Rooting Cycad pups when to give up? Encephalartos nubimontanus

[Tracy]

A couple of years ago, I pulled some pups off an Encephalartos nubimontanus.  The pups were growing off the  main caudex toward a walkway, so just not a good situation.  I planted a few in pots with predominantly pumice, and also planted two directly in the ground.  Even the pups had some offsets growing on them, so I didn't bother trying to split them up if they had come off as pairs versus singles.  After a year, one of the in ground put out new growth.  It was one that was a pair of pups and both pups flushed.  This summer one of the pups flushed earlier and the other is pushing a 3 leaf flush now.  The ones in pots and the other one in the ground have not flushed yet.  I'm inclined to dig up and dispose of the one in ground and be patient until next spring with the potted ones.  

I know I don't want to disturb the potted ones if activity is happening and I'm not worried about rot with the fast draining soil I used.  It is more a question of patience.  I have other small seedling cycads I can plant where my in ground one is that has done nothing in 2 years, so it isn't a huge loss.  I also will eventually remove some additional pups of the E nubimontanus, and can remove some off other cycads as well if I want to start bigger than some of my potted plants growing from seed.  

So the question is:   What is the longest you have waited for a pup to sprout and had success?  If you can reference Encephalartos genus specifically, it will probably be more pertinent, but any genus will contribute to my calculation of patience. 

(photos of the two in ground specimens are below)

[Urban Rainforest]

Tracy, You hit the nail in the head. Its just a patience thing. I have only tried 3 Encephalartos pups and had success with 2 and I’m sure the other one will take as it had 2 big tubers and lots of roots. If the caudex is still firm your probably good. 
 

A couple things I do to up my odds is I wait until the pup is about softball size. The other thing I do is hit the pup and the mother plant where the cut was made with a paste of daconil and root hormone. I mix it together with a cheap paint brush and paint it on.

The longest one to root out for me took a year and a half! Funny story is I lived on a canyon at the time and I had a Horridus I had been trying to root out for a year and a half. My patience ran out and I was ready to launch it into the canyon! I pulled it out of the pot and had my arm cocked back to throw it when I saw a little nub of a yellow white root on it. I potted it up and it threw leaves one week later lol🤣.

[Urban Rainforest]

Said Horridus I almost launched into the canyon. One of my biggest Horridus now.

[Brian]

I pulled several pups off an Encephalartos eugene-maraisii in September two years ago. One has flushed twice, a few other have flushed once and some have not flushed yet. All of them were planted in pots with a lots of pumice for good drainage. I pulled one from its pot a few weeks ago to see if there was any issues but everything looked good and it even has some new root growth but has not flushed since being seperated from the mother plant two years ago. 

These are the pups I pulled two years ago. 

 

[Urban Rainforest]

Arenarius x Latifrons started from pup.

[Urban Rainforest]

True blue Arenarius pup I started this spring. Has’nt flushed yet. Just a matter of time! Bout softball size.

[Urban Rainforest]

5 minutes ago, Brian said:

I pulled several pups off an Encephalartos eugene-maraisii in September two years ago. One has flushed twice, a few other have flushed once and some have not flushed yet. All of them were planted in pots with a lots of pumice for good drainage. I pulled one from its pot a few weeks ago to see if there was any issues but everything looked good and it even has some new root growth but has not flushed since being seperated from the mother plant two years ago. 

These are the pups I pulled two years ago. 

 

Nice Brian! Those look good with lots of roots. I have a Eugene with 5 pups on it. Just waiting until they get a little bigger. 

[Fusca]

28 minutes ago, Urban Rainforest said:

The longest one to root out for me took a year and a half! Funny story is I lived on a canyon at the time and I had a Horridus I had been trying to root out for a year and a half. My patience ran out and I was ready to launch it into the canyon! I pulled it out of the pot and had my arm cocked back to throw it when I saw a little nub of a yellow white root on it. I potted it up and it threw leaves one week later lol🤣.

Nice save!  Love it when patience pays off! 

[Hu Palmeras]

Very cool my friend.💪🌴🌴🌴

[happypalms]

Tracy you could try cutting the old leaves of, that seems to promote new growth, worth a try. 

[Tracy]

23 hours ago, happypalms said:

Tracy you could try cutting the old leaves of, that seems to promote new growth, worth a try. 

Yes, I trimmed off most of the leaves on all the pups and left about half of the leaf length on the leav es that I didn't completely remove from the pups.  I did that when I harvested them.  The others in pots have one leaf max at about 1/4 of their full length.  The pups originally had leaves that were between 3' to 4.5' long.  In that this species has long bare petioles, there aren't very many leaflets.

[happypalms]

3 hours ago, Tracy said:

Yes, I trimmed off most of the leaves on all the pups and left about half of the leaf length on the leav es that I didn't completely remove from the pups.  I did that when I harvested them.  The others in pots have one leaf max at about 1/4 of their full length.  The pups originally had leaves that were between 3' to 4.5' long.  In that this species has long bare petioles, there aren't very many leaflets.

Time heals all wounds they say! Patience is the key as you would know being a palm grower.