Hi Paul, Glad my experience has given you more confidence. Now dates...hmm. I pollinated a few flowers on each of Tim's ten branches in late February 2009. The set pods took longer to mature than usual for foliage Vrieseas. By late November/ early December 2009 the set pods were light brown and hard, and starting to get a slightly "withered" look about them, but still hadn't split. I was also getting slightly "withered looking" from my impatience, so that's when I removed them, pre-splitting. They took another few weeks to split after separation, in their envelopes. I admit some had a helping hand from me to split. Also, some just withered completely, without viable seed, so I eventually threw those out. I sowed the seed around Christmas 2009. Although I did the micro-surgery pollination attempts at the same time, I noticed some pods were faster to ripen than others, depending on what pollen parent I used. I have noticed this before with other foliage Vriesea pollination attempts. My friend Frances has also found this. We have both experienced earlier ripening of seed when the pollen parent is a fosteriana variety - I don't know why. I also find that on the rare occasions that I remove the seed pods before they are ripe, and then on even rarer occasions use a bit of force to split them, those seed take longer to germinate as well. Obviously, the seed was not quite ripe. But hey, they still germinate - which of course is the ultimate goal. Has anyone else had this experience? So no holding your breath Paul. Be patient, my friend. K :)

Yes, remove it. It will help the plant put more energy into pupping. The only reason to leave it on once it turns brown is if you had pollinated it and were expecting seeds (not something I'd recommend unless you know what you're doing and are hardcore crazy).

Hi everyone ,this is from an old posting that i went thru,I also use apples to initiate spikes (when needed) works very well actually,as for other question raised,Vr splendens 'Major' is a line bred cultivar from the famous "Gulz" nursery ex Germany (they had the best of everything) this variety is quite big for a splendens almost a metre , very tall spike at least 80 centimetres if well grown. pale white/green background and big blocks of banded red/brown to allmost black, quite self fertile to and not very cold sensitive,in my book its the only splendens to breed from ,and you can get up to 4 pups in the centre,had approx 20 seedpods on mine last year all self pollinated,Splendens Variety splendens is the direct opposite,not worth the effort.Stitzelweller ,the plant was all the rage but was ousted in favour (by nurseries) for smaller types that packed in a box easier , the same happened to 'Juno' wich gave rise to other varieties. i have found that some plants can be self fertile one season and not the next, cultural or climatic ? or does a plant just want a rest ? finding plants of splendens 'major' for sale is not easy nowadays , i will post a picture when i get time to take photo. have found the older postings very interesting , cheers Jack

First, bromeliads are very light feeders - they do not need fertilizer once a week. Once a month in warm weather and not at all in cold weather is enough. Clumps definitely will flower, and they put on a heck of a show when they do! And if you leave the pups to form a cluster, you do not run the risk of losing the pups when you transplant them! This risk is pretty large for plants in the genera Vriesea and Guzmania. If you do want to cut off the pups, wait until they are at least half the height of the adult - the longer you wait, the better! They do not have to have roots; wait until the cuts form a bit of a callus, about 3 days, and then plant them in soil that is kept barely damp - never soggy! Usually the roots will appear in a very few weeks. Keep the transplanted pups in shade.