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Cephalotus "die-back" and insurance policies . . .

  • #21
Fryster, the plants in the wild are not readily/easily accessed so it would make studying the CSDS rather difficult.

However, I do wonder if CPers in Western Australia experience the syndrome when they can grow Cephs closer to their natural environment.
 
  • #22
Fryster, the plants in the wild are not readily/easily accessed so it would make studying the CSDS rather difficult.

However, I do wonder if CPers in Western Australia experience the syndrome when they can grow Cephs closer to their natural environment.

From everything that I have heard -- including correspondence with Western Australian growers -- the "syndrome" seems to be universal and just as sporadic. Some have suggested that Botrytis, the causative agent of "damping-off" fungal disease in seedlings is to blame, but there was no trace whatsoever; also, as mentioned earlier in this thread, neighboring plants with overlapping foliage -- genetically identical through division -- were wholly (thankfully) unaffected . . .


Cephalotus follicularis cv. "Hummer's Giant"
CFHG-C.jpg
 
  • #23
It's certainly is worth having insurance over growing Cephs. I lost over 10 large plants last summer which keeled over one by one! :( And even this week another one that had been growing with them at the time also has collapsed. All plants shrivelled up and went yellow/black. And despite keeping the original ones, so far none have regrown!

And yet I had been growing this particular clone for 21 years without a single loss. Thankfully I have other Cephs both this clone & others eleswhere, but it certainly makes you nervous. Particulary as I have never pinned down where this infection came from, as the water supply has never been changed. Guess my time was up!

cheers

bill
 
  • #24
It's certainly is worth having insurance over growing Cephs. I lost over 10 large plants last summer which keeled over one by one! :( And even this week another one that had been growing with them at the time also has collapsed. All plants shrivelled up and went yellow/black. And despite keeping the original ones, so far none have regrown!

And yet I had been growing this particular clone for 21 years without a single loss. Thankfully I have other Cephs both this clone & others eleswhere, but it certainly makes you nervous. Particulary as I have never pinned down where this infection came from, as the water supply has never been changed. Guess my time was up!

cheers

bill

My condolences . . .

Unfortunately, the die-back just seems to be a universal experience among growers of Cephalotus; though, in my experience, the plants have always regrown, but it often took several months. Even Adrian Slack mentions it in his Insect Eating Plants: "A curious phenomena is that both in cultivation and the wild individual shoots will sometimes die back for no apparent reason, and you may think that you have lost your plant . . ."

Slack goes on to suggest cutting off any dead foliage and simply maintaining the pots for as long as it takes. Far be it from me to suggest otherwise.
 
  • #25
So far, there is no CSDS of whole plants for me. However, I do see the occasional die back on 1-2 offshoots. The die back doesn't happen haphazardly...rather, it happens during particular seasons to different plants at different spots in my growing area.

The whole plants that I lost were due the use of wrong media (it was mineral-packed leca), alkaline fertiliser and root mealies which went unnoticed for too long. :blush:
 
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