taking cuttings from a very old banyan (ficus benjamina i think)

[thailand-steve]

a huge, old (maybe 100 years or more) banyan just blew over in the wind last night near my house. the root base is easily 30' (10m) across but not very deep at all, just a few inches. i'll go take some pictures when it stops raining, freekin' monsoon over here.

anyhow, the tree was not super healthy, not a lot of foliage (for its size) and a lot of dead wood. but i don't think it was sick, just very old.

now they are sawing it up and there are tons of interesting branches i could try and propagate, but i'm wondering if its worth the trouble, even through its free. i will try a couple anyhow just to see what happens but i'm not hopeful. on the cuts i made there was almost no milky sap and usually benjamina's have a bit of milky sap i think.

anyhow, i was wondering if someone knows plant biology and what happens to a ficus when it gets very old. can cuttings spring back to life or has the whole tree just got too old DNA by this point?

BTW, i'm taking branch cuttings about 2-3" diameter, about 2-3m back from the outer periphery of the tree with a few leaves on ends of the smaller branches.

there are some bigger branches closer to the core with aerial roots that i'm pretty sure i can get to grow, but i don't know if they would sprout new buds. i guess its worth a try.



thanks

 

[StoneArcher]

How did the collection go?

I would love to see some pictures!

Best of luck. Please keep us posted!

 

[thailand-steve]

so far, everything i have collected is holding on to its leaves. i will post pics in a few weeks assuming i start to see some new growth.

i am pretty confident they will make it. most of the cutting did have a lot of latex running out and some have aerial roots which will definitely kick start the rooting process.

here's a pic of the whole tree from google street view


my plan is to get the cuttings nice and strong then graft bits together to make a 'designer tree' out of it.