What would you say to someone asking about rooting cuttings from a pine

leatherback

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juniper cuttings that have stayed green for nearly 2 years
Yeah, I normally tosse them out after a year; The second winter is usually the end of them if they have not rooted.
For me it is more to know when I should be giving up on my pine cuttings. Still halfway green, lokoing sickly by now though :)
 

Trenthany

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Well damn... I got a nursery juniper and stuck a bunch of cuttings and one might have struck, but its been less than a year. I think I'm just going to let it keep doing it's thing as long as it stays green. same with cypress cuttings although I have gotten cypress cuttings years ago before I really paid attention to learning how or why so I cant tell you what I did lol. I'm trying my version of fall (late summer for some of you northern types) cuttings off of some shaggy cypress just to see if they do better than spring and if i get free trees then yay! I find propagation so satisfying and as i get better I spend less on trees. I definitely need to post a thread tagging all of you guys with my questions!
 

leatherback

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but its been less than a year
I normally get juniper roots within half a year too. My interpretation so far: Cuttings from fall, root in early spring. Cuttings from spring, root before winter. Summer cuttings don't know what to do, and mostly wait till spring.
 

Bonsai Nut

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I understand why you would want to use cuttings if you want a clone of interesting parent material, or can't locate seeds, but we're talking about a process that yields results much less quickly than growing from seed with a lower success rate(?)

With many deciduous, cuttings will gain you a year or more on the propagation timeline. I'm not arguing for or against, I am simply pointing out the obvious - and the main reason why conifers are almost exclusively propagated via grafting.
 

Trenthany

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I understand why you would want to use cuttings if you want a clone of interesting parent material, or can't locate seeds, but we're talking about a process that yields results much less quickly than growing from seed with a lower success rate(?)

With many deciduous, cuttings will gain you a year or more on the propagation timeline. I'm not arguing for or against, I am simply pointing out the obvious - and the main reason why conifers are almost exclusively propagated via grafting.
They use a well grown out fast growing root stock and graft in branches or small trunks of the desired foliage I’m assuming? Trunk would be from the base stock?
 

Shibui

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Yeah, I normally tosse them out after a year; The second winter is usually the end of them if they have not rooted.
For me it is more to know when I should be giving up on my pine cuttings. Still halfway green, lokoing sickly by now though
My experience also. I leave them while they still look healthy but after they look sick there is little hope.

I understand why you would want to use cuttings if you want a clone of interesting parent material, or can't locate seeds, but we're talking about a process that yields results much less quickly than growing from seed with a lower success rate(?)

With many deciduous, cuttings will gain you a year or more on the propagation timeline. I'm not arguing for or against, I am simply pointing out the obvious - and the main reason why conifers are almost exclusively propagated via grafting.
Seedlings are definitely a faster and better option but our government has declared all pine material prohibited because there are some pests that we don't already have that can travel on seed. That has made pine seed really hard to get down here meaning grafting or cuttings are alternatives. You are already aware that bonsai growers now have an unreasonable fear of anything grafted so any grafted pines are hard to sell no matter how good the grafts are.
Some of my cuttings can grow reasonably quick and compete with seedlings after a couple of years.

I have now planted a couple of JBP, some JRP and a JWP as future seed sources. I actually harvested around 100 JBP seed last summer but cutting technology is still worth pursuing if only to propagate selected clones of any of our bonsai pines instead of relying on grafting.
My experience is that most deciduous from cuttings are not much quicker than seedlings. There are a few species that will strike from larger cuttings that may save some time but not all. Many conifers are also very slow from seed. Does anyone grow junipers from seed in preference to cuttings? Cuttings are way faster for many conifers.

They use a well grown out fast growing root stock and graft in branches or small trunks of the desired foliage I’m assuming? Trunk would be from the base stock?
Conifer grafting has not yet evolved to the stage of having selected root stocks. JBP cultivars are grafted onto seedling JBP. White pine is also grafted onto JBP seedlings. Grafts can be made at any position on the stock. For bonsai purposes really low grafts are favored so the root stock really only forms the roots and maybe very base of the future trunk. Most of the root stock and the graft union is hidden in the transition from roots to trunk and the main part of the trunk is from the graft.
Junipers are commonly 'top worked' where grafts are inserted higher on the trunk or on the branches to preserve an advanced juniper trunk. In that case the trunk is from the original tree while branches and foliage is from the grafted variety.
There are some fast growing juniper species that can be used to develop trunks relatively quick then grafted to a better species for improved foliage. The grafts also tend to grow quicker when grafted onto such a stock so development of branches is also faster than the same juniper growing on its own roots.
 

