Agave pups

I was under the impression that Agave medio picta alba didn't pup freely but I must be wrong as this one has one on the surface and three emerging from the three drainage holes., problem is the three at the base won't be easy to separate without destroying the root ball and they will be too long to plant in small pots, any suggestions?

 

Just a suggestion,
When the plants at the bottom emerge further out of the plant pot, if they are attached by a thin reed type stem similar to spider plants, and have some root growth. What you can do is leave the new plants attached to the mother plant, then by lifting the whole plant in the pot higher, you can then pot the young plants in pots. Leaving them still attached to the mother plant until they take root, and establish themselves as individual plants.
You can then separate them from the main plant; watering them all regularly as and when needed.

Or you can try teasing one of the plants out, once it's grown a bit larger.
Then see if it has sufficient root growth so it can be re-planted in a new pot ?
I hope this might help ?

 

I find pups on agaves to be a problem most years.
I'd always prefer the plant to put all its effort into the main rosette but they dont, and spend half their time growing pups, which often appear out of the drainage holes.

Mostly I knock the plants out and cut off the stem of the pups as close to the main plant as possible, if the pup has the starting of some roots it can be potted up, but mostly I dont bother with them.

Only agave that I've grown up to now which has not pupped yet is A. montana.

 

It's obviously not the time to do anything now but I will repot in Spring and either try and remove the pups and pot them or may be dispose of them, I'll have to wait see.

 

Usually if you knock out the rootball you can just pull back the pup and the long stolon that it has grown on just comes away up to the main plant, where you can cut it off.
Often this doesn't really disturb the main rootball very much.