BobbyinNY

Does anyone know what the easiest way to separate pups from the Mother corm is?... I have a 6ft dwarf cavendish that has 3 pups growing right next to the main stem.

imdocrob

Just thought you'd like to know that Momoese has a step by step pictorial on Page 8 of this forum on how to seperate pups. It is under the thread titled "A day in the life of a pup. Hope this helps, I'm sure it will.
Rob

momoese

Rob, not only are the pictures from that post gone but I have leaned some since. The method that I posted works really well for me when transplanting them immediately after cutting.

So here is what I do:

Dig the soil from around the pup so that you can see the whole corm of pup and a large part of the mother corm. Some of the mom's roots will be damaged but it never seems to hurt my mother plants. When you can get a good visual the take a spade or some sharp flat object and cut the pup corm off of the mother corm taking a nice size chunk of the mother plant's corm with it. This is the most important part! Don't be afraid to really get a nice chunk of the mom, she won't care! The chance of the pup surviving without having some of the mother corm to help nurse it along until it grows it's own roots are slim, but not unheard of. It pretty much depends on how big the pup corm is when you take it. Then I just plant them directly into clean potting soil in a 1 gal container. I do not use rooting hormone or anything else, and I don't let them scar over before potting. Water once, place in a warm but filtered sunlit area and wait for the new growth. I never water again until they show good growth then I start working up to regular watering regimen. Once it looks like they have rooted put them in the ground and watch them grow! I'm sure other people do it differently but that's what works for me, every time!

Now taking pups and shipping them is where you a get lot of different opinions and I'm just a novice so I'll let someone else explain.

BobbyinNY

Mitchel,

sounds good... That's what I'll do. I have alot of little pups around my Cavendish and I wanna make sure the mother plant blooms this year. Thanks for all the great info.

Bobby

momoese

Bobby, one thing I forgot to mention is that I have never taken more than on pup at a time. I think to take more would be disturbing the Mother too much, especially if your wanting fruit production that season.

BobbyinNY

ahhhh... that's good to know.... Should I wait?.. I thought that by leaving the pups, it's draining energy away from the mother corm.

momoese

It does drain but the mother has to some roots left after surgery! I guess if the pups are close together you could get more off. I have taken a shovel and just wacked off some small pups before they got any size to them to help control the number, but that doesn't help if you want to save them. Of course the mother can survive without any roots but it would take longer to re-establish itself. Some of the cold weather growers might be able to help here as they store theirs for the winter and still get fruit that season, so maybe the roots are not that important? Also when you remove a a bunch of chunks of the mom's corm that's got have some efect on her growth rate.

BobbyinNY

Yeah, I see where you're coming from Mitchell - it makes total sense. Maybe what I'll do is just cut them down - I have so many plants anyway - I just really want the mother to fruit. This thing is enormous and is trying to rip the top off my greenhouse. The trunk is like almost 9 inches wide at the bottom - and, when I bought it last spring, it was a little plant about 6 inches total.

imdocrob

Hey bobby, how long have you had your Phoenix? I put mine in the ground last year and neither one has done really well. I don't think they liked the winter.

BobbyinNY

I've had my Phoenix Canariensis for 3 years now. It's doing really well. I can't put it in the ground here in NY without some type of cold-protection, it'll die in Jan/Feb... I keep it in a heated greenhouse in the winter. They can take some cold but not prolonged damp/wet/cold.