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From: Oleg Vasiliev <OVasiliev at GO.COM>
Subject: Proper Winter Care/rotting

I agree with Jim - arisaemas should stay dry during the winter
other wise they will rotted. I try to keep my plants dry even
during summer and autumn, when we have a lot of raining.

A few more suggestions how to reduce rotting:

Last year I grow arisaemas as potatoes: sow them in the spring
at 20-25 cm deep (8' - 10') and when shoot grow 10cm (4') under
soil level I use a hoe to scrape the soil into a mound over the
arisaemas. I find this approach is very helpful in case of raining,
when excess of water will run to hole and base of inflorescent
(most sensitive part) stay dry. This is one way how to reduce
rotting.

Another good advice is to grow arisaemas in a fresh soil (bring
from forest) or heat (chemical) deactivated soil. Even 5-6 years
old compost or mature increase rotting.

And one more idea. Probably most folks store arisaemas in
the refrigerator during winter. Do you wash tubers well in water?
I did that many years before, but stop washing this year.
Yes, I agree washing remove most spores from the suffers of
tubers - this is good for storage, but I suspect that water remove
compounds required for protection tuber too. Washed tubers
need some time to restore protection when they planted in the
spring and have more chances to rot then not washed.
I have only preliminary date about this matter. Next year I am
going to test anti bacteriological properties of water-soluble
compounds extracted from tubers suffer.

It's interesting to know any other way to reduce rotting.

Oleg
----------------------------------------------------
Garden location:
1,5 meters under snow,  west part of Moscow region,
Zone: colder then zone 4 but warmer then zone 1