Alocasia Gigantea help please

[Tropical Bob]

Id love to get one of these, but i have no idea on what to do with one and dont want to kill it by over or under watering it. Any help much appreciated

Looking at some of Daves Alocasia x calidora pics just made me realise i might not be able to overwinter one as i dont think ive got room I was thinking i could chop the leaves off one like an ensette and just store the trunk base in a pot in my conservatory? is that possible? Id be happy to get only two or three leaves in a season.

If not i should probably stick with the smaller ones, or let them have the house and i will sleep in the garden... come to think of it Alocasia Gigantea wouldnt fit in my house

[Dave Brown]

Funny you should ask this now, as we have been having a discussion on HTUK Facebook about my Alocasia x calidora pics, and Will Giles is trying this method of restarting Alocasia http://bocajoe.blogspot.com/2011/01/eas ... hardy.html
No guarantees it will work, but Will is giving it a go.

[Tropical Bob]

Great thanks for the links Storing them like dry rhizomes but keeping them warm and then kickstarting them with hot water is probably best for me, be interesting to see how Will gets on with this method

[nicebutdim]

Funny you should ask this now, as we have been having a discussion on HTUK Facebook about my Alocasia x calidora pics, and Will Giles is trying this method of restarting Alocasia http://bocajoe.blogspot.com/2011/01/eas ... hardy.html
No guarantees it will work, but Will is giving it a go.

'Soak the roots in hot water over night' how do you keep the water hot all night as recommended,sounds a great idea

[Tropical Bob]

Im going to use a tropical fishtank heater they are great and come with lil clips and suction cups to attach to the side of a container.

[nicebutdim]

Im going to use a tropical fishtank heater they are great and come with lil clips and suction cups to attach to the side of a container.

I wonder what "hot" is,a fish tank would go up to say 28c which is warmish but the clip I saw said ...hot overnight,which I take to mean hotter than that and also maintained throughout the night.I have had one huge alocasia about a foot long and four inches across for about two years,remaining dormant all that time with a two inch or so shoot.This is a good candidate for this treatment and am wondering,once I get to learn the required temperture,how long it would be to seem some root growing.

[The Codfather]

Top tip Dave......just need to find some now.

[Tropical Bob]

Yes i read hot and thought "boiling hot" but that would surely cook the plant and kill it? A fishtank heater can get the water really warm with a lid on the tank.. but yeah its not "hot" like so hot so you cant put your finger in for long.

If the container is insulated it will stay hotter for a lot longer, and the water could always be changed every six hours or so, so maybe a fish tank heater is a waste of time and just not needed

[Dave Brown]

I sprouted my Alocasia macrorrhiza from a rhizome in a prop at 35C, so by hot I'd say maybe 35/40C, not boiling. Normal props are 25C.

[Tropical Bob]

Cheers, thats saved a few being made into soup

[nicebutdim]

I sprouted my Alocasia macrorrhiza from a rhizome in a prop at 35C, so by hot I'd say maybe 35/40C, not boiling. Normal props are 25C.

I have seen bocasajoes pics and wondering how soon after roots would expect to appear,as he does say overnight,I've kept mine going into it's second day now without much sign of anything happening to my large calidora.He also says pot it half way but as alocasia root from the top I am confused,as if potted like this then the top half would be without soil.

[Dave Brown]

Colocasia root from the top of the rhizome, at the base of a shoot, not Alocasia.

[nicebutdim]

Colocasia root from the top of the rhizome, at the base of a shoot, not Alocasia.

Thanks for the reminder,having lost too many alocasia to rot,I'm nervous about giving them any water,hence the waiting until leaf sprout is moving.I've already lost about 100mm off the length of my calidora as it's had a sprout for about 18 months now,one sprout dropped off and replaced by a smaller 70mm one.

[Scott Radford]

With Colocasia you can bury the bulb, or as I do leave just the growing tip nudging through the compost. They root and shoot from the top of the bulb as dave says. Personally I plant my Alocasias - generally more tube shape than bulbous - to around half the depth of the tuber.

I then put these into some heated propagator water filled trays. The setting of three has the heat mat at around 40C with the water a warm 25C or so and the air temp within the propagator a similar temperature and extremely humid. The shoot comes out of the top and the roots will appear from further down the tuber in the compost. I have got Alocasia macrorhizos to grow though in unheated water trays in my greenhouse.

the heat mat is reserved for the more exotic Alocasia such as denudata from Malaysia. It simply will not grow if no warm ambient temperature. Hence last year with August temperatures not getting above 17C here on any day it didn't get a single leaf all summer until it went into the greenhouse in September. I also have Remusatia and Xanthosoma in there - these are bulbous in nature so planted similarly to Colocasia.

[sanatic1234]

I have mine planted outside and it has just open up its 3rd leaf, all it needs to do now is bulk up and jobs a good one