<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><md>First I say, "Welcome back and Happy New Year Arif!". I have missed you.

Then...I wonder if this bulb's wires are crossed. Blooming is the standard way of proliferation. There are some bulbs that never set out offsets or spilt. Your bulb has a one\-track mind (ok...it doesn't have a mind) and seems preoccupied with a different kind of proliferation. And, I'm guessing it's never bloomed?

If it bloomed and spilt, to me that would be fantastic, but all this bulb has to offer is foliage. Really kind of an oddball. I guess it's kind of novel, but not serving it's purpose.

Are you going to keep it for another year or so, or...maybe it needs to go live in a flower bed at the hotel. At least it would be useful for foliage.

I remember when I saw a whole tray with bare-bulbs fom a white Hippeastrum for trade that about one third of the bulbs were just splitting into two almost equally sized bulbs. From this observation I concluded that the potencial of splitting is inherent in bulbs from Hippeastrums if not also in other bulbs, and that it is just a matter of, let's name it, the attainment of a "critical mass" which will program a bulb to initiate splitting. The threshold may be very low in your clone, and premature splitting is just what the genetic make up of this particular clone is "commanding" the bulb "to do". Regardless whether this is eventually detrimental to its survival. Nature does not ask whether something "makes sense" - this question is originating from our evolved BRAIN.

Dear Han-Werner,
That is why I corrected my message that the bulb doesn't have a mind. Wouldn't it be great if it would split AND bloom, but this one seems to be programmed to split.
Kristi

Kristi, God bless you, I too missed you all but due to some reason we were de-barred from participation.
I am keeping these bulbs for further observation.
This year I am not cutting the foliage at neck instead I have left 2-3 youngest leaves removing the rest, during the process I found that some bulbs were dormant having lost all leaves, some were semi dormant and others were having healthy new growth like Papillio.
Hans-werner, I agree with you ultimately it is all a game of Genetics.
Arif

Arif,
You could try planting it deeper. Bulbs of many genera are prone to excessive offsetting and splitting when planted shallowly. I have heard this mentioned for Hippeastrum as well, but have not tested it. H. petiolatum, for example, is prone to producing too many offsets if planted shallowly.
It is my experience that splitting is fundamentally the same as offsetting. It is just a matter of how deeply within the bulb the new bulb is formed. Sometimes we see intermediate cases in which the new bulb is formed under multiple layers of living bulb scales. The continuity between offsetting and splitting is a lot easier to observe in other species, such as Narcissus. Or, in other words, it is a lot more difficult to distinguish between offsetting and splitting.

Bill

Bill, to me offsets are small bulblet originating from the basal plate out side the outer most sheath of the bulb,irrespective the size and age of bulb.
Young seedlings with bulblet

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Splitting is when the main bulb splits in to 2,3,4 or more equal parts.

As suggested I will plant the above illustrated triplet deep in a pot and observe.
Arif

Hi Arif,
Here is an example of an offset that is being initiated under 1 or 2 living bulb layers. When this happens even deeper within a bulb, it results in splitting.

Bill

Today I found noticed a better example in my bulb of 'Splash'. Is this one offsetting or splitting?

Hi, Bill
In splitting the mother plant looses its identity while offsets are babies of the mother plant.

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This splitting will bloom I am sure.
Arif

Hi Arif,
I agree that this is what we recognize as splitting, but my point is that splitting is not fundamentally different from offsetting. In both cases an additional meristem develops, which results in the formation of a new bulb. When the new bulb develops at margin of the basal plate, it is manifested in what we recognize as offsetting. When the new bulb develops in the vicinity of the growing meristem, then it results in splitting of the bulb. When the new bulb is initiated somewhere in between, the result is a splitting that is more asymmetrical than what we normally recognize as splitting. Someone else might call it offsetting in this case, which is fine. My point is that there is no clear line to distinguish the two processes.

Bill

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I think the point is that with offsets, the mother bulb retains its original size, while with "splitting", the mother bulb is reduced in size by the new bulb. Sometimes a reduction is by 50%, sometimes much less (as in Bill's case) where the new bulb is coming from the original bulk of the mother bulbs. When offsets originate from the basal plate, the size of the mother bulb is unaffected.
K

It would be interesting to see if this bulb keeps splitting or gets to bloom too

Arif

Thought I would post this photo showing that even a small seedling can split. This seedling is one year old.

Yes a year old can split or have number of babies and a genetically strong seedling can be made to bloom in a year if provided with 24hr growing environment.

Arif,

Have you tried growing plants under continuous lighting (24 hr per day) or know of someone who has? Some kinds of plants can be successfully grown under continuous lighting, but for most plants there is little or no benefit (or they do worse than when provided with a dark interval each day). I haven't seen information for hippeastrum, so I would like to know more.

Bill