Most rooting hormone products contain anti-fungal ingredients. May help shouldn't hurt, but not necessary for rooted plants.

Rooting hormone is butyric acid ( labeled a bioactive chemical ) and as a cutting stimulate is ideal. But this acid can damage mature roots or even plants nearby. It is actually considered a hazardous material and you are cautioned not to place it near water supplies. Might just me a "don't sue us if your child gets sick on it' warning but I wouldn't use it on a mature plant. Alfalfa meal is what many gardeners use to help the roots mature. Alfalfa has a hormone that stimulates growth.

Sure it is. Many millions of plants were propagated from cuttings before rooting hormones came into existence. The three keys to success are: proper timing in taking the cuttings, a suitable rooting medium, and a means of maintaining 100% humidity around the cuttings until rooting has taken place. Old time propagators used sand, mixtures of peat and sand, or anything else that held moisture but had lots of air space. Containers with good drainage, a glass cover- later a poly plastic one - to maintain humidity and a lifetime's experience to know when to take the cuttings.

I used the Dip 'n Grow yesterday. They recommend a weak solution for softwood cuttings such as I usually take. They advise only putting the cutting in the solution for 3 to 5 seconds. I guess the cutting must take up the hormone in that amount of time. I might call their help line and ask them about that. Since I'm thinking that soaking a cutting awhile might help, maybe an extremely diluted Dip 'n Grow solution would work for that. When people make willow water I'm sure the concentration of hormone varies a lot but I bet it's weak. The directions on Dip 'n Grow also say to throw out any unused solution after ten hours. Has anyone tested that to see if it loses effectiveness that quickly? I'm thinking maybe a little of it could be added to a gallon of water and used to water recalcitrant cuttings. I still have some old rose cuttings I took in winter or Feb. which are just sitting there. Mostly it's the old roses like gallicas, centifolias, or mosses that are hard to root. Most modern roses root easily. Some of the old ones root easily. Yesterday I scrubbed pots and chlorined them before putting sand in them and sticking cuttings. Some of my cuttings rot before they can root. That's one reason I don't do anything to add humidity...they rot more if in a plastic bag, for example. But there might be something I can do differently to combat rot. Maybe use a different medium than sand. I tried potting soil, no better. Maybe coir. There is a little rooting block thing..I forget the name of it, that might be worth a try.