Re: Propagation

In a message dated 8/25/02 11:08:19 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
flowers@simplegiftsfarm.com writes:

<< Having contributed this bit of unwarranted wisdom, I can tell you from 
long 
 practical experience that you can simply take any rooted cutting from a 
 water glass and pot it immediately into soil if there are adequate numbers 
 of roots present to support the top growth.  There is no need for long term 
 muddification or any other precaution. >>

I have not found this to be true.  A good example of plant that roots easily 
in water is impatiens.  A water rooted impatiens and on one rooted in sterile 
mix will not grow at the same rate. The water rooted plant requires some time 
for recovery while the solid mix rooted plant can be transferred root ball 
intact into the next container with no need to readapt to surrounding.  The 
water rooted impatiens will need much longer to recover and in my experience 
makes a poorer and weaker plant.

This question is constantly be debated, particulary with house plant growers 
who do not usually have the material at hand to root cuttings in a solid mix. 
 For many years folk put "slips" into water and hoped for the best.  
Sometimes various tropicals will grow for years in plain water.  A whole 
bunch of perennials will root from stem cuttings but having to do this in in 
the right season and using the best known procedure for each particular plant 
gives the best new plants.   If you can get a plant to live from water grown 
roots then you have some measure of success but I do not think you get a 
stocky healthy plant with this method.

If you want to actually propagate a plant, you will find the best season to 
do it and follow the best procedures gained from the experiences of others.  
Sticking cut stems, "slips", cuttings into water often produces some root 
much to your surprise.
A plant rooted in a solid mix will not have the growth disturbed when potting 
as the root ball will be intact.   

The biology of this is debated quite a lot.  I think that I said before that 
professional propagators do not use water grown cutting.  There may an 
exception to that in some hydroponic growers but I don't think it translates 
into what a home gardener can accomplish.

Near to me is nursery that grows huge amounts of seasonal plants.  There are 
a number of very large houses and they sell both retail and wholesale.  It is 
intresting to walk through in the early spring and see what is coming on for 
the spring sales.  I have asked them several times about propagation.  For 
several season they were experimenting with a water retaining material called 
Oasis.  That comes in small wedges and gave a fully rooted plant (they buy 
cutttings) when "finished" went into a pot of probably some kind of promix.   
Since the Oasis never dries out, or seems like it never does, the geraniums 
grown this way will occasionally die from inability to drain as pelargoniums 
require.  

I thought Bill's solution sort of innovative.  He would end with a root ball 
to tansplant that would continue growing without being disturbed.  Overtime, 
my experience is that one does not have the success with water that you do 
with a solid rooting mix.  Also, if the rooting process is a lengthy one, you 
will have rotted cuttings long before you have roots.  In a mix a year or 
more can pass and you can still get a rooted cutting.

Having said all of this, there will always be someone who roots a maple tree 
and says it is succesful but the odds are you get a better plant in a solid 
rooting mix and using rooting hormones on a great many of them.

Claire Peplowski
NYS z4

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