dry rot of bulbs in winter storage
Johannes Ulrich Urban (Mon, 13 Jun 2016 14:09:59 PDT)

Dear All,

Potting my winter dormant bulbs and tubers is finished, so I have time
again...

What happened several times in the past with Begonias only is a strange
dry rot that makes the mature tuber go very light weight and spongy
and.... dead. It happened again this year but apparently the mother
tuber had produces independent small ones which were ok and so numerous
that some went to the BX.

I discussed that privately with Dylan Hannon and would like to let you
all have his answer:

Dylan wrote: In dormancy tubers can become too dry. The organic part of
the mix (like peat) can become so dry that it can rob the tubers of
moisture. For a variety of reasons I like to use sand (~20%) in the mix
because it is very neutral and a good insulator overall. Very healthy
tubers will endure a lot of abuse including water at the wrong time, but
if weak they are more susceptible to everything. Also, the firmness of
the soil when planting is very important-- usually the problem is that
it is too loose.

I can fully understand what he means but as I store my bulbs in their
compost in their pot, I practically never lose bulbs because of drying
out. This has happened to me in the past if I kept bulbs without compost
in a paper bag for example.

And, I have not yet found that good sand that is nice and soft. Whenever
I tried to use sand it formed a very hard mass somewhere in the pot,
mostly in the bottom.

What do you think? Has this dry rot also happened to your bulbs?

Thank you very much and bye for today

Uli