The Amaryllis are in bloom right now.....these were at a client's property we were working at today:
The second job I had out of college was working as a grower at an Apopka nursery. We grew all kinds of foliage plants but we also propagated Amaryllis and as a company (including a Delray Beach location) were the largest propagators of Amaryllis in North America.
The method of propagation involved taking the bulbs and slicing them into small slips, each of which had a part of the base of the bulb, from which new roots and a shoot would emerge. These slips were stuck into raised beds of sand under misters. In between batches we would fumigate the beds with Methyl Bromide - and that was one of my duties - to set the canisters off. The beds were covered with plastic and I would reach in and pull the trigger on each canister, while wearing a full gas mask and Tyvek spray suit of course. Methyl Bromide is colorless and odorless so they would put some tear gas in with it to help with detection in case of a leak.
This was all back in the late 70's....back in the day......
The second job I had out of college was working as a grower at an Apopka nursery. We grew all kinds of foliage plants but we also propagated Amaryllis and as a company (including a Delray Beach location) were the largest propagators of Amaryllis in North America.
The method of propagation involved taking the bulbs and slicing them into small slips, each of which had a part of the base of the bulb, from which new roots and a shoot would emerge. These slips were stuck into raised beds of sand under misters. In between batches we would fumigate the beds with Methyl Bromide - and that was one of my duties - to set the canisters off. The beds were covered with plastic and I would reach in and pull the trigger on each canister, while wearing a full gas mask and Tyvek spray suit of course. Methyl Bromide is colorless and odorless so they would put some tear gas in with it to help with detection in case of a leak.
This was all back in the late 70's....back in the day......