For your seed to be viable, you would need to have them pollinated by certain beetle. As I understand it, and correct me guys if I'm wrong, without pollination by that specific beetle, propagation by seed cannot be achieved. You would have to rely on offsets to reproduce your plant.

Susan

Actaully the above is not true, Susan. My first Thai Giant has four fertile seed heads. It's very easy to pollinate by hand, but a great host of insects - not just a 'certain' beetle will do the job just fine.

So, for you guys growing Thai Giant? May I ask how large they have gotten this summer? Any different from the old Colocasia gigantea?
Michael M.

Mine is ho-humming along. I might need to give it more sun next year. It gets morning sun for about 1 hour, but now that the days are getting longer, it is less and less. Rather than dig it up this year, though, I'll wait until spring. It's not really taking off for me like I thought it would, and I have fertilized it and watered it, and babied it. But, hey, $22.00 is not too bad for something relatively new is it? The Ruffles has done much better, and even better is macrorhiza, and wentii.

Susan

My first Thai Giant is just over 8' tall, and has had six inflorecenses (4 are fertile). My other Thai Giants are only about 5 feet tall; got them several months later. The largest plant has a leaf that is about 4' x 3' - It's HUGE!

When did you get yours, Hyperating? I'm jealous! I just put mine in the ground the 1st of August this year.

Susan

Susan,

I got mine in January when they were first introduced in the Plant Delights catalog. I asked them if I could come and pick up my order early. They tend to cut things back in order to ship them easily, and I wanted to get a head start growing it indoors.

This thing is a BEAST if given lots of water and strong fertilizer.

Thanks so much for the information. We will experiment with hand pollinating and see what happens. If we don't get anything this year at least we will know what to do for next year.

Oh, you got to take the pick of the litter, huh? Well, living in Oklahoma doesn't allow me the liberty of driving to NC solely for the purpose of picking out a plant at PD. Darn it!

Mine came in a 4" pot, about 2' tall. It is now about 3' tall, but only has 3 leaves on it. I have been fertilizing with the high phosphorus fert., but had to quit about a month ago because fall and frost is fast approaching.

Hopefully next year will bring a lot more growth to it. I have tons of offsets and growth on my macrorhiza this year!

Susan

I also got a Thai Giant and along with that I got a Colocasia Giantia, They are both about the same size but the Giantia is getting more leaves, but they are in an unheated room which I am planning on overwintering all my plants in, I am going to add heat and humidity and we will see the difference next spring.