Dan, my husband bought me an Agritech Cloning machine for Christmas about 3 years ago. It is amazing...I use it mostly in the winter because that seems to be the most successful for me. Not 100% but very, very good rate and much quicker...easiest ones show roots in as little as 7 days. Mine has 42 mesh cups but I anchor about 3 cuttings in each neoprene collar (when placed in the cup loose, they were falling through and roots tear when you try to remove them). You have to use fungicide which is somewhat expensive. If you google for cloning machines, you'll get pictures to show what they look like. They pot up with about the same success as any other method....Faye

Faye,

Thank you for your reply and info. I had heard replies as high as 100% using the method you just described. I am sure that with some plant material that may very well be true, but I did not think roses would fall into that catagory.

I have learned a lot from this site on propagation of plants, and have had limited success propagating OGR. My main problem seems to be that my misting system over waters my cuttings, and many times I have rooted cuttings that actually die. My mister valve(s) are battery pack jobs that have a misting cycle on them. I have just recently been researching the effects of to much moisture on rooting media, and what problems this presents to the cuttings. From what I have found on this subject on the net, I beleive I am over watering and this must be:

1. Cutting off the oxygen supply to the new roots

2. Leaching off nutrients needed by cuttings

3. Altering media PH

4. Encouraging diseases that kill the cutting.

All these possibilities are new to me! If any of these reason are true, I am not sure how to fix them. Maybe some one on the list has had similar problems, and has come up with a solution and would not mind sharing.

I am considering possibly trying some type of cloning set up as an alternative to mist propagation. It would seem from what you stated that there are issues with the cloning set up that one would need to know about and how to deal with. Your info was helpful.

Dan

I am glad you found the info somewhat useful. I have propagated OGRs by baggie, mist-propagation, and cloner. Overwatering is conducive to fungus, so it is a major problem. Sand-soil in the baggie method has to be very slightly moist when placed, left undistrubed til roots show through drainage holes and then bag must be opened slightly each day til the cuttings are "hardened off". Many people use the Arizona mist heads for mist propagation, starting it in morning until dusk. Many say they have them in the sun although I would think filtered light would be best. The propagation machine, or cloner, comes with fungicide and a nutrient solution and good directions. Only addition needed is a flourescent light placed overhead very close to the top of the cuttings. Good luck on whatever method you choose. Keep in mind some roses root very easily and in within 2 weeks while others take 6 weeks or more.

Dan, what rooting medium are you using with your mist propagation system?

I've gone through several, some good, some not so good, but the consistently highest success rates I've gotten with my misting system have been with pine bark fines. Success or failure in rose propagation generally comes down to a competition between the rooting process and the rotting process, and my cuttings almost never rot in pine bark. At least not from the root zone up. That means a difficult, slow rooting cultivar that needs a month to root - or two months, or five months - has fighting odds of staying alive long enough to do it. If they don't don't make it they die from the top down because they've worn themselves out, not from the bottom up because of rot.

Usually I use pure pine bark soil conditioner, but I'll occasionally pick up a bag of pine bark based landscaping mix if soil conditioner isn't in stock. That's essentially the same thing with small amounts of perlite, peat moss, sand, or whatever mixed in and a higher price tag. So long as it's mostly pine bark I can expect good results. Whether the fines are partially composted or not composted doesn't seem to matter a whole lot until a rooted cutting is removed from the mist, when a medium that is too fresh tends to dry out too quickly. And ideally, you want a product that is fiberous enough to kind of lock in place around the baby roots. Otherwise it will be difficult to pot up your rooted cutting without the root ball falling apart.

Faye,

I look forward to trying my hand at cloning. I have read info supplied by folks like you, and plan to try my hand at it soon. My first attempts will be with a set up a bit more modest than yours, but the principals should still be the same. Thanks for all the info.

Rosyone,

First of all I am a hobby grower of the OGR. I am trying to learn to successfully propagate these wonderful old plants.

I am currently using a Fafnir product that is equivalent to one of their commercial soil less medias. At least that is what their customer service folks stated when I emailed them. It was the media one of the local nurseries use in their potting program, and felt it was a good fit for rooting cuttings. But I have used other types of media as well, and still have the same problems. I am currently starting to use coir (sp) to see if my results are any higher. I have found that with the setup I am using now, that the type of media has little effect on the percentage of cuttings I successfully have rooted.

In one book I found, Mist Propagation and Automatic Watering by HJ Welch, the author suggests that misting was envisioned only for moisture for the leaves. Not as a moisture supply for the media. I donÂt know how you can separate wetting one and not the other.

I have used pine bark mixed with humus, but stopped after reading reports on the web of problems with diseases due to the pine bark and it causing problems with newly rooted plants. I will look again into your suggestion of using similar media as you suggested in your post.

Dan

Dan,

I am also a hobby grower of the OGR. Mostly OGRs, anyway.

I'm not familiar with Fafnir. I don't think that brand is available in my area, but I have tried several other commercial soilless potting mixes under mist and they all promoted rot by retaining too much moisture. I guess that shouldn't be too surprising for products formulated to retain moisture for potted plants that aren't watered several times an hour. I've used fertilizer free commercial mixes to root leafless dormant cuttings without mist and found them to be much better suited to that method.

For use under mist it helped a lot to layer the soilless mixes over 3/4 of an inch or so of perlite at the bottom of the container (not mixed in). That insured a high oxygen environment at the root zone and actually worked about as well as anything I've ever tried, but was a major pain in the bohuncus to set up. I did it that way for most of a season while I searched for something that would give me consistently high success rates without so much fiddling.

