Rhubarb flowering

I have a plant in a pretty large container which I planted 4 years ago and is already starting to flower presumably because it's dried out at some stage. If I break the flower off and give it a good soaking will I still get a decent crop?

 

You might do, one of mine flowered a few years back & I cut it off, didn't try to flower again.

 

I've always been told that a principal reason for plants flowering prematurely can be because they think they're going to die and need to reproduce ASAP. Perhaps it got really stressed by drying out and should be left to see just how many stems it start producing before pulling loads of them. Keep an eye open for stems with globules of stuff oozing as these can cause 'jellification' if using for wine making.

 

Educate me guys.... I think it,s about the third year for my rhubarb and I read about flowering? Am I missing something here? Had a fair crop over the last two years and I notice just today we have some action on this years growth. Is there something I should watching out for?

 

Like Scrunge said, they flower if they get stressed and then they'll put all their energy into producing seed instead of leaves.

But if you molycoddle the plant after taking the flower off it'll relax again

 

Molycoddle it is then. Just found a video that explains it nicely. I had no idea they flowered! Thanks for the update.

 

Thanks for that Zigs. I've deflowered, is there anything I could feed it? Tomato feed?
BTW I've been away for some time busy with work but pleased to have found this forum again

 

I have several rhubarb plants in the ground, its a damp area that doesn't dry out yet a couple of them tried to flower last year, I removed the flower before they got chance to develop, give them a good feed and further mulch and they were fine all year, producing lots of stems

 

Thanks to all for the response, best feed?

 

Mine liked old lime mortar

Last year before the show the one down here was looking like a failure, snails had damaged the stems

Hoiked them all out, gave it a feed of homemade liquid compost ( made by immersing weeds in a bucket of water) Wood ash and lime.



Any excuse again

 

One of mine has flowered too, I mulched it earlier on in the year with very well rotted pig manure & watered it. I removed the flower as soon as I spotted it & have given it a really good soak, left it over night then this morning I gave it another water with some organic fertiliser, now I need to wait & see what happens.
Interestingly I looked back in my garden diary & last time it flowered it was the 20th of April last year, obviously it's slightly earlier this year but seems strange that it gets stressed the same time each year?!