WITCHES BROOM

Bonsai Nut

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I use Dip and Grow as a general use product for easier-to-root species. Out of the bottle it is 1.0% IBA and 0.5% NAA, and you dilute as appropriate. I have not tried it with fir cuttings, but it works well for me with Japanese maple and juniper.

Interestingly, when searching for hormone strength for fir cuttings, I found an article talking about getting fir leaves to root - ie the individual leaves versus an entire cutting. Here is a decent article about cuttings of Douglas Fir. It is interesting that they soaked their cuttings for 24 hours.
 

sdavis

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Because that material might have positive characteristics. The following image is of a witches broom on a Kotobuki Japanese black pine. The witches broom has a brighter green coloration, and the needles are softer than the source plant material, while still maintaining the tight compact growth pattern and profuse back-budding of a kotobuki. Once discovered in a nursery in Japan, this single plant was used to create the yatsubusa cultivar of Japanese black pine. Literally every yatsubusa in existence descended from this single tree's witches broom.

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Yatsubusa cultivars have been around since the early 20th century. What is the source of your statement that they all come from this broom?
 

Bonsai Nut

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Yatsubusa cultivars have been around since the early 20th century. What is the source of your statement that they all come from this broom?
I read a Japanese article on it and clipped and saved the photo because I found it so striking. The date stamp on the photo indicates that I've had it since 2011. I'll try to find the article... but ten years is a long time in the world of the Internet. Hope it is still out there.

[EDIT] I did a Google search on the image and was able to find a lot of references to it. Here is one:

Kuromatsu Kotobuki Yatsufusa "Senjumaru" Easiness Popular In Abroad

In this article, it says "Tadashi found a mutation of Kuromatsu Kotobuki whose an upper branch changed to Yatsufusa at his garden 12 years ago." Based on the date of the article, this would put the mutation around 2004.

Perhaps I am being inexact and using the term "yatsufusa" too broadly. I am specifically referring to P. thunbergerii kotobuki yatsufusa. The two trees that I have of this cultivar came from a nursery where they were both labelled, and when I talked to the nurseryman about them, I was told they came from a kotobuki witches broom... which is what caused me to look them up in the first case.[/EDIT]
 
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Peconomou

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Just to throw this in.... hillside upright norway spruce I think is a cultivar that used witches broom
 

August44

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I printed that Hormex list that tells what strength of hormone to use. #1 would be the easiest to root and there is a #16 also. It lists fir as a #8 strength. The nursery people use dip and grow also.
 

Wires_Guy_wires

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Well the time has come to go up and collect scions from the broom from the white fir. I want to send a bunch over to my friends at the nursery in the Portland, Or area for grafting, but would also like to try and shoot grow some myself. If anyone has experience with this, please kick in with any and all advice as to how I can be successful...correct way to do it and best rooting hormones etc. The lady at the nursery uses "Dip and Grow" rooting hormone. Has anyone used "raw honey" or "willow water" as a hormone for this type of thing? All help appreciated.
Raw honey is very high in sugars and various proteins that can affect growth. Both positive as well as negative.
In general, most conifers have poor rooting if they're exposed to high sugar media. But the antibacterial properties of a high sugar mixture can be beneficial for slow to root species. Since you water cuttings, the amount of sugars decreases over time and can potentially hit a sweet spot for optimal rooting.

Willow water contains salicylic acid with elusive properties I don't know about, and indole acetic acid, the more natural occuring analogue of our "synthetic" indole butyric acid (although both IBA and IAA are both produced by plants in roughly a 1:20 ratio). IAA breaks down insanely fast, with reports stating a half life of a couple hours or less.
I have read reports on the effects of willow water and they're not at all reproducable. Personally, I habe never seen the benefits of willow water affect anything other than willow cuttings.
My conclusion for willow water is that easily rooted species root easily and difficult to root species don't root any easier. It's not harmful, but not always beneficial either.
 

BrightsideB

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Not really. The question will be whether the genetic aberration is stable. If you get grafts to take, and all the grafts maintain the favorable characteristics of the broom, and you take grafts off those trees, and they remain stable... and you do that about five times, you probably have a good argument that you have discovered a stable new cultivar.

I know a nursery about an hour from my house that currently has about six different 'experiments' in the works involving material from witches' brooms brought in from the wild. They've got a special raised garden bed in the nursery where all they are doing is trying to discover new cultivars.
That sounds like a cool place!
 

Arnold

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Usually conifer cultivars are obtained by: Mutant seedlings, Witches brooms and Sport branches
 

Pitoon

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What's the difference between a witches broom and a sport branch?
Usually a witches broom is a dwarfed version with possibly different characteristics of the mother plant. A sport doesn't necessarily have to be dwarfed but has a completely different appearance from the mother plant whether that be a difference in leaf or flower in shape and/or color.
 
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Usually a witches broom is a dwarfed version with possibly different characteristics of the mother plant. A sport doesn't necessarily have to be dwarfed but has a completely different appearance from the mother plant whether that be a difference in leaf or flower in shape and/or color.
Cool, thanks.
 
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