Echinodorus

["Edward Venn" <e_venn at hotmail_com>]

Tan sent me the following information that may prove useful. He also sent me 
several packets of seeds from locally raised swords. I tried his technique 
with some cordifolius I got from the US and it works well, I've got lots of 
small swordplants growing in planting medium. I'm going to expand this to 
the swordplant seeds he sent me and hope to have some good results by this 
fall. I would suggest you take a look at the site in Germany and some of the 
more interesting plants there. I'll have to talk to Harro or Martin over in 
Germany to see what the plant hobby is doing over there. In the meantime the 
Japanese Planted Aquarium Group is planning a collecting trip for sometime 
next year with the JLA (livebearers) to Costa Rica. The idea is to drink 
some tequila in a cantina, collect some plants, collect some fish, take lots 
of photos and visit Ivan Dibble and his fish ark project. We will be 
discussing this at the next multigroup meeting in October. Hopefully, I'll 
have some plants, some photos of their growth and a report for the the 
group.

Ed

Hi Edward,

Let me know the progress of the seeds.  :)

Share with you a German web site discovered only last week:
www.echinodoren.de
Be surprised at the new types of Echinodorus in Germany.


FYI, there's a page on the sowing of Ech. seeds, and altavista translates
it as follows:

*************
The generative vermehrung

A natural vermehrung is over the seed production and sowing. Since when
dusting the bloom hereditary property of the female organs and hereditary
property of the male bloom organs are joined and thus an exchange at
hereditary property are possible, this kind of the vermehrung is called
generative vermehrung. A condition is naturally first times the creation of
blooms. By good local conditions one can fulfill a basic condition. Blooms
develop sometimes however only if the lighting duration under 12 hours
sink. One speaks then of short day plants, although those is actually
misleading, because not the short day, but the long night is responsible
for inducing the bloom. If one would interrupt for example the long night
by brief light gifts from only few minutes, then no blooms develop.
Examples of a short day plant is Echinodorus parviflorus. With other kinds
one needs a long day, in order to bring blooms out, this is then the long
day plants, as for example Echinodorus cordifolius. Then there is still
another s
et of plants, those is no matter it, how long or short the day is. If one
received bloom conditions, then the samenanlage must be dusted. In nature
this takes place via insects or wind drift. In our aquariums one must play
bee and transfer with the help of a fine staubpinsels the pollen to the
samenanlage. After some weeks, if the seed conditions became brown, one can
harvest then the seed. It must be harvested drying and not be kept too
warmly.

The sowing is made as follows with me: Some grains and something aquarium
water into a test tube one gives and one locks with a plug. Then the water
becomes for 10 minutes on max. warms up 50 degrees, in order to accelerate
the swelling and germinating. After some days the first germ points show up
(see picture)


Then I give the seeds on a lehmigen soil reason in a small dished plate and
cover the seeds with some millimeters to fine sand. Soon the first
keimlinge appear always damp and warmly held. I cover the bowl with a
plastic foil, so that strained air surrounds the keimlinge. If the
keimlinge 2 to 3 cm are large can them be pikiert. But cover again with
foil. Only after Erstarkung of the keimlinge they can be further-cultivated
in aquariums or sump patches.
The vermehrung with seeds is however very lengthy and involving heavy
losses. From the sowing to sex-mature plant passes more than one year.
Therefore this technologytechnology technology is hardly used in the
commercial vermehrung, up to the plants, which can be increased only by
seeds. Naturally one must seize also with crossing attempts to this kind of
kindkind.

To the page Adventivpflanzen

To the page Rhizomteilung

Back to the start of page

********************


Maybe you can try this method with the remaining seeds. I will definitely
try it when I'm free.

Btw, while browsing at the gallery of the web site,  the E. 'Small Bear'
suddenly rang a bell. I remembered that I have came across a Japan aquatic
site, and E. 'Small Bear' was featured in one of the pages. Wonder have you
seen the actual plant?


Rgds,
Tan



Tan,

The seeds have arrived. I planted the Ozelot and hope to get some more soil

to plant the rest as you suggested soon.


>
>Hi Edward,
>
>The seeds have been mailed to you on 5th June 2002.
>Lets see how long it takes to reach you.
>
>Rgds,
>Tan




Edward Venn,
SMG Holdings Co., Ltd.,
Deux Chateaux Blanc 2-303,
1356 Kobuchi, Kasukabe,
Saitama, Japan


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