A fool proof rooting hormone

papkey5

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I am trying to make my work of getting successful cuttings foolproof. So, I am working on eliminating possible shortfalls. What reliable rooting hormone do you use, and where do you buy it from?
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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There is no "foolproof" rooting hormone. Frequently zero rooting hormone works better than applying rooting hormone. There are times rooting hormone really helps, if applied correctly.Pick up a copy of M. Dirr's "Propagation of Trees and Woody Shrubs", I'm working from memory, the title of Dirr might be slightly off. The edition I have buried somewhere is from 1983. It is still a standard text for plant propagation courses, so used copies and more recent editions should be available and inexpensive.

Too much rooting hormone will inhibit rooting. There are times where zero hormone will give a low percent rooting, but too much hormone will guarantee zero rooting.

I've used the powder, the liquid and the gel types. I think I like the liquid, but if you use it, set a timer, you only want to soak the cuttings for the time specified in the directions, 5 minutes or 30 minutes. What ever the directions state.

Concentrations vary widely between different manufacturer's and brands. Read the Labels. Then read DIrr, then take out your calculator and do the math.

Heavy handed use of hormones will guarantee failure.

That's the only help I can give. I don't mean to be "Debbie Downer".

If you are doing this as a hobby, and don't need to pay the mortgage with the results, try using zero hormones, it will often work.

Side note:
Much of whether you have success is not dependent on hormones. Setting up a good rooting bench, or bed is far more important than whether or not you use hormones. A bed where you can heat the soil and keep it at a specific temperature, like 27 C or 80 F, high humidity, bright shade, and perhaps a misting system. For example some misting systems are set at 15 seconds of mist every 20 minutes. Being able to control rooting media temperature, air temperature and control frequency and volume of mist is very, very important. More important than using rooting hormones in terms of achieving commercial success rates (over 70% of cuttings will root).

Putting cuttings in a 3 or 4 inch pot, then putting the pot and cuttings in a plastic bag is a low tech, hobby method, and can give results from 5% to 100% depending on species. If you don't mind the randomness, the low tech method often produces enough rooted cuttings for hobby purposes. It is the method I use. My heating pad for a rooting flat shorted out years ago, I have not set up a new rooting set up.
 

JoeR

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The important part: what kind of cuttings are you taking? What species, that is.

Edit: Leo beat me to it!
 

brentwood

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In my limited experience, I find heat kicked off rooting - at least in junipers. A couple weeks of warm weather, and they started rooting. Probably also implies the timing is important..

Brent
 
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There is no "foolproof" rooting hormone. Frequently zero rooting hormone works better than applying rooting hormone. There are times rooting hormone really helps, if applied correctly.Pick up a copy of M. Dirr's "Propagation of Trees and Woody Shrubs", I'm working from memory, the title of Dirr might be slightly off. The edition I have buried somewhere is from 1983. It is still a standard text for plant propagation courses, so used copies and more recent editions should be available and inexpensive.

Too much rooting hormone will inhibit rooting. There are times where zero hormone will give a low percent rooting, but too much hormone will guarantee zero rooting.

I've used the powder, the liquid and the gel types. I think I like the liquid, but if you use it, set a timer, you only want to soak the cuttings for the time specified in the directions, 5 minutes or 30 minutes. What ever the directions state.

Concentrations vary widely between different manufacturer's and brands. Read the Labels. Then read DIrr, then take out your calculator and do the math.

Heavy handed use of hormones will guarantee failure.

That's the only help I can give. I don't mean to be "Debbie Downer".

If you are doing this as a hobby, and don't need to pay the mortgage with the results, try using zero hormones, it will often work.

Side note:
Much of whether you have success is not dependent on hormones. Setting up a good rooting bench, or bed is far more important than whether or not you use hormones. A bed where you can heat the soil and keep it at a specific temperature, like 27 C or 80 F, high humidity, bright shade, and perhaps a misting system. For example some misting systems are set at 15 seconds of mist every 20 minutes. Being able to control rooting media temperature, air temperature and control frequency and volume of mist is very, very important. More important than using rooting hormones in terms of achieving commercial success rates (over 70% of cuttings will root).

Putting cuttings in a 3 or 4 inch pot, then putting the pot and cuttings in a plastic bag is a low tech, hobby method, and can give results from 5% to 100% depending on species. If you don't mind the randomness, the low tech method often produces enough rooted cuttings for hobby purposes. It is the method I use. My heating pad for a rooting flat shorted out years ago, I have not set up a new rooting set up.

This is very helpful, I've just started trying to take cuttings this past year and tried the gel, but I was under the impression that more was better and none of my cuttings have taken - except for some jades which had nothing applied (I mean, jades will propagate from nothing so no surprise, but still). I've been wondering what I've been doing wrong and thought I was following what I was seeing online correctly.
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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I fully agree with Leo.

Rooting powders can mess up stuff because they're usually mixed with calcium chloride to keep it dry.
But clonex rooting gel has given me results that most rooting hormones couldn't match. There's more in there than just IBA, but I don't know what exactly.
 

papkey5

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The important part: what kind of cuttings are you taking? What species, that is.

Edit: Leo beat me to it!
I have tried mostly deciduous. It has always been semi-hardwood growth from the current season.
 

papkey5

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There is no "foolproof" rooting hormone. Frequently zero rooting hormone works better than applying rooting hormone. There are times rooting hormone really helps, if applied correctly.Pick up a copy of M. Dirr's "Propagation of Trees and Woody Shrubs", I'm working from memory, the title of Dirr might be slightly off. The edition I have buried somewhere is from 1983. It is still a standard text for plant propagation courses, so used copies and more recent editions should be available and inexpensive.

