Cutting off the leaves will not encourage pupping, in fact the less leaf mass you have on your mother plant the slower pups will grow and the smaller they'll be.

Have your plants bloomed already? If so, then maybe just set them aside where you don't have to look at them and wait for the pups. It's okay to cut off dead or damaged parts but don't get too carried away. The pups draw on the mother plant's energy, and the more foliage, the more energy.

If they haven't bloomed yet and you want to speed up the pupping process, here's what you do: empty out all the water from the cup, and get a long skinny screwdriver and place the tip down inside the cup, right at the growing point, then pound it with a hammer until it goes all the way through and comes out the bottom. Sounds harsh, but it works! You have to make sure the hole stays clear afterwards so that any water that gets in the cup will immediately drain out, otherwise the plant will rot. Get the longest, narrowest screwdriver you can find. If it's too wide it will pull out half the foliage with it or split the crown. If it's too short you'll have a hard time getting it out.

I do this all the time, and if your aim is good you won't lose the plant and you'll get plenty of pups. Here's the best screwdriver for this purpose that I've found so far:

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The leather gloves are from Florian (ordered online). Very good arm protection!

Unfortunately though, there really isn't a center left! The picture of the Neo (sorry for the focus) is an example of how he has just taken the centers right out of the plant.

None have been in the ground very long to get established and only a few have had any pups.

Maybe just removed them altogether and toss 'em in pots and forget them?

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Wow, I didn't realize he'd ripped out the centers too! In that case they'll have to either pup or die. That last one looks like it may have a shot. The first two look pretty far gone to me, but if the leaves are still capable of staying green for the next several months then maybe they can still push out a pup. Once they dry up though, forget it!

Well now you've got me intrigued. Whats the rationale behind boring a hole into the middle of the cup? I've got a guzmania thats past its bloom and i've just been putting fertilizer in the cup every couple weeks. So far i've only got one pup.

*Bumped* for the question in the above post.

If you damage the main growing point it causes the plant to go into a survival mode. I've done it with Hostas, and unfortunately with Daylilys. Every so often I'll break one off right at the crown, and it used to bother me until I noticed all the new little plants forming around it. If you cut a hosta right near the roots it will do the same thing. I've never done it with a Bromeliad, but it sounds easy enough.

It won't do you any good if your plant has already bloomed, wulfgar. The purpose is to kill the growing point so that it is forced to send out pups in order to keep on growing. Once a brom has bloomed, that happens anyway, or at least it's supposed to.

The growing point at the center of a bromeliad shoot produces, along with leaves, a growth regulator which keeps the growth buds in the leaf axils from growing. If the growing point stops growing leaves because it has begun to form a flower scape or because somebody mashed it with a screwdriver, it stops forming the growth regulator and the shoot buds can begin to grow (form pups).

nifty

Does killing the growing point induce more pups than if the mum was left alone to pup naturally?
Also, I heard somewhere that removing some of the mum's lower leaves and exposing the potential growing buds on her stem and planting her deeper into the medium, will induce even more pups.
Would a combination of the 2 above practices induce a mega amount of pups or would the poor thing just die of shock? LOL

I didn't used to think it made a difference, purplestar. After all, once the plant has bloomed the growing point has stopped working anyway, so why would killing it increase the amount of pups?

In actual practice, though, sometimes it does, or at least it can speed up the time frame. In some varieties I might get 3 or 4 pups at a time from "screwing" the plant, as opposed to 1 or 2 at a time otherwise. This is not always the case, however, and I'm not sure that in the long run you'd get more, you just don't have to wait as long. It seems to depend a lot on the variety, just as some plants are heavier puppers than others anyway.

The first I heard of this method was in an old BSI Journal article, and the plant they showed as an illustration was Vr. hieroglyphica. The one in their photo was literally surrounded by pups! Well......... I tried screwing a couple of Vr. hieroglyphicas, and how many pups did I get? One. Per plant. That's it. Then the mother died. What's the point then? You're no further along than you were to begin with and you've ruined a perfectly good plant. Same thing happened with 'Nova', but several other foliage Vrieseas have given me much better results. It just seems to be an individual thing, but I do think there's a limit to how many pups a mother plant can turn out before she burns herself out.

I don't know about removing the lower leaves or planting it deeper in the soil. I've done that with things that were developing a stalk and I've never noticed any increase in pupping. If they were coming out below the soil surface it might make them root more quickly, but they'd also be more difficult to remove and more likely to be deformed. I like them up where I can get to them. Maybe it has to do with humidity. If your air is too dry to support aerial roots then perhaps that would reduce pup production? I'm just guessing here, since I live in a humid climate where pups root easily with no media at all.

Referring to the first two photos, they look more like crown rot than damage by a raccoon. I've had raccoons pull out the centers of Neos before, but it is usually just the blooms.

aaaahhh Thanks Lisa, you would be right in saying that my reasons for trying to grow the mum a little deeper in the soil to induce pupping after I've removed 2 or 3 of her healthy lower leaves, is because of the lack of humidity in my area.
After removing the first generation of 4 pups, I have tried the method of planting her a little deeper and voila! another 2 pups, and the mum is still looking ok. I have only tried this method on my Neo Black Forest. They don't look deformed as they began their emergence just on the soil level.
This tells me that pups emerge higher and higher along the mum's stalk. (don't mind me, I'm just thinking out loud) LOL it could also tell me that Black Forest is a heavy pupper anyway and would have made no difference. I'm still very new at all this.
Now, about 'screwing' the mum before she flowers. The fact that she was 'screwed' quite young and healthy, apart from making her pup sooner, could this give her a 'longer' dying time?, therefore giving her more time to produce extra pups? (thinking out loud again)
Thankyou Lisa :)

Actually, it gives you a shorter "dying time", purplestar. A plant that's been screwed probably won't have as many leaves on it as one that's been left to mature and bloom, and the act of pounding in and pulling out the screwdriver usually pulls out a portion of the center rosette. Often more of the remaining central leaves will become loose and pull out over time too, so the less leaf mass you have the less energy the plant has to pup, and the less time before they all eventually turn brown.

I think mostly it just accelerates the process, and often the pups will come out higher, from in amongst the foliage rather than at the base. Also there is no energy expended on flowering, so that may help increase the production a bit.

I'm not familiar with Black Forest or its pupping habits, but I think it's much more likely that removing the first batch of pups is what triggered more, rather than replanting it lower. If you added more fertilizer when you repotted it that may have helped too, but I generally try to avoid repotting or otherwise messing with a plant after it's bloomed because it just doesn't seem to want to make any new roots after that.

6 pups from one mother seems like a pretty decent crop in any event. You might get more over time from a cultivar that pups actively before blooming, but once the mother's growth has come to an end there's only so much pupping she can do before burning herself out, whether she bloomed or got the screwdriver.

Thankyou Lisa :) It all makes a lot of sense. I've been enjoying your chats on this forum, and if I stick round, I can see I will learn alot from you and the rest of the brom nuts here! ;-)