MaciekA

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I have rooted JBP from cutting, exactly 1 cutting struck, but I only tried one cuttings haha. 100% success rate. If I knew that it would get me the kind of bragging rights it has I would've done a few more. I used honey as a rooting stimulant and kept it in an aquarium greenhouse over the winter until it rooted. There's photo evidence of it somewhere on this forum from a few years ago. There was a memeber on here .. very briefly, who turned me onto using raw honey as a rooting hormone. This memeber claimed not only to grow JBP from cutting but also to grow them succesfully in Maine. I can't rmeember their name, it was years ago. Don't rmeember if they ever offered photographic evidence of their success, but considering the advice worked. I have no reason to doubt it

Your comment sent me looking for data, and I found a relatively recent study on honey as a rooting substance from the University of Hawaii:


Results:

Honey seems to help, at least in the species that they tried. The mechanism isn't well-understood yet, and they suggest some ideas for future experiments (with regards to dilution, etc). One thing that caught my eye is their discussion of the idea that honey may help prevent cuttings from rotting, something that in my experience is difficult to manage when keeping them in a high-humidity environment (mist house, etc).
 

PA_Penjing

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Your comment sent me looking for data, and I found a relatively recent study on honey as a rooting substance from the University of Hawaii:


Results:

Honey seems to help, at least in the species that they tried. The mechanism isn't well-understood yet, and they suggest some ideas for future experiments (with regards to dilution, etc). One thing that caught my eye is their discussion of the idea that honey may help prevent cuttings from rotting, something that in my experience is difficult to manage when keeping them in a high-humidity environment (mist house, etc).
Yes, I was originally told that honey stops fungus from growing and something or other about a low dose of hormones. Makes sense enough I guess if you consider that honey is made of plant hormones and basically doesn't go bad
 

cmeg1

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Anything later then seedling cuttings like when they get the succulent leader...just major calusing for me.
 

Shibui

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Do you know whether it was last year, or longer ago?
I found a dated tag in another pot of current pine cuttings which was also taken from juvenile regrowth after hard pruning. I know I have already potted up some rooted cuttings from this pot and pretty sure they would have been taken at the same time. Date says Dec 30 so that's just after summer solstice down here..
Not sure if the time of year is a big factor. I have had juvenile shoots root quite readily whenever I have put them in. Once again, juvenile shoots are very different from mature wood.
 

MaciekA

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Anything later then seedling cuttings like when they get the succulent leader...just major calusing for me.

Did you ever attempt to cut open the callus and reapply hormone at the wound site?
 

cmeg1

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Did you ever attempt to cut open the callus and reapply hormone at the wound site?
Yes,I did something ....I think mine were re-cuts that callused incredibly,but zero rooting.
Seedling cuttings 100 % though these days
 

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Leo in N E Illinois

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@Shibui and or anyone else, does anyone have a protocol for propagating pines, any species of pine from meristematic tissue culture?

Imagine being able to tissue culture batches of a named cork bark cultivar of JBP, or of one of the better cultivars of JWP. My guess one of the problems with tissue culture of pines would be the production of phenols.

Anyone have a protocol?
 

Shibui

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@Shibui and or anyone else, does anyone have a protocol for propagating pines, any species of pine from meristematic tissue culture?
Conditions here are more agricultural (rough) so i don't have any access to facilities for tissue culture.
I did send some small JRP and JBP to guys from one of the Sydney universities who were intending to tissue culture to get enough plants to do Micorrhiza trials and work toward commercial release of superior strains but I never heard back from them.
 

terryb

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Anything later then seedling cuttings like when they get the succulent leader...just major calusing for me.
As @Shibui mentioned, seed is hard to come by down here. Rather than just tossing a couple shoots I thinned from the first whorl of two 1.5 year old JBP last year, figured I'd try them as cuttings. Cuttings were taken just before the summer solstice, dipped in rooting gel and into perlite:coir. 50% strike rate so I'll thin a couple more this year and try again. Juvenile tissue is probably the key.
 
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