Sago pup rescue, now what?

[_Keith]

Someone cut down some large Sagos and left the refuse on the side of the road. These large pups were obviously still alive and throwing new flushes. The largest one is about a foot in diameter. Can they be saved? Should I plant them, and if so, how deep. Treatments, amendments? Would love to keep them going.

[The Silent Seed]

You absolutely can get them going!

Plant them shallowly in well-draining - gritty mix - use fungicide if you have any handy (Unless if they've been sitting so long that the cut-part is cured already.) Try to stabilize them so they don't rock.

[cycadjungle]

All of those are good to make new plants. I'm going to give you the address to my article on my website with the answers you need. My added suggestion is make a fresh cut on the ends at the time you start to treat them, and go http://cycadjungle.8m.com/cycadjungle/Most%20Frequently%20Asked%20Questions.html

[The Silent Seed]

Why would you make fresh cuts, if the old cut is already callused ? Wouldn't that be prime for starting new roots as-is?

[Alicehunter2000]

Fresh cuts are where the new roots will form. Cut them and stick them where you want them.

[The Silent Seed]

Interesting - I assumed the roots would come out of a cured cut, like with cacti. Thanks!

[cycadjungle]

So how much fungus do you think got into those wounds while they were hardening up? He could already be starting with infected plants and the fungus and eventual rot will just work up those stems and kill them. With a fresh cut that removes any bad material and immediate dipping in the fungicide starts them to be as sterile as possible, and the sealer helps keep anything else getting into the wounds. People think that just because a wound has hardened up, everything is just fine. Nothing can by further from the truth. Maybe with sagos, it isn't a big deal, but would you be so casual about the situation if you were trying to save a cycad that goes for $1000 an inch? I wouldn't, so why not treat all cycads as if they were worth that much?

[cycadjungle]

Oh yea, to maybe explain more, since these were not fresh cut beautiful offsets, but material sitting out in the trash pile, maybe my other article might give more insight

http://cycadjungle.8m.com/cycadjungle/Horticulture%2C%20Article%204%20Never%20throw%20away%20a%20cycad.htm

[_Keith]

Tom,

These are really great articles. I learned quite a bit more than just how to save the pups.

Thanks,

Keith

[The Silent Seed]

Cycad - Not all of us are experts on Cycad growing - thank you for the lesson. That makes complete sense.

[cycadjungle]

Now I know why my cycad business doesn't make enough to pay my bills. Nobody is looking at my website. This information has been on my website for anyone to read for well over a decade. Except for discussing container size, and my experiments where I am able to turn male cycads into female cycads, and vise versa, I have every cycad cultivation subject covered in my articles. My website has been up since 1998 and half the articles were there then. So, everyone, if you EVER have a cycad cultivation question, look here first

http://cycadjungle.8m.com/cycadjungle/articles.html

If you are looking for cycads or other plants, here is my main page:

http://cycadjungle.8m.com

After you have looked through the site, if you have any questions, I hang out here enough. Or, I have had my own bulletin board where I answer people's questions up for 15 years and people have already asked just about every question there can be.

http://members.boardhost.com/cycadjungle/

[The Silent Seed]

I do check it periodically - thanks! It's quite a wealth of knowledge.

[Palmdude]

Thanks Tom! Whenever I'm researching questions I have on cycads I usually end up on your website and always find great info

[_Keith]

One more question, well 1 more questions.

1) For the fresh cut from which the roots will form, would you take it off the end on the these, or from the side since they are growing horizontally?

[cycadjungle]

Only that large one is going to be somewhat sideways, right? When you eventually plant it you are going to support it in some way. Most people would just bury that about 8 inches in the ground in order to do that. If this is the case, I'd just cut the end straight across the stem and not at an angle. However, if you did cut it at a bit of an angle, as long as you seal up the would real well, that would also work just fine. Technically, the larger the wound, the more roots that will be produced. Since this is your first try at this, I'd go with minimizing the wound size. For that matter, you could take that tall stem and cut it into 3 inch thick slices and make an extra 100 plants out of those slices and still plant the top so it sit upright when planted in the ground. The never throw away a cycad shows how slices works. Tom

[_Keith]

Tom, thanks again. These will be going directly into the ground and we are entering our cool season which will be followed by a wet winter, as always, so I followed your advice with one exception. I left just a little bit of foliage, not much.

[rick]

Those are some great articles! Tom have you tried applying rooting hormone to the cut area to maybe speed up root development?

