Soft on eddoes and cocoyams

[GREVILLE]

I'm always experimenting but I think it's the results I DON'T expect that keeps me doing it

How about this one with three eddoes and three cocoyams bought from an ethnic market last month for £1-50. All six tubers were the same size, plump and firm but with no sign of any growth.

A pair of each type were started:
1. Bone dry on a dish on top of a unit in my study.
2. Potted in dry compost in the cool greenhouse and
3. In moist compost inside a propogator at 24c.

Number one has seen both tubers sprout at one end but the bottom halves have both gone soft.

Number two has seen the cocoyam send up a shoot already 3 inches high and numerous smaller shoots along the top end of the tuber (lying on its side) but no roots. The bottom, non-sprouting end has gone to mush but no mould in sight.
The eddoe has shown a little pink colouring at the shoot end with the bottom half soft and no roots in sight.

Number three has both tubers still as firm and plump as when I bought them without a single root and shoot.

I now want to experiment on treatment for them and I'm keen to hear your suggestions. The more the merrier

[Mac]

Hi Greville,
Well, I acquired a clutch of Ginger rhyzomes a couple of weeks ago, they were pretty dried out with bare dry roots and looking a bit like giant spiders. They were put into a double bagged carrier-bag for me to take home.
I left them like that on the utility room floor for a week. I also had a couple of ordinary ginger rhyzomes that I bought from Tesco's that had been sitting there (still wrapped) so I unwrapped them and chucked them in the carrier with the others, then I added a couple of handfuls (not much) of potting comp & perlite and gave the bag contents just a slight spray with water and miracle grow from a mister spray and left them for about a week.
They are ALL shooting very well now!

[GREVILLE]

Hi, Mac.

I've had similar results with tub-grown gingers. I dry out the compost completely and overwinter them in the cold greenhouse. A couple of doses of hot water and they start shooting inside a fortnight.

Eddoes and cocoyams are now responding to treatment. All the bottoms that had gone soft were cut back to firm tissue. One of each were dipped in H2O2, dried out and put in bone dry compost. The other set were cut and left to dry in the open without treatment. Both sets went into a heated propogator.

After a few days the bottoms remained firm but shoot growth appears to have stalled. The untreated remainder have now begun to shoot.