We always use Dig-N-Grow. It's a liquid concentrate and works well.

I've been using the powder but I heard there's a gel. That makes more sense to me because it would coat the thing better. The brand name I can't recall but no, the brand name doesn't matter at all.

Thanks for the input, guys.

I've heard the gel actually is kind of persnickety to use. I'll probably stick with the Hormex because I know where I can get it and it's "familiar". I may or may not get around to trying to make some cuttings here soon, kinda have my hands full. I'm now up to 20 curry leaf plant seedlings. Must nurture them!

Thanks again for helping.

I use Clonex, which would put roots on a nail.

I immediately had visions of dipping decking screws in Clonex to improve their holding ability next time I try to build a raised bed, LOL!

I agree with David I use clonex with a high success rate. Rooting gel stays on the cutting.

I use Clonex too.

Regarding when to take cuttings, I take them when the plant is in flower.

don't waste your money on chemical rooting hormones. ur just paying for the name. use HONEY. its an all natural rooting hormone for plants. and if you need a fungicide, don't use the chemical over the counter ones. just use raw CINNAMON

Rhizopon is manufacturer of growth regulators for the rooting of cuttings. This is the only activity of the company. Rhizopon holds a unique position worldwide as the manufacturer only producing root promoting products. http://www.rhizopon.com/en/over-rhizopon

Well if a rooting gel actually worked it would be a great invention. Honey=ants IMO. I'm trying a homemade formula made from curly Willow branches. Not sure yet if it'll work. If only I could turn it into a gel somehow.

Cinnamon would work because it is antiseptic, so does honey. Willow actually does contain a hormone.

I wonder weather there are any differences in the commercial rooting hormones. The local hardware store sells four different brands one is three dollars the other ten. On the package there is always the same compound. I bought the cheapest one.

Yes, Honey is just plant hormones in the basic sense, but it also supports molds, bacteria, and fungus to grow, not all which are the beneficial types.

Yes, Rhizopon is a expensive product, not really geared to the home-owner or hobby grower. But if you want phenominal results you might want to give it a try, especially any very hard to root cuttings. Also you can root easily cuttings in the range of 1/4" to 3/8" caliper or even a branched cutting with 4-5 nodes. Makes for a fuller stocked plant.

I used honey to try to root some mollis azalea cuttings one year, but I noticed that the stems didn't seem to think much of it. Even before I poked them into the pot, they had become a little dark and odd-looking. I held little hope for them. Sadly, they failed.

BUT I am a strong believer in honey for treating wounds in animals or people. Great stuff.

And how is it with willow? I pay $3 for the hormone, so I cannot really be bothered with the willow, however I am not so sure weather the handling of hormones is so good for your health.

Good point, and one that I often used to tell people. We should be wearing gloves. As for the powder form, it may be worse because we can breath it in. Even talc is bad - due to its fineness of particle size - so with hormone added it seems to me that it is best avoided.

Regarding willow, I only recently learned (from this site) that it can help with rooting. Probably worth a try and maybe I will one day.

As I plan to do a lot of cuttings, and you might then be regularly in contact with that stuff, hormone is maybe best to be avoided. Neighbours have heritage willows which council cannot remove I think of trying this out. Who tried cinnamon?

The best rooting hormone that I have found is Dip-N-Grow. Most commercial growers use it. I have tried the powder which works but you can only apply it to one cutting at a time. With Dip-N-Grow, I can take 20+ cuttings at a time and dip them in the solution and then stick them. It is very time saving when you are processing hundreds of cuttings at one time. I have tried Clonex but I find that it dilutes from the moister from the cuttings and again you can only process one cutting at a time. If anyone else has different experiences with these products pleas let me know.

Hans

Muscadines And More LLC

does any one know how to use honey for rooting cuttings?

Don't over complicate things. All you do is dip you cuttings, one by one in the honey and push it in your propagation media. A lot of back yard gardeners use it, but there is no proof that it works. I processed 2-3 hundred Muscadine cuttings today and dipped 20-30 cuttings in my dip-N-grow solution at a time. A lot better than dipping one at a time and it works!!!!

will any honey do or must it be raw honey. do you dilute the honey ( I read that recently)?

I use dip-N-Grow were I can dip 20-30 cuttings at a time and worry about rubbing off the hormone when I stick the cuttings.