Good luck with the sagos keith.

[_Keith]

Those are some great articles! Tom have you tried applying rooting hormone to the cut area to maybe speed up root development?

Good luck with the sagos keith.

Thanks for that reminder, Rick. I have some laying around and would have forgotten to apply it. Can't hurt, right?

[cycadjungle]

Those are some great articles! Tom have you tried applying rooting hormone to the cut area to maybe speed up root development?

You can't use Rootone or that kind of thing because the tree paint won't stick to the wound. Even when you mix it with water, it doesn't do a good job. I tried Dip & Grow a few times which is a liquid that you can mix to a certain concentration depending on how hard the plant material is ( like junipers need to be 4 times the concentration as hibiscus) and after 5 didn't times, there was no obvious difference in time. Tom

[_Keith]

Well, all in the ground in the ground. Made fresh cuts and gave them a day to harden off. Cut 90% of the fronds back. Dusted with Rootone and put them in the ground. I even cut off some chunks as suggested and potted them to see if they will root and give me a new Sago or two. They were free and it is all good fun at this point, so we'll see.

I passed that way again yesterday, I saw at least 5 more pups in the trash pile that were flushing. Debating on whether to go back for them. With the size of them, without a whole lot of care, they could be worth $40 a piece at local prices.

Photo is one of them next to a Mule Palm.

[cycadjungle]

So you didn't do one of the most important things of sealing up the wounds?

[_Keith]

So you didn't do one of the most important things of sealing up the wounds?

I let them harden off, but did not seal. Simply no time between travel and fall vegetable planting. I live in a rural area and that would have been an hour round trip to get some kind of sealant. As said, this is an experiment. If they all fail, I am out nothing.

[_Keith]

Well, the first one is showing signs of establishment and is putting up a new flush. Nothing from the other 5 yet, but it is not even spring here yet. Got another 6 weeks till some decent heat begins to arrive.

[Alicehunter2000]

I would wager that they all make it.

[_Keith]

Thanks to excellent advice from cycadjungle, I have 100% survival rate on the pups. This is the smallest one that I was most worried about. Took the longest to throw a flush, but awake she is.

[BigFrond]

Good jeb!!! I see you have some penny worth plant of some sort. Those bastards are almost impossible to get rid of because of their round tubers deep in the ground.

[_Keith]

Good jeb!!! I see you have some penny worth plant of some sort. Those bastards are almost impossible to get rid of because of their round tubers deep in the ground.

Yep, the endless rains this spring just fueled them on even worse than normal. But either way, I am convinced they would survive a nuclear holocaust. I am ready to just start considering them my ground cover.

[BigFrond]

I wouldn't doubt that at all. One of my neighbor near my old house planted a handfull and it took over the yard. He hired a guy to remove over a foot of dirt with a backhoe. Too bad for him, because he didn't wait for a while before adding new dirt and plants. They came back in a few months.

[Phoenikakias]

I had to remove three sagos growing from seed in the same pot with a Thrinax radiata, and they got outplanted together as well. The Thrinax is marginal in my climate but the sagos definitely not! So year after year became obvious that the cycads would eventually squash and devour the poor Thrinax.

Primary objective of my action was to save the Thrinax, but after having red this thread I decided to give the removed plants a second chance. For reasons of causing the least possible damage on the palm, all three cycads were removed rootless and in some instances quite butchered , so they are regarded from now on as pups.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Phoenikakias

[Phoenikakias]

... then I remebered how I had managed during my youth to heal a half rotten sago's caudex. I had used namely fosetyl powder mixed with a some water drops. This way I had created a paste with which I had been able to seal and disinfect all cavities in the caudex. So I thought apply same method on the 'pups'.

Edited July 14, 2015 by Phoenikakias

[Funkthulhu]

Since this seems to be the hip Sago thread right now, I'll ask here. Palmtalkers, what are your opinions on the size of pot needed by a healthy sago? I have one which just threw a 12 frond flush and is getting kinda big (for me, in Nebraska) and I was wondering when/if I needed to repot.

Great Pups, saves, and flushes in this thread!

Caudex is ~10 inches across:

Edited July 14, 2015 by Funkthulhu

[Phoenikakias]

Sagos can stay in same pot for many years as long as pot's walls can withstand plant's weight and pressure from its root system. Sagos additionally become with age heavy plants, heavier than say a palm of equal size.