Did a search, it is suggested unlikely to work.
Will try anyhow!
If anyone reads this and had them work I'm interested what you did to break their dormancy...

I understand if there's any damage to the tubers they're likely to rot in water, and of course you need water to get them growing. I always grow Lotus from seed. When I did try to get some going from dug up tubers they rotted. Anyway, always worth a try so good luck with it.

I tried store bought lotus a few times, they just rot in the pond, never sprout.

Tropicbreezent, I tried grow lotus from seeds, they all die after growing a few leaves. How do you do it?

Sara, after nicking the seeds they're just left in water (prefer to use rain water) until they germinate. The germinated seeds are then placed on soil in a container in water. Once the leaves start to come up above the water they're planted into ponds.

I find that planting them out while the leaves are still floating something eats them and kills the whole plant. Have never found out what's eating them but could possibly be tadpoles, they can demolish water lilies too.

Expect any pond the lotus are planted into to be over run by them. I got rid of my Lotus before but now have made a new pond specifically for them that they can have to themselves. Hence the start with new seeds again.

Tropicbreezent, I never got to the stage of leaves come above the water. my trouble starts at after a few floating leaves come out. The seed/root starts to rot and die. I have tried clay, regular garden soil, sand as the growing medium, none of them worked. How big a container do you use to put the germinated seeds in? What kind of soil? How deep is water in the container! Do you growvthem indoor or out door? Do you change the water from time to time? It seemed so easy for others, I don't understand why I failed every time.:-(

I don't really know. Do you have town water, they sometimes add chemicals that some plants don't like. Mine are outdoors and start off in about 100mm water increasing up to about 250mm when there are 2 - 3 leaves. They're in a 75 litre tub where I add about 20 litres of rain water weekly, or sometimes twice weekly depending on the rain. They get morning sun and full shade from about 10am. I add a little bit of seaweed fertiliser now and again, not enough to noticeably darken the water. The soil is fine sand that I get from a swamp on my place. Sometimes some of the leaves seem a bit pale and of course some of them die off. But I put the pale leaves down to the plants not getting much nutrient from the sand and the fertiliser in the water is very weak. Day time temperature gets up to around 35C and nights drop to about 25C. I'm planning to repot mine soon and add some fertiliser to the growing medium. Their pond (future home) still needs a lot of work but I have to wait for water levels to drop a lot more (the end of our wet season). So they'll be in "temporary accommodation" for a whole yet.

Just an after thought, are you putting the seeds down in the soil? I just lay them on top, not buried at all. Don't know whether that makes any difference, but it might be something.

Thank you for the detailed steps! I am going to give it another try. Will let you know if I succeed.

Good luck with them.

This is my set up (photo this morning). The bucket top right has a siphon hose to the main container. When I add 10 or 20 litres of rain water the 4 mm siphon hose slowly allows the water to equalise between the bucket and container. The excess water just spills out of the bucket onto the ground. The bucket can be raised or lowered to change the water levels.

The water has a cap full of liquid seaweed/fish fertiliser added but there's no noticeable colouration. Those plants could now take a lot longer in direct sun but too much trouble to try and move them.

Thanks for the picture! Hope my lotus seeds will be like yours soon:-)

Hi there! From one unidentified lotus tuber 8 years ago I had last winter 16 of the 18 gallon tubs of lotus. I raise mine as a vegetable. First of all, a viable tuber must have 2 little sprouts coming out one end of it. If the little sprouts get broken off the tuber dies. Even just if one sprout gets broken off it dies. The oriental groceries I have seen selling tubers have snapped off all the sprouts. Next, lotus don't like chlorine so I have about 30 gallon jugs recycled in my backyard filled with water from the hose- they will outgass within 24 hours. Last I add a bag of black kow manure to my 18 gallon tubs (bought in the storage section of Kmart or Walmart) and stick one or two tubers from the fall harvest back in each tub. They stay dormant thru the winter and sprout in spring. An "expert" suggested I switch to child's swimming pools as the tubs were "too deep" and raccoons got all my lotus tubers from them- so instead I replanted them to water chestnuts. Cut back my lotus to 10 tubs- last year I was giving tubers away to people who would talk to me in the yard about gardening. BTW Im in zone 10-microclimate 11.

PS no pump on my setup.

They don't go dormant here, unless the water dries out. Although, then there's still small leaves laying on the mud so not entirely dormant. But if they're in water they have tall emergent leaves all year .

/tropicbreezent, I started another two batches of lotus seeds. At first I kept them in a dish pan, but I had worry about the quality of water and do partial water change frequently. Eventually I put them all into fish pond, some in sand, some in soil. They are protected from fish. So far they are doing well, have 3-4 floating leaves. I am holding my breath waiting for an above water leaf, that's where I failed before.

Will let you know how they turn out.

Good luck with them Sara. I put mine in their pond which isn't really finished yet (I've been busy with a few other important jobs). The bottom is heavy clay overlaid with fine sandy/silty clay. No fish placed in the pond yet, but might have to soon before mosquitos start breeding there. They've been left in their containers in the pond so they can grow into the bottom in their own time. Not expecting anything to happen fast, we're in winter now.

So you are not on north hemisphere. Good luck with your pond! At least, you can still work on your pond. Where I am the pond is frozen solid in winter.

Tropicbreezent, my lotus are doing well. They put out lots of floating leaves, but still no Ariel leaves.

Sara, I have been reading your progress, that is great, I am in the same boat as you, watching for ariel leaves. I have been getting some algae on the top of the water, but I am ignoring it. I have ordered some pond tabs online, Home Depo didn't have any left, so I am hoping to fertilize them soon. Mabey next week. Keep us updated, I'm doing what you are doing.

Butterfly, I definitely will come back to update. I think I have gone furthest this time is because I put them all into big pond fairly early, so I didn't have to worry about the water quality, the lotus didn't have a chance to rot.

Good luck with your lotus seeds.

As for pond tab, I remember experts at this forum recommended using tomato spike, they said it works very well and is much cheaper. You may want to look into that. I never try that because I have lots of fish in my pond, the water is very rich. Water Lilly can grow without soil.

Sounds like they're rocketing along. Mine kept their floating leaves for a long time. But as winter moved in the floaters died off and some small aerial ones came up. They just sat there like that a few weeks. We're just about mid winter now but some more small aerial leaves have begun to emerge. I'm hoping this is when they start really taking off. Also put some small fish in the pond that eat mosquito larvae but don't touch tadpoles.

Store-bought lotus does not have growth tips so they will not grow. It is better to buy seed tubers to grow so you know what you are getting. Most lotus varieties are hybrid. Starting from a seed you may get a diiferent variety or have no idea what variety it is.