Cool idea tossing the media in the pressure cooker! I’ll run that by the Fleet Admiral for approval, yet somehow I doubt she’ll let me use her Instant Pot for this experiment. But a fun and effective idea
@Wires_Guy_wires !
Over here I do trials with a lot of azalea and other tree cuttings. This last summer‘s efforts included right at 450 cuttings (5 to a pot) from 70 different azalea cultivars in addition to other cuttings of maples, English hawthorn etc. Organic and inorganic media is used depending on the cultivar and test.
From my limited experience, if one is going to be successful with a crop of azalea cuttings, it doesn’t take a whole lot of equipment… heating mats, trays and covers of some sort, and maybe a couple lights, yet of all the variety of material that can be used, I find a stable, clean source of media is important for azalea cuttings .….
While I won’t comment on others methods of striking cuttings and successfully growing these out over the succeeding year, I can say that that is my experience. Also I personally wouldn’t use 100 percent perlite myself for azaleas, but would be very interested to know the the actual results of using this media.
So
@fredman ‘s effort to ensure his media is ’sterile’ imo is valid…. and interesting to me. Especially interesting would be knowing the type of media and the year long results.
As far as sterilizing media for older trees goes, I don’t have a large depth of knowledge to draw from. I originally did this as as a trial as I couldn’t get media materials quickly and was short of cash anyways... and continue this process still. I received my information about the need for ‘clean’ media from a large trial, years ago, to reuse media that wasn’t sterilized at the museum where I volunteer. From their experience the results where not pretty…. and were never attempted again.
The temperature used was my choice. My Mom’s baseline standard for cooking most anything in the oven, back in the day, was 350 for 40 mins. So I non scientifically figured I’d go a bit higher…. the length had to do with getting the media dry. So lowering the temperature is entirely possible, but may take more time.
Cheers,
DSD sends
btw: I haven’t tried to sterilize the Kanuma mix I use yet. I have finally gotten enough to try heating a batch. The results of this trial will be very interesting, especially economically considering the recent price increases.