Sunday, December 14, 2014

transpiration

i have tried to keep a fairly tight rein on my watering habits this indoor season...basements usually have reasonably high humidity levels and mine is no exception...i have fans going and there is an open heat vent in the plant room because the last thing i need is fungi down there with all those potatoes...i haven't watered potatoes at all and i am taking my cues on watering the teosinte from the plants...i have posted about the habit zea family leaves have of curling when the begin to lose moisture from transpiration and the leaf on the zea mexicana plant in the top two photos is definitely curling at the edges...so i watered it and went back about an hour later and took the third photo of a leaf that has smoothed out..so the plants are dictating the watering through leaf curl...the potatoes will probably do the same thing albeit in a bit different fashion because the leaves are so different...i will water them when they tell me as well but experience tells me that no mater how conservative i am with water the bottom leaves will yellow and fall off...i am getting used to not watering...but it is not easy...the fifth photo is the leaves on the craigs snowwhite just a few minutes ago and the bottom one i=s the same plant nine days ago...it seems unconcerned about water right now.

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