How to Tell Real Bowl Lotus Seeds from Fake Ones? A Detailed Guide to Prices and Growing Methods
Bowl lotus, as the name suggests, is a miniature ornamental lotus that can be grown in a bowl or a pot, and can be placed on a windowsill or on an indoor coffee table or desk, looking very beautiful.Are bowl lotus seeds expensive? How do you tell the real from the fake? How do you grow them? What are the growing methods?
1. Are bowl lotus seeds expensive?
A fairy bathing in the middle of a bowl, her smiling face spreading out romantically, pink and green alternating in a pleasing way, cleansed by clear ripples yet not flirtatious, fresh and delightful. As a potted flower, the bowl lotus has always been loved by people. What is the price of bowl lotus seeds? Generally around 12 yuan for 20 seeds, which is not expensive.
2. How do you tell real bowl lotus seeds from fake ones?
It is very hard to distinguish them from the newly emerged small leaves and buds; only after planting and growing standing leaves can you tell them apart. Bowl lotus seeds are rather hard, and the seed coat needs to be worn through, then soaked until they sprout before planting.
The shops selling bowl lotus on Taobao are actually selling large ornamental lotuses or even what you call “vegetable lotus” (usually called root lotus and seed lotus; lotus strains fall into three major categories: root lotus, seed lotus and flower lotus, and flower lotus is the ornamental kind). They sell the seeds of some large lotus varieties as bowl lotus, and such varieties planted in a bowl simply cannot bloom, and can only grow lotus leaves.
Shops that truly sell bowl lotus usually mainly sell bowl lotus rhizomes, which are sold from March to April each year. This is because rhizomes can guarantee the excellent traits of the variety, while seeds, being the product of sexual reproduction, will show trait segregation and cannot maintain the excellent traits of the original variety. Therefore, good shops mainly sell rhizomes, and seeds are usually given as a bonus or sold cheaply, with a statement that variety purity is not guaranteed.
3. How do you grow bowl lotus seeds? Introduction to the growing methods
1. Breaking the seed shell
Bowl lotus seeds are very hard, and after maturing and drying they enter a dormant state; buried underground for hundreds or even thousands of years they may still not sprout or rot. If the shell is not broken before sowing, it is basically impossible to make them sprout. Only sufficient water and oxygen can break the forced dormancy of bowl lotus seeds and let them enter the germination stage.
How to break the shell: a bowl lotus seed has one protruding end and one sunken end. When breaking the shell, you can rub the end with the small dent against rough cement ground or a stone to wear it through, or use pliers to crack a small opening. Note that during the operation you must not injure the seed embryo, and do not remove the shell; just break it open.
2. Soaking the seed coat
After breaking the shell, the seeds can be placed in a container and soaked in water to wait for germination. Note that if the temperature is low, you can use a thermos to soak them in warm water at about 30 degrees, and change the water once in the morning and once in the evening each day; in this way they can sprout in 3 days to a week.
After the bowl lotus seeds sprout, the shell can be removed, taking care not to injure the embryo bud. Then the sprouted seeds can be placed in pond mud for cultivation, or grown in a bowl with some soil and water.
3. Water culture for seedling growth
After the seeds sprout, they should be grown in water culture at around 25°C for 5 to 7 days. During water culture, the root system of the lotus seedling has weak absorption, and growth mainly depends on nutrients provided by the seed embryo, so generally no fertilizer is needed. During water culture, keep the water layer about 10 cm deep and give sufficient light; it is not advisable to change the water or turn the plants often, so that the leaves do not stretch excessively because their growth direction keeps changing; keep the leaf stalks in the water and let the leaves lie flat freely on the water surface. When transplanting, take care not to break the leaf stalks, so as not to affect growth. After planting, keep a water layer of 3 to 5 cm, but never submerge the leaves in the water. Bowl lotus loves light, and the flower pot should be placed in a spot with plenty of sunlight. The seedlings are delicate, and some will scorch and wither when exposed to sunlight, but they generally still sprout and survive. Do not water too much either, so as to raise the water temperature and promote growth. After growing 7 to 13 floating leaves, standing leaves will appear.
4. Waiting for the flowers to bloom
Bowl lotus grows very fast. Generally, for multi-flower varieties, flower buds begin to appear after 5 to 17 standing leaves have grown. How early or late the buds appear varies by variety; some varieties even form buds and bloom before the standing leaves grow.