Hi everyone.

Carol - Your Aechmea 'MEND' doesn't appear to have any ripe seed capsules on it just yet. I don't have much knowledge about how long they will take, but they will darken in colour if there are any ripe capsules, so just keep and eye on them.

Just a little bit of trivia for you about the name MEND, Did you know where this name came from? Aechmea 'MEND' is a mutation from the species Aechmea luddemanniana and if you go to the link below you can read all about its very interesting history:

http://registry.bsi.org/?genus=AECHMEA&id=359#359 

All the best, Nev

Thanks, Nev. So coincidence of coincidence, I checked the berries today and out of 1,000+ berries on the stalk, there was ONE that had turned dark purple. I plucked it, gave it a squeeze like I saw on YouTube, and all these seeds came out! Don't know if they are viable, or not, but they were seeds.

Believe it or not, I had already read the story of how MEND got it's name - I think because it was such an odd name for a brom - but I didn't recall that it dates back to 1960! Wow! It's my favorite Aechmea.

Carol

Hi everyone.

Carol - the only sure way to test the viability of the seed is to either sow some or squeeze a few into a small jar of water and place in a warm place (on top of the fridge is good) and if the seed is viable you should see it starting to sprout in around three weeks, more or less depending on the temperature.

All the best, Nev.

Just got home from a short trip... going to check the berries today and see if I have any more ripe ones... will play with them for fun and practice, as I have never germinated seeds... although I have read TONS of old posts about pollination.

Thanks again, Nev.

Carol

Just wanted to mention that IF there are seeds in each of the little fruits, then most likely they are viable. Fruit will be fat and plump if they have seeds. You have so many fruit, it would be easy to test them out. If it had not gotten pollinated, I don't think you'd have any seeds and fruit would be less plump.

That said, if you start them, you will have way more seedlings than you will ever know what to do with. They are easy and quick to sprout -- in maybe a week or so! Keep in mind that the seedlings will most likely not have any variegation like 'MEND" does.

Some little seedlings from 'MEND'.

Hi everyone.

Carol - As Dave says it's highly unlikely you will grow any variegated seedlings.

Based on what I have read and from my own experiences when I grew MEND seed, you can expect the foliage to be either grey/green like that of the seed parent of MEND which is Ae. lueddemanniana or a pinkish light brown. The flowers and berries will be the same as your Aechmea MEND.

I was very new to growing brom seed when I planted my first lot of MEND seed. A friend had given me the seed and I didn't even know what MEND looked like at that stage so I went home and looked it up on the BCR and was very impressed when I saw it was a beautiful variegated plant.

Having visions of producing hundreds of new variegated plants to add to my collection I planted the seed in a plastic take-away container and followed the same growing procedure I still use today. The seed was extremely fertile and within three weeks I had hundreds of tiny seedlings which I culled and kept just fifty to grow on.

As they grew I was very disappointed to see there wasn't a single one showing any variegation and 50% just had dull grey/green foliage and the remainder had a pinkish light brown coloured foliage.

They were very fast growing when compared with Neoregelias I had planted at the same time and although there wasn't any variegation showing I was still hopeful that the ones with the pinkish coloured foliage may produce something a bit different

MEND seedlings at two years old

It was in January when we had heat wave with temperatures in the low 40's C . I had a few adult plants badly burnt but fortunately the seedlings which were beneath shade cloth at this stage appeared undamaged.

The weather stabilised and went back to normal and it was a couple of weeks after the heatwave while looking at my seedlings I noticed one of the MEND seedling had a trace of a beautiful red on one of the leaves similar to that of Ae. Alvarez. (see pic below)

Aechmea 'Alvarez'

This was quite exciting and I thought that maybe I was going to produce another of these nice coloured cultivars. Each day as I looked at the seedlings the red leaf became two, and then three, and then I saw two more plants showing hints of red on the leaves as well. In all there was a total of ten showing red on their leaves and I was over the moon with excitement.

My MEND seedlings showing the red on the leaves - The two plants on the lower right show the two different coloured foliage to come from the seed about 50/50

I was so pleased with myself and each day I checked the progress of these plants. I decided I would give all the MEND seedling a closer check to see if I had any more with red showing through.

As I was sorting through them you can imagine my shock when I touched one of the ones I had selected and the red centre just fell out completely; and then another and another.

I then noticed that dreaded smell of rot and everyone of those plant had the centre rotted out. I hadn't bred some sort of new beautiful hybrid after all, as I found out later, the red leaves was sign of the plant rotting. It seems this is quite common when a plant rots, sometimes the leaves take on a bright colour not usually associated with that particular plant.

After I got over the initial shock I realised it was probably all a result of the heatwave two weeks before. Because these were supposedly special plants, I had hung them higher than the rest to get more light and get maximum colour.

When I looked carefully into the centre I found in each plant a dead half grown slug, and my reckoning is that these slugs got into the water away from the heat and as the temperature rose, the water got hot and more or less cooked the slugs.

The hot water in the cup combined with a dead slug is what I imagine started the rot. I can only think that was the cause because the other seedlings at bench level were unaffected even though some of them had small slugs living in the cups as well. (I never worried about the slugs as they don't seem to eat the broms and just use them for somewhere sheltered to live)

So that was the end of what I had imagined was to be the birth of some new beautifully coloured new Aechmea cultivars.

All the best, Nev.