I guess it depends on where you live. I worked at a plant nursery in central Florida and my elderly boss thought root tone was useless. The common saying there was "Stick it in the in the ground and jump back", because they grew so easily there. We had a great success rate sticking cuttings in pots or the ground without ever using a root hormone.

That is Florida for you, I had a friend give me a stick of Frangipani and he told me just stick it in the ground, (South West Florida) well it worked! And grew quickly in to a bush.

I found out years later that rooting hormone doesn't promote roots. It just prevents fungus.

'The "hormones" in rooting powders are plant hormones, they are not people hormones.'

Yes, of course they are plant hormones. But it is best to be careful when using it. If powder, try not to breath the dust. If liquid, try not to splash it on you. And if gel, which is a little more user-friendly because it does not so easily spill or puff around in the air, try not to get it on your skin. It's easy to get sloppy and we all do it, but we should know that it is something that is best to be careful with, and yes, we should wear gloves.

I used honey for a variety of things at one stage, just to give it a go because I had heard that it could work. Apart from the mollis azaleas hating the stuff, I never formed any other opinion on it.

Sans, you could try the following (to make willow water):

Collect a handful of willow twigs (the greenest, newest twigs - the tips of the willow) and cut them into 1" pieces.

Put them into a glass jar and pour boiling water onto them.

Allow the liquid to brew for 24 hours.

As to how long to dip the cuttings, I don't know, but maybe leave them in while you are preparing all the cuttings. (?) That's what I might do, if they don't all fall over.

It would be important to treat the cut end of the cutting as soon as possible after making that cut. I have heard that that is when the action takes place - as soon as the rooting hormone comes into contact with the freshly-cut stem.

Good luck. We can compare notes.

Also, it is best to collect the bits of willow in Spring, when bouncing off the tree (so to speak). But I will collect mine today. It's early Autumn here.

zzackey, can you explain more about rooting hormone preventing fungus? And where you heard this?

I tried making willow water the day that I posted the above.

A dismal failure as some mould started growing on the surface of the brew after some days. Maybe I should have refrigerated it. And maybe I should have even boiled it a bit to destroy various pathogens on the willow twigs.

I added it to the compost.

Has anyone else tried this and had better results? I do plan to have at least one more go.

This might help:

Peroxide Mixture

Hydrogen
peroxide comes in different strengths, but the 3-percent solution commonly sold
at drug stores is the most suitable choice for perlite sterilization. Dilute
the peroxide further by mixing 1
tablespoon per quart of water; otherwise, the solution
is too strong and may damage or kill any plants grown in the perlite. Mix up a
fresh batch of solution each time you need it or keep extra solution in a
sealed, labeled container so evaporation doesn't alter the dilution of the peroxide.

Application Method

Watering
the perlite or perlite and soil mixture with the peroxide solution before you
plant usually provides sufficient sterilization to prevent fungal and disease
problems. If fungal growth is an ongoing problem after planting, you can
continue to water once every week or two with the diluted peroxide. If fungal
growth appears immediately after you sow seeds, fill a spray bottle with the
solution and mist the soil surface before the seeds germinate. This destroys
any fungal spores introduced during sowing.

Bleach and Peroxide

Bleach
is the main alternative to peroxide sterilization, but it is only suitable for
pure perlite and not for sterilizing perlite that is already combined with soil
or other amendments. You can soak the perlite in a solution of 1 part bleach to
9 parts water for 20 minutes and then rinse it before use. The bleach doesn't
control any spores that settle on the perlite after planting, so you may still
need to water with a peroxide mixture or mist the soil surface after seeding.
Although peroxide won't harm plants, bleach will, so it's necessary to use only
peroxide mixtures to fight fungus in perlite after planting.

To sterilize with H2O2, you can use the same 5 gallon
bucket that was used to clean the media. Fill it with 4 gallons of water, then
add 2 cups (16 oz) of the common drug store variety hydrogen peroxide, this is typically a 3% solution
(check the label). For other strengths use a scaled down quantity. For example,
if using a 30% strength use only 1/10 or 1.6 oz. See the H2O2 page
for more.

