agave ferdinandi-regis roots, rot, and dehydration?

[mkhetrick]

My sister bought me a Ferdinand online and when I recieved it the roots had been pretty abused. Some of them look like they were twisted off and they had been severely cut back. The leaves had closed up fairly tight. I put it in soil and shade for a week like a lot of information on the internet says to. I've had it for around a month now and I kept seeing more and more signs of dehydration. It is in a pot and I was checking for dryness before watering. I've watered it three times now. My concern led me to pull it out of the soil today and the roots look worse than when I planted it and there is the beginning signs of rot to go with the dehydrated leaves. I rinsed all the soil off of it gently and am now letting them dry out. Is there anything else I should do before putting it back into a pot?

[mcvansoest]

I am sure others will chime in, but in my experience it can take a while for some of these plants to re-activate, some are super quick, but others take a while I think A. f-r. is on the slow side. I agree that your plant looks dehydrated, but given what I just went through after transplanting a whole bunch of Agaves (including A. f-r.) in late-April to mid-May here in the Phoenix area, I can tell you, it could be a whole lot worse and your plant would probably still be OK. (both my A. f-r.'s are among the survivors of our extremely dry summer, I got plenty of other victims)

What is more of a concern is that you may have some root rot going on. Probably means the plant has been a little too wet without much activity from the roots. If it is truly rot, you will want to prune those roots of and let the plant sit out drying out for at least a few days. Then I would put the plant in a water bath for a few hours (if you can do this in relatively fresh captured rain water I would use that over tap water) to try and re-activate the roots. I have done this with mixed success, some plants love this and get an enormous boost from this to re-root or re-activate growth after a long hot summer being underwatered, others would not appear to get any benefit from this at all.

After the water bath I would let the roots dry out for a bit and then I would put the plant in super fast draining soil (with a lot of pumice if you have it) and stick it back in the shade and let it sit. I would not water too much (or at all), until you see the plant start to perk up as a sign it is got root activity/new root growth. Some people use rooting hormone or some other kind of growth stimulant. (Superthrive comes to mind) Again I have had mixed success with this kind of stuff some plants appear to really benefit from the rooting hormone stuff others just appear to do it all on their own pace.

Then it is a matter of patience. You certainly want to keep an eye on it, but you will want to limit the water, if the roots are not really active all that water is not useful to the plant and certainly could be a source of trouble in terms of developing rot and what not.

[mkhetrick]

Thank you! I will do this. It is currently sitting bare in the shade for it to dry. I'm really glad I finally talked myself into pulling it to check before it got worse.

[Melt in the Sun]

Looks like it will be fine. It's a little shriveled yes, but you could leave it out of a pot til next fall and it probably still wouldn't be dead.

As you're doing, let it dry out. I wouldn't bother with the water bath honestly, just once it's dry cut away all the old dead roots so you can see what's going on. It might have just a little stump left but that's OK!

Then I'd set it on top of soil, in a pot, in the shade. GENTLY wiggle it every week or so and you'll be able to feel when it starts to root, then start watering.

[mkhetrick]

Good to know! It astounds me how hearty agaves can be.