I experimented with coir for a while and found it to be comparable to pine bark fines in terms of reliability and ease of use. Both are very good. What tipped the balance in favor of the pine bark was the fact that it's readily available locally and dirt cheap, thanks to the tree farming activities in this region of the country. Coir is an exotic commodity in small town north Louisiana. It would definitely be my second choice, though.

I have used pine bark mixed with humus, but stopped after reading reports on the web of problems with diseases due to the pine bark and it causing problems with newly rooted plants.

Because of the acids and other toxic metabolites that may be produced during decomposition under anaerobic conditions? I worried about that with the use of pre-composted fines, but haven't encountered any problems. Still, I discard anything that doesn't look or smell right to me.

Or if that isn't what you meant, I'd be very interested in reading any references you have. A quick Google search didn't turn up any potential problems other than the one I was already familiar with.

Question for txtearose ...

You obviously already have an Ameritech Cloner. I don't know whether you have the Daisy-8, the Power Clone-45, 70 or 165 ... but, I am curious to know ...

Are these things stand alone, except for electricity to run the pumps or do they need a garden hose or PCV pipe attached to supply water and/or drainage? Is there any add-on possibility to monitor pH levels, timing of water jets or misting, etc.?

Rosyone,

Inn an earlier post you wrote;

"Usually I use pure pine bark soil conditioner, but I'll occasionally pick up a bag of pine bark based landscaping mix if soil conditioner isn't in stock."

Where do you find these products?

Dan

Dan, I can usually find soil conditioner in the garden centers at Lowes, Walmart, or Home Depot. Or if I have any actual soil conditioning to do and need enough to meet the 10 bag minimum, I buy it wholesale directly from a local soil products production company. The landscaping mix is a more up-scale product and generally comes from one of the nurseries. Best to ask for "soil conditioner" or "landscaping mix" rather than "pine bark fines." Once they've pointed out some bags you can get down to the details of what's in them.

rosyone,

Thanks for clearing that up! I am going to check it out today and see what is avalable in our area.

As you have played with different medias, has the PH level of the medial/water been a concern to you? I have read claims and seen data online where to high or to low a PH can have an affect on the number of cuttings that will root.

For any one that is interested, I am posting a site below that may have been posted on a different forum in the past. I just saw it recently when some one emailed it to me. I am considering building this cloner at some time in the future. I have never had anywhere close to 100% results with mist propagation of rose cuttings, so the claims of claim of higher % of rooted cuttings sure keyed my interest. See what you think!

Dan

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/homemade-aeroponics.html

Bearstate...my cloner is an aeroponic clone 42 (has 42 baskets but I put multiple cuttings in). I only use it in the fall, Oct til March. It is stand-alone exept you need flourescent light very close to the top of cuttings and you use fungicide (a must) and rooting stimulus (optional in my opinion). You put water in the box and then just add as evaporation occurs. You can see a picture and get good directions at www.growlightsource.com Faye

Good Price! That's better than the Ameritech 45 and likely does the same thing.

I've read that Aeroponics can be used not just for cuttings, but for seeds too. Do you use yours only for Roses, the topic of this thread - or have you rooted other cutting besides that with your sytem?

I have used mine mostly for roses but had a couple of baskets left over this winter and put in a bouganvilla, which rooted, and a few others, I think a shrimp plant. I do really like the machine...I just keep it in the garage.

Dan, all I can tell you is that the water here is alkaline and extremely soft, and totally incompatible with the use of inorganic rooting media. Cuttings started in pure coarse sand, vermiculite, or perlite (or some mix there of) can't hold their color. Some very fast rooting varieties may survive long enough to send out a root or two, but most cuttings become increasingly chlorotic over a week or two and then rot from the top down. Slime develops on the leaves, which is something I've never seen with any organic rooting medium. I've never had any sort of problem with organic media that I could attribute to the water quality. Water quantity, yes, but not quality.

I can't root cuttings from herbaceous plants in jars of this water either, and that's something I learned how to do when I was five years old and never found to be difficult before we moved here. These days I'm able to reliably root easy plants such as Swedish ivy or coleus only in potting mix or garden soil. I knew all of that before I ever thought about setting up a misting system, so why I failed to make the connection and wasted so much time trying to use sand under mist, I don't know. Sand and glass are the same thing so far as the water and the cuttings are concerned. But sand is a popular rooting medium for armature rose propagators and the alternatives I was aware of at the time weren't working either.

Rosyone,

Thanks for confirming what I had only read in books and on the web.

I can't root anything in water here. I have read that PH can play a major factor in your success in rooting cuttings. Soil/water to acid, you deprive the plant of certain nutrients. To alkaline, you deprive the plant of other nutrients. In either case it is not good for the cuttings.

We have a company that sells agricultural and forestry suplies in this area, and they sell PH test strips/kits. I plan to purchase one and experiment further.

My intrest in hydroponic rooting of roses is a genuine intrest. With the problems I suspect I have with issues such as possibly PH, I feel that I would not be successful. Once I figure out if I have a PH issue with my water, I would like to experiment with hydroponic rooting of roses.

Your experiences shared help me feel confident I may be on the right road to solving my issues. I am a novice at all this. Thanks for you thoughtful posts.

Dan

i would suspect that roses would do well in coco coir as a medium, but i wouldnt sugest NFT or aero ( unless you really want a challenge). autopots would work or bio buckets would be a really neat project ( recirculating deep water culture.) it would be like taking care of a fish tank. GL

im not too familiar with roses but can someone tell me if this is unusual. salmon in colour 9" stem very thorny so thorny in fact one can hardly see the stem. fragrance is extremely strong. so strong in fact fragrance fills the entire yard for three days. only on flower did all this. please respond