How to properly store tulips and sort planting material

Even among seasoned gardeners, there is disagreement about how often bulbs should be dug up. tulips, is it necessary to do this annually, or can this action be performed in a year or two. In practice, it turns out that if the bulbs grow in the same place for several years, they significantly reduce their reproduction rate, they become smaller, the flowers become smaller, the plants suffer from a decrease in the area intended for their nutrition, and pathogenic microorganisms accumulated in the soil negatively affect the development and plant growth. You need to dig up tulips every year, but you also need to know how to properly store tulips, how and when to plant the stored bulbs in the ground. It is possible to keep a tulip as a two-year crop only if very small plants are planted.

Content:

• When should you dig up tulips?,
• how to properly store tulip bulbs,
• how to sort and reject bulbs.

We dig up tulips in a timely manner

Yellowed plant leaves and the appearance of light brown scales on the bulbs can be considered a signal that it is time to start digging up the bulbs. At the same time, the tulip stems become so soft that it is not difficult to wrap them around your finger.This point should be determined precisely; in the case of digging up bulbs with incompletely formed husks, even knowing how to properly store tulips, you can suffer large losses in planting material:

• bare bulbs are more susceptible to diseases and mechanical damage,
• as a result of early digging, their reproduction rate may significantly decrease.

You should also not hesitate to remove the bulbs from the ground - they are dried out. plant leaves quickly fall off, the search for bushes becomes more difficult, this will inevitably lead to a decrease in the amount of planting material. Nests of overripe bulbs that have disintegrated in the ground are more susceptible to damage by a shovel, and the babies often remain unexcavated at all.

In reality, the digging time in the middle zone may fall at the end of June or beginning of July. First of all, you should dig up early varieties, then later ones. flowering.

Storing tulips

Now we come to discussing the issue of how to properly store tulips.

1. The bulbs that have been removed from the ground are immediately sorted out, removing all those with mechanical damage, mold or other diseases.
2. Then they should be placed in boxes in a thin layer so that they can be ventilated.
3. For several days, the boxes are kept in the fresh air, avoiding direct sunlight.
4. Remove the old scales from the dried bulbs, remove the remnants of the root system and adhering soil.
5. All children who have not fallen away should also be separated.
6. When performing work in rainy weather, immediately after digging, the bulbs are washed in running water, and only then put in boxes, and in one layer.

Experts recommend soaking the dug up bulbs in a 0.5% solution of potassium permanganate for half an hour.

Repeated twice - after digging and before planting, treating the planting material will reliably protect future plants from diseases and provide their need for manganese.

VIDEO: A complete story about the technology of growing tulips from bulb to flower.

Sorting bulbs

The material treated with potassium permanganate solution and dried is sorted. The best planting material of the "extra" class is considered to be specimens with a diameter of more than 4 cm, then there are 3 sortings, the smallest are the children of tulips of the first and second categories, their diameter can be from 2.5 to 1.5 cm. To speed up the sorting process, templates are used, having holes of appropriate diameters.

To ensure maximum safety of planting material, you should know how to properly store tulips.

This is done in a closed but ventilated room with a stable temperature. It can reach 25" C. Air humidity can be within 70%. This temperature and humidity are necessary for the proper formation of a flower bud.

After a month, the temperature should be gradually reduced to 20, then to 15" C. During this period, our bulbs form the buds of daughter bulbs and replacement bulbs, laying leaves. Throughout the entire storage period, the formation of the future takes place flower. If the temperature regime is not observed, low-quality buds may form. Throughout the entire storage period, the bulbs are periodically inspected, those affected by diseases, and even those that cause suspicion of disease, are removed.

In this way, losses from disease are minimized and a future generation of healthy, high-quality bulbs is formed.

Look - Tulip. Film by Pavel Lobkov.