Caladium De-eying and Propagation Techniques
Caladiums bought from the growers come with large tubers and hence, bloom with large number of leaves. Since tubers from growers are shipped fresh, they have large number of visible growing points or eyes. But some tubers lack in visible growing points and may have only one dominant ‘eye’. In such cases, we can increase the number of leaves grown on a caladium by a process called de-eying.
De-eying a Caladium tuber: De-eying is a process wherein you scoop out the dominant eye or main growing point of a tuber to allow other auxiliary or dormant eyes to grow into mature leaves. It works like this: Every tuber has its primary growing point or eye which exerts apical dominance over other surrounding buds, suppressing them from growing into leaves. This is because there is a high concentration of auxin, a superior plant hormone in the terminal bud. This hormone suppresses the growth of other buds, favoring only the terminal bud to shoot out. When you de-eye the terminal bud, you pluck it out of the tuber and thereby, stop its dominance of other buds. Owing to this, the plant’s hormonal climate shifts in favor of another strongly concentrated hormone called cytokines. Cytokines favors the growth of all buds. Result: There will be more leaves in the tuber than expected.
Why de-eying? As doubted by many, de-eying will never damage a caladium tuber. It only pushes forward the growth of leaves. It propels dormant buds to come out of their dormancy, and allows the plant to have large number of leaves. When the main growing point is damaged or de-eyed, several auxiliary buds are prompted to grow to make the plant survive. Since only leaves make the plant survive through photosynthesis, tubers shoot out as many leaves as possible. These leaves were initially the plant’s back up mechanism to counter damages to the terminal point. Now, with the main growing point destroyed, these leaves have to shoot out to keep the plant living.
How to choose tubers for de-eying: You need not de-eye all tubers. Most of the tubers bought from growers are large in size and have more than one growing point. If a tuber has more than one growing eye, it can be called a composite tuber and allowed to grow on its own, without any de-eying process. You can choose small tubers for de-eying. To mimic the effect of large tubers, you can plant two or three small tubers in a single pot. If you buy tubers from stores, they maybe dehydrated and the eyes in them may not be visible. So, it is better to let them grow a little and then, find out the dominant growing point and remove it.
How to de-eye tubers: De-eying is easier said than done. You need to be very careful while de-eying tubers. When you scoop out the main growing point, you should see to it that you do not affect other auxiliary buds in the process. Scooping out the dominant eye should NEVER harm other eyes in anyway. This is how you have to scoop out the dominant eye: First, identify the dominant eye. Then, take a knife and dig into the tuber for say ¼ inches and then, scoop the eye out. If you want to experiment further, you can grow the tuber indoors to force the main growing point out and then, de-eye the growing point.
Propagation of Caladiums: You can propagate caladiums by simply pulling or cutting the tubers apart, dividing them. However, make sure to leave a few eyes on each division so that there are a large number of leaves all over the plant.
