I normally repot my tropicals with the tuber and all. When I unpot and find more than one or two tubers I'll baggie the rest and float them until they sprout and then pot them up too when I start to see roots.
This time I'm wanting to grow another lily out of a tuber that is still attached to a tropical and I don't have extra tubers to do this with so I'm wanting to retrieve this one. I know that in the fall is a good time to break them off to overwinter them (if I were wanting to do it that way), but what about when you want to do it in the summer so that you can get another plant to blooming size before the fall? I've tried detaching small plantlets with visible roots from other tubers in the past to not the greatest success and the small plants died and also failed to tuber themselves. I've also noticed that sometimes a sprouted tuber when unpotted might pout and go back into dormancy.
If the tuber that I am after is attached to a tropical that now has a couple of dinner plate sized pads floating and its first (small) bloom out, do you think I can retreive the tuber out now if I don't disturb the roots (assuming there are some roots by now in the pot) too much?