Too much rooting hormone will inhibit rooting. There are times where zero hormone will give a low percent rooting, but too much hormone will guarantee zero rooting.

I've used the powder, the liquid and the gel types. I think I like the liquid, but if you use it, set a timer, you only want to soak the cuttings for the time specified in the directions, 5 minutes or 30 minutes. What ever the directions state.

Concentrations vary widely between different manufacturer's and brands. Read the Labels. Then read DIrr, then take out your calculator and do the math.

Heavy handed use of hormones will guarantee failure.

That's the only help I can give. I don't mean to be "Debbie Downer".

If you are doing this as a hobby, and don't need to pay the mortgage with the results, try using zero hormones, it will often work.

Side note:
Much of whether you have success is not dependent on hormones. Setting up a good rooting bench, or bed is far more important than whether or not you use hormones. A bed where you can heat the soil and keep it at a specific temperature, like 27 C or 80 F, high humidity, bright shade, and perhaps a misting system. For example some misting systems are set at 15 seconds of mist every 20 minutes. Being able to control rooting media temperature, air temperature and control frequency and volume of mist is very, very important. More important than using rooting hormones in terms of achieving commercial success rates (over 70% of cuttings will root).

Putting cuttings in a 3 or 4 inch pot, then putting the pot and cuttings in a plastic bag is a low tech, hobby method, and can give results from 5% to 100% depending on species. If you don't mind the randomness, the low tech method often produces enough rooted cuttings for hobby purposes. It is the method I use. My heating pad for a rooting flat shorted out years ago, I have not set up a new rooting set up.
I had not thought that too much hormone negates rooting. Thank you for that knowledge.
 

Kanorin

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Rooting powders can mess up stuff because they're usually mixed with calcium chloride to keep it dry.
Does anyone have instructions for solubilizing the powders? I'm not sure if that would help or not.
I played around with solubilizing some IBA powder in about 5-10% isopropanol / 90-95% water. It seemed to go into solution, but I didn't take good notes or try enough to determine success rates.
 

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Does anyone have instructions for solubilizing the powders? I'm not sure if that would help or not.
I played around with solubilizing some IBA powder in about 5-10% isopropanol / 90-95% water. It seemed to go into solution, but I didn't take good notes or try enough to determine success rates.
It depends on the type of powder you have.
Most IBA powders can be dissolves in ethanol if you heat it (in an erlenmeyer flask) under a running hot tap. IBA-K, the potassium salt form is water soluble.
IBA by itself has a low water solubility of just a few tenth milligrams per liter, you can make a stock solution by adding drops of KOH solution to dry powder until dissolved, then add that stock solution to your water - for some reason this works well, even if you perfom pH corrections. But this is pure IBA, or the IBA-K salt.

If you want to dissolve IBA from rooting hormone powder, there's usually clay and calcium chloride in there, so an ETOH extraction (add warm ethanol, then decant slowly after the clay and calcium chloride has settled) but the concentration of your end product can vary a lot. Most plants don't like ethanol that much either. IBA is pretty sensitive to light as well as temperature, so these kind of solutions decay fast. In a matter of hours you'll smell butyric acid (poop-like smell) and you'll probably see it crystalize in the solution. You can reheat it, which sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't.

I keep my IBA-K stock solutions (eppendorf cups of 2mL with a known concentration) frozen in storage. This can keep them preserved for usually a year or two.

But again, Leo is right, usually rooting hormones aren't needed at all and high concentrations can even inhibit rooting. This is however very species dependent. Some pines benefit from shock treatments; high IBA concentrations for 24-48 hours and then IBA drainage by placing cuttings on a medium with activated charcoal that reduces the IBA concentration to zero; it's captured in the charcoal fibers/pores.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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The book by Dirr might have some protocols for preparing hormone solutions, otherwise you will need to seek out discarded or used lab texts from plant propagation coursed. The DYI - dissolve it Yourself hormone route is not one most people do at home. Again, in part if you are too heavy handed with weighing out the hormone, you can do more harm than good.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Key to getting rooting is improving the environmental factors. A horticultural heat mat really, really makes a difference. Enclosing the cuttings in a plastic bag really helps, or if gadgetry is your strength building a misting bed, with the heated soil makes a huge difference.
 

leatherback

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Putting cuttings in a 3 or 4 inch pot, then putting the pot and cuttings in a plastic bag is a low tech, hobby method, and can give results from 5% to 100% depending on species. If you don't mind the randomness, the low tech method often produces enough rooted cuttings for hobby purposes. It is the method I use. My heating pad for a rooting flat shorted out years ago, I have not set up a new rooting set up.
Yup, this is what I use, and even got rooting on prunus mume. And my corkbark pine cuttings after 0 months are still green with what I tell myself are swelling candles.

I use clonex rooting gell, and am happy with the results; better than talcumpowder based stuff I have used in the past
 

JoeR

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Key to getting rooting is improving the environmental factors. A horticultural heat mat really, really makes a difference. Enclosing the cuttings in a plastic bag really helps, or if gadgetry is your strength building a misting bed, with the heated soil makes a huge difference.
I have found this to be absolutely true.

A few years ago I was really into cuttings. I built a wooden frame with 2×4's, and then took that black flexible pipe (cant think of the name atm) and made hoops across the frame, and covered in a painters plastic sheet. Then I added misters on a timer, and a heat mat- in a few weeks I had great success with juniper, malus, maple, elm, etc. Most of the time I did not use any hormone
 
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