Flower color intensity (was Soils and flower color)

Diana Chapman rarebulbs@suddenlink.net
Tue, 12 May 2015 15:50:10 PDT
My largest greenhouses are ten years old and I haven't replaced the 
polyethylene in that time.  Because we get a lot of fog and cloudy days 
here, I would think the weather would be more the culprit than the 
plastic, maybe the color changes according to how much sun or lack of it 
we get in winter.  Whoever said that cooler temperatures increase color 
intensity is probably correct, since the Triteleia and Brodiaea species 
that I grow were collected (seed, that is) in the the Sierra foothills 
and they are much darker here than there.
Diana
>
> Diana,
>
> Have you changed the covering on your greenhouses recently?  Could you 
> be seeing the resulting effects of reduced light transmission and/or 
> altered light quality caused by aging polyethylene?
>
> Nathan
>
>
> At 08:44 AM 5/12/2015, you wrote:
>> Hi Jane:
>>
>> I don't know about soil, but some of my bulbs definitely change color 
>> from year to year, and I am certain it is not from stray seedlings 
>> finding their way into the pots.  Color intensity of Triteleia laxa 
>> changes, but the most dramatic color differences have been in 
>> Rhodophiala.  I have a pot of R. chilensis grown from seed that were 
>> clear red, and were identified as such when I got the seed from 
>> Flores and Watson.  The original bulbs are still with me, but this 
>> year and last year they are yellow diffused with red throughout.  
>> There is no sign of virus or any other problem. Oxalis flower color 
>> can change quite a bit.  At first I thought it was from seeding from 
>> adjacent pots producing new colors, but I now see that they actually 
>> change, not just in intensity, but also hue.  The soil is not a 
>> factor here, I have them in the same mix, but temperature varies from 
>> year to year, and that could be a factor.  Some colors seem to have 
>> 'evolved', changing gradually each year until they hardly resemble 
>> the original picture I have of them (Oxalis obtusa Peaches & Cream, 
>> is, unfortunately, one of these).
>>
>> Diana
>> Telos
>
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