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FORCED FLOWERING

Forced Flowering I was given a bromeliad a couple years ago as a gift. It has had several babies and I have transferred the young ones to other pots. My problem is how to get them to bloom? The colour or the leaves is light green and they are approx. 8 to 12″ long and approx. 3″ wide. I live in Oklahoma and keep the plants inside in the winter and outside in partial shade in the summer and fertilize with Rapidgrow. I have tried the apple in a bag with no success and I have heard of G. acid. I like growing these plants and just wish I could get them to bloom. I don’t know the variety, as it was a gift, but the bloom on the original plant was about the size of a small fist, pink with light blue tips on a long stem. Appreciate any info you might have. Thanks Jerry from Oklahoma. I have not used the chemicals to promote flowering, but others do, with good results, if the plant is strong enough. It is used in the pineapple industry to have all the fruit develop at the same time.

I checked “Rapidgrow” on the web and noticed they talk about “fast” growth. This usually is connected to high nitrogen based fertilizers. Nitrogen on bromeliads like neoregelia, turns the plant green, as they are not stressed and the leaves become strappy. They are happy develop into much bigger plants, double there original size, with pupping increased and flowering put off for another year at least.

Most bromeliads do not require much nitrogen to live very happily and in nature as epiphytes, get very little. Our normal flowering fertilizers for bromeliads contain Nitrogen 3.0, Phosphorus 8.0, K for potassium 25.0 plus trace elements. This produces the stress to allow the plant to colour brightly and flower early. After flowering the mother can be heavily fertilized to produce many more pups. The small pups and seedlings can also be heavily fertilized with nitrogen initially, but this should be all used by the plant before reaching maturity.

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