Fern Farming

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Read the previous part. ← Types of ferns for growing in the garden

Reproduction of rare species and varieties of ferns by spores is one of the most exciting activities in indoor floriculture. It is in this way that they are bred in botanical gardens, at experimental stations and in the homes of true lovers of these amazing plants.

Observing the development of plants from a tiny speck of spore dust to an adult sporophyte plant that grows in the third year of culture, each time together with them you seem to go through the stages of a long evolution of ancient and at the same time such modern fern plants.

What is required for this? Presence of mature spores, sterile substrate and laboratory Petri dishes or any flat transparent plastic or glass dishes with lids. Disputes often come to our house in bouquets of flowers, where they use fern greens as an arrangement material. They can be easily assembled on a sheet of paper if you put it under the spore-bearing sheet and lightly rub it with your fingers or a pencil.

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Mature spores will crumble to the paper with fine brown dust. They need to be carefully poured into a paper bag, otherwise they will scatter even from light breathing, not to mention drafts. You can put the spore sheet in a paper bag, close it, and soon spores will pour out of the sporangia inside the bag. Sowing dishes and substrate are steamed over boiling water for 20-30 minutes for disinfection.

The fact is that for spores to germinate, constant humidity of the substrate and air above it is required. The seedlings spend the first year of life in closed Petri dishes with daily airing for 5-10 minutes. That is why it is best to sow them in Petri dishes - transparent (glass or plastic), with lids. You can buy them in pharmacies or special laboratory equipment stores.

The fern substrate can be purely peaty or composed of peat, leaf, heather soil and sand in a ratio of 3: 1: 1: 1 at a pH of 4.5-5.5. To fill a standard cup two-thirds of its height, you need about two tablespoons of steamed (or even boiled in a saucepan with a little water), cooled, but moist substrate.

It needs to be leveled, slightly compacted (it is convenient to do this with a spoon), after which you can evenly scatter dust-like spores, moisten the crop from a sprayer and close the lid. The inoculated dishes are kept in a bright place at a temperature of about 20 ° C. It is important to know that fern spores germinate only in the light and this happens a few weeks after sowing (two or more). Sowing time is not limited by anything, except for the presence of spores.

They usually ripen in the second half of summer or even at the end of the year. In autumn and winter, crops are best kept under artificial light for most of the day, as they grow and develop faster. You can sow all year round. Every day, the cups with crops need to be slightly opened for airing and spraying if the substrate is dry. After a few weeks, the color of the substrate will clearly change - it will turn slightly greenish, and later - emerald green.

This bright velvet is formed by the germinated spores. This mossy cover has its own name - the protallium, or the primary thallus, which contains the reproductive cells. Fertilization takes place in a humid environment. After some time (2-4 months) the moss layer will become thick, and the time for the first pick will come. It is not at all like the operation familiar to every gardener.

In our case, with a wooden peg for a dive with a flat fork at the end, you will need to hook a millimeter piece of a green rug and transfer it to a new Petri dish, leave it on the surface of a wet substrate, slightly pressing it with your finger. "Nests" of seedlings are placed at a distance of about 1 cm from each other in concentric circles over the area of the entire cup - there are 100-300 of them.

Spraying completes the pick, the cups are covered with lids and the same care is continued: airing, spraying and admiring the emerald thallus rugs. It is very interesting to look at them through a magnifying glass - green life sparkling in water drops! The cups are kept in a bright place, but not in direct sunlight. In general, the eastern and northern windows are most suitable for ferns.

The cut seedlings grow rather quickly. Each "nest" grows to a size of about 0.5x0.5 cm in 2-3 months. At this time, a second pick is made, dividing the seedlings into the same small pieces of a moss mat (1 mm) and placing them in Petri dishes, 100-300 pieces each. In fact, each such piece contains about 10 sprouts of the future fern. In this phase of seedling development, the first leaves appear.

The maintenance regime is the same: in closed Petri dishes with airing and spraying, at a temperature of 20-23 ° C. Over time, the seedlings grow so much that they no longer fit in the cups (this happens by the end of the first year of the seedlings' life). Then the time comes for the third pick, which is already done into a more spacious container 5-7 cm high with a transparent lid at a distance of 3x3 cm.

The substrate is either steamed or spilled with a hot solution of dark pink potassium permanganate. It is better to dive in bundles of 2-3 seedlings, so that they quickly turn into a lush fern bush. The first two weeks after the pick, the seedlings are kept under a lid with regular ventilation, then with the lid ajar, gradually accustoming young ferns to dry room air and ensuring uniform substrate and air humidity.

By this time, the ferns already have real leaves of a shape characteristic of each species and variety. The second year of their life is spent in a container and without a lid. In spring and summer, seedlings are fed with a very weak (0.5 g per 1 l of water) growth fertilizer once every 10-14 days, be sure to rinse the leaves after feeding with clean water to avoid burns from fertilizer. As they grow, the largest specimens are planted in small vessels (hairspray lids, yogurt boxes, etc. with a drainage hole).

The sooner young ferns are planted in a separate bowl, the faster they will grow. To create suitable conditions, it is best to keep these "babies" in pallets with damp sand or expanded clay in diffused light.

If the room has southern windows, then the ferns are placed a meter from the windows on a special stand or whatnot, where it will be convenient to look after them. In the future, the transfer to larger containers is done as the plants grow.

With insufficient air humidity in the rooms, spider mites and scale insects can attack the ferns. Protection against pests consists in observing the regime of keeping plants and regular water procedures, that is, bathing the crown of ferns in the shower with the protection of the earthy coma with a film. If the pests are still wound up, you need to bathe the crown in soapy water, hold for 1-2 hours so that the soap film makes it impossible for them to breathe.

Then the crown is washed with clean water, and the shield is removed by hand with cotton swabs dipped in vodka. Only after that, the film protection of the earthy coma is removed. In general, the peculiarities of caring for ferns consist in creating conditions for them close to natural: uniform soil and air moisture, loose nutrient soil, regular feeding with a weak solution of growth fertilizers (Uniflor-growth, 0.5 caps per 2 liters of settled warm water). The temperature for keeping in winter is the following: for cold-resistant species, about 10 ° C (cytomium, driopteris, polystichum, atrium); for thermophilic - about 15 ° C (leaflet, davallia, asplenium, maidenhair, callipteris, nephrolepsis, cheilantes).