Bulb Information, Growing Daffodils

bulb increase

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Friends,

I’ve had an email asking about bulb increase. How many bulbs would you likely have from one bulb, after five years?

I know the ones I really want to increase are always the slowest, but haven’t kept records lately. :-)

Mary Lou

6 comments for “bulb increase”

  1. Mary Lou,
    Years ago I was given a figure of 80 – 100% per year depending on variety and from experience I think this is a reasonable estimate. This probably assumes lifting every 2 or 3 years, after 5 years there will be many small offsets
    brian

  2. LOL…….laughing out loud!!!
    In my dreams, daffodils might increase at such a rate, but in reality, that’s almost never been the case for me here in Virginia. Some of the old Loch cultivars and some of the Wister winners might, but most of the others are much shyer to divide for me.
    Chriss

     

  3. I am far from my pile papers- I recall an geometric increase of 1.6 per year per bulb as a mean increase-I am unsure who published the number, but as I recall this would be 2.56 in the third year and 4.096bulbs in the fourth year on average. Given the poor increase of many varieties in my climate I feel that culture and climate are almost as important as variety. From memory I planted in 2004 and dug in 2011and had many varieties increase not at all, several died out, and many had fourfold increase. The bestincreasers had 17 to 20 bulbs which is (for all practical purposes) exactly equal to the 16.777 bulbs I get carrying the math to 7 years. One of the best was Crackingdon, unfortunately I planted eight bulbs and did not record which were flakes or rounds or double noses(but I did record where they came from)and all but three died for me. I have planted the ones I kept- I hope they all live- and traded away or sent the rest to bulbs exchanges. I may try to put some of the numbers together later if anyone is interested- Obviously I would need assistancewith amy presentationJohn Beck

  4. I can’t imagine trying to answer this question!
    To get a general answer, one would need to grow as many cultivars as
    possible for a 5 year period and count every bulb varieties increase (or
    lack for that matter) then take an average of those results.

    I can say that I see differences in personalities with every variety I
    have grown. Even differences in personalities from seedlings taken from
    seed of the exact same pod, from sprouting at different times to opening
    their blooms in different seasons, not to mention the characteristics of
    the flowers themselves.

    For example, I grew the variety “Ghost” 1W-W and over a period of about
    5 years it ‘never’ increased, AT ALL.
    On the other hand, in 1993 at my 1st ADS Convention in Nashville, I
    fell in love with Brians “Mt Fuji” 2W-W and had to have it.
    That variety multiplied SO quickly, that it gave me an additional flower
    EVERY YEAR and I had to lift it all and put them in a bulb exchange some
    not too distant years later.

    So, I always say that it’s very difficult to specify a general increase
    rate unless you only grow the varieties that are mass produced for the
    public.

    There are other factors that influence this as well, effects of the
    differences in culture, climate etc will affect growth habit and the
    rate of increase.

    I think the same variety would grow, color and increase differently for
    everyone around the country and world depending on these factors.

    thinking too much!
    Tom

  5. “think the same variety would grow, color and increase differently for everyone around the country and world depending on these factors. “Thank you Tom- I could not agree more- I do think the commercial growers dohave answers to this question and I thinkthat for the rest of us all that is relevantis whether we like our own “Mount Fuji”I hope someone from your bulb exchange has a few to trade me- though I guess if I see it in acatalog(and I do not find it on my planting list)I will buy that one.I now have a half dozen cultivars up four inches-this is from the 2001 plantings-have not been into the other fields lately…freezing rain..John Beck

    Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:07:16 -0500

  6. I do remember, in the RHS yearbooks, a count of bulbs planted in the trial
    gardens at Wisley.
    They also counted blooms for a couple of years after the initial planting.  If
    you figure that usually you have two bulbs for every bloom, one bloom size and
    one offset, it should be easy to figure out how much increase there was in the
    bulbs.  Seems as if you should have an average of increase when planted under
    good conditions.
    Donna

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