperature rose to 149.7'F and it cooked the remaining 6 bags of scales to mush. And one of those was one I wanted more of pretty badly. But, we'll try again next year!

Ouch! The only lilies I want to cook are the bad ones!

I love the little incubating set up I have working for me now - just a styrofoam fish packing box and a little 5watt reptile heat pad controlled with a thermostat. They're seperate units, not an inbuilt thermostat. Both were just the cheapest offering from Hong Kong via eBay and they've operated perfectly for a year now - only been switched off for about a month. Do you know what went wrong with yours? What brand(s)?

I've just started the autumn's scaling

Della, it was a Hydro-Farm 'Jumpstart' heat mat with optional thermostat. Not cheap! I returned the item for cask back. Hydro-Farm has an excellent reputation for high quality products, but something went terribly wrong on the 4th day with this set up. Lucky, I didn't burn the house down. Here's the sad part: all the scales had many tiny bulblets and nublets forming already. I should have left well enough alone or planted them just as they were because I'm sure they would have grown. Photo below is one of the thermostat.

After reading about all the ways to start lilies from scales I always wanted to tell this story. Several years ago Martha Stewart had on her show a man to show her how to start lilies from scales. He broke the scales from the bulb. He had a pan of damp peat. He stuck the scales basil side down half way into the peat. All standing up. He said that was all there was to it. In a short time she would have a pan full of lily plants.

Is that old school or show biz.

John

It's probably a little of both. Probably more show biz though. I would imagine if you kept the peat damp enough you would get bulblets. That is certainly not the optimal way. So far I like using 100% raw sphagnum moss in a ziplock bag. It's very forgiving with moisture and very clean compared to shredded peat. Easy to see what's going on as well.

No, not necessarily 'old school'. It can be done that way; it's just that most of us don't. You've probably noticed we use bags. I think that's because we find that bags are more easily handled in a controlled environment than a pan or a flat, etc. Generally we only use 3 to 6 scales in a sample and the small size of the bags lends itself really well when running 20 samples. Also, most of us have found out that orientation of the scale does not have to be upright, it can be horizontal and it doesn't have to stick half way out of the media, either. But it can be done as you say. In fact, I have an old picture of Jan de Graaff's greenhouse with thousands upon thousands of scales standing upright in flats for propagation. If I'll can dig it out in the next day or two, I post it.

Joebass said: So far I like using 100% raw sphagnum moss in a ziplock bag. It's very forgiving with moisture and very clean compared to shredded peat. Easy to see what's going on as well.

And with raw sphagnum, it's also easy to see if it gets to dry..... there will be a color change.

Rick, I just spent two days at the farm and my intention was to get out and pull some live green raw sphagnum to experiment with but it was non-stop pouring rain all the while. I've got some bulbs in the fridge just waiting; hopefully in another couple weeks. These photos are from a friend in Austria. It's what I want to try next.

Yes, the live sphagnum sounds like a great idea. So then, the live sphagnum(with scales) must be in a sunny window (inside) or shade (outside)?
Open bag/container?

Do tell.....

Inside, low light, similar to north window, partially open bag. Scaling done late last Fall.

What would be the benefit of the live moss?

Probably none; just something I want to play with and find out just how well it works.

Joebass said:What would be the benefit of the live moss?

The antiseptic qualities of sphagnum are likely heightened

True. But how much of that increase do we really need though. I mean, the current dried product from Moser Lee does such a good job, it's hard to imagine when enough is enough antiseptic, in reality. Scales will spoil no matter what if the temperature and moisture parameters are not held. But it surely looks like it would be a nice, neat and clean way of doing things as long as bulblet production is good. And look at the savings in media, media mixing and prep. time. Look--no media sterilization required, that' all great stuff to me. Maybe.