The most efficient all round rooting preparation is IBA at 4,000 parts per million in 50% alcohol. The gels like clonex are ok in the short term but once opened being water based, will support the growth of bacterial 'blobs' which soon break down the active component. Also light, either sunlight or artificial light will render IBA ineffective in a very short time & is much more critical than temperature. So store your rooting preparations completely dark at room temperature & only dispense a small amount to use, also discard it after use & never return it to the main container as it will rapidly lose its effectiveness due to being contaminated. You can buy such preparations over the counter but it is much more economical & reliable to make your own & is relatively inexpensive especially if several friends share the cost. So to make it up you buy IBA ....Indole-3-butyric acid from a chemical supply house. Mix one gram in 125ml of alcohol, the denatured alcohol used in the household will do (so long as it is only ethanol & contains no methanol) & when completely dissolved add 125ml of clean pure water & you have 250ml of 4,000 ppm in 50% alcohol rooting mixture. This can be used to treat hardwood cuttings, softwood cuttings, air layers etc. There's generally no need to dilute the mixture, you just adjust the length of time you dip the cuttings depending on the 'softness' of the cutting material & the required stimulation. I have been using this mixture for almost 40 yrs & have had only excellent results. The standard test to see if your hormone mixture is working is to cut some tomato leaves.....yes just whole leaves cut near the stem, dip them for 5 seconds & plant as cuttings either in mist/fog or under a plastic bag. At the same time plant a similar number of untreated whole tomato leaves & wonder at the difference! Tomato are particularly sensitive to these rooting preparations & the leaf will be a mass of roots within a couple of weeks if your mixture is active. Of course the tomato leaf will never throw a shoot & will just remain a leaf with roots though sometimes they will live for months & thicken up & show every sign of growing but without buds never can! & yes try never to get any of these materials on your skin or breathe in the vapor as they are highly bio active, easily absorbed & may affect living cells both of plants & animals. Just another point gleaned from a lifetime of plant propagation: when treating most cuttings (maybe except very soft material) plant them in moist medium & mist the leaves if they are softwood cuttings but don't water in until the following day. If you water in the freshly treated cuttings immediately you will be diluting the hormone on the stems & reducing its effectiveness. With hardwood cuttings of course it isn't necessary to mist them as one day before watering in wont matter if the medium is moist.

From my studies and understanding using jels one can only dip 1 cutting at a time. I use Dip-N-Grow and dilute it to my desired dilution point and I can dip 30-50+or- cuttings at a time. The dip-N-grow does not rub off when sticking the cuttings.

I took a look at dip-n-grow's website, seems it contains IBA & NAA. I have found (over many decades) NAA almost useless & in fact mostly having a negative effect on rooting in most cases. (Mind you there are numerous references to it being effective in in-vitro use) There are products like that available here in Australia but none perform with the outstanding results attained using the formula I describe above. I did many control experiments using both chemicals & combinations of both & all these confirmed my conclusion. But having said that I guess one should use what works for us eh!

The MSDS on IBA made me choose a different method of auxin stimulation for my 2 days of propagating cuttings at an LA nursery. Early a.m. cuttings go into a bucket of water with a splash of 3% hydrogen peroxide, then the cutting I want to root gets dipped in diluted apple vinegar solution.

Chronic
Effects on Humans:

Mutagenic
for mammalian somatic cells.

Other
Toxic Effects on Humans:

Skin
Contact: May cause skin irritation.

Skin
Absorption: May be harmful if absorbed through the skin.

Eye
Contact: May cause eye irritation.

Inhalation:
May be harmful if inhaled. Material may be irritating to mucous
membranes and upper respiratory tract.

Ingestion:
May be harmful if swallowed.

http://www.bio-world.com/msds/30631011/Indole-butyric-acid-IBA.html

Please explain in more detail the use of 3% Hydrogen Peroxide solution and the use of diluted apple vinegar as a rooting hormone. What dilution of apple vinegar was used and how effective was this procedure?

The bucket I put my morning cuttings into gets about an ounce of 3% peroxide swished around for a minute or so, then I add about 2 gallons of tap water (planning to filter the chlorine out soon). I keep the cuttings shaded and as cool as possible, but not iced. The dilution of the vinegar to water I use is 1 part vinegar to 9 parts water. IAA = indole-3-acetic acid = auxin. Auxin is the hormone that controls rooting in plants. Note that vinegar is primarly acetic acid and while this is not the same as IAA or IBA, it does seem to stimulate auxin in the cutting, but I have no figures on how much. Hydrogen peroxide is a ROS (reactive oxygen species) and ROS molecules are important as auxin plus ROS controls root elongation.

IAA or IBA can be more effective and might be necessary for certain conifer cuttings or other difficult ones, but they can also inhibit root growth at high concentrations or cause adventitious roots to form. I simply don't like to have my fingers in them all day.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC116462/

Thanks for the info.