Latest / Hydroponics Daily / Cuttings / clones / cuts in hydroponics - part 2

Transcript

Cuttings / clones / cuts in hydroponics - part 2 · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hi, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily. Today we're talking about cuttings again.
• 0:04
  One of the things I forgot to mention yesterday was the timing that you take
• 0:08
  the cutting, time of year, time of growth.
• 0:11
  It's very important that the plant is actively growing, however sometimes for
• 0:16
  certain plants you don't need to be too weak and too new the tissues.
• 0:20
  So do some research on the time of year to take the cuttings and there's things
• 0:24
  like hardwood cuttings as well for perennial plants, woody plants,
• 0:28
  you can take them during the winter.
• 0:30
  Well, most of the time you want them to be actively growing and not dormant.
• 0:34
  You won't be able to take one with leaves on during the winter,
• 0:37
  even if it's an evergreen plant, because that auxin's not going to be travelling
• 0:40
  down the stem in the winter.
• 0:43
  And if a plant's dormant, it's not going to be producing roots.
• 0:46
  So you're just going to get rot, even if you bring them into a warm environment.
• 0:50
  So make sure the plant's actively growing. It's the right time of year.
• 0:52
  And that's one of the disadvantages of cuttings over, say, seeds.
• 0:55
  Now, the first thing I recommend when you take a cutting is to
• 0:58
  cut it with sharp scissors or secateurs
• 1:02
  or a sharp knife always if
• 1:05
  you've used them for propagation before sterilize them because the
• 1:08
  the materials you use for cutting and
• 1:11
  pruning and taking cuttings is the number
• 1:14
  one infection point for viruses so
• 1:18
  if you've got lots of different varieties of plants especially if
• 1:21
  you're growing one type of plant if you use the same secateur for all
• 1:24
  of them you can infect them all with a virus that's not
• 1:26
  good because you can't cure a virus that's it
• 1:29
  you're game over your plants are infected for life you have
• 1:32
  to throw them away so make sure you use a clean sterilizer
• 1:36
  and sterilize it with something like vinegar or some sort of sterilizing agent
• 1:39
  and clean them as well don't just sterilize them rub them
• 1:42
  or use a disposable knife cut them here
• 1:45
  in the internodal area and then
• 1:48
  take lots of cuttings and then
• 1:51
  just before you put them into the moist growing media
• 1:54
  the plug or whatever you're going to use to put them into maybe it's an aeroponic
• 1:58
  system you then cut them again just below the node not at the node just a tiny
• 2:04
  bit of vegetative material between that and what's called the node where the
• 2:08
  leaf hits the stem and then throw that bit away and then.
• 2:13
  So that's where the roots form the most. There are certain types of plants where
• 2:17
  you want the internode to be the place where you leave the cutting,
• 2:22
  but they are few and far between.
• 2:24
  Mostly it's just below that node. Then you remove that leaf,
• 2:27
  that bottom leaf, and the petiole, the stalk, the leaf stalk,
• 2:31
  but not damaging the stem.
• 2:34
  This is surgery at the highest scale.
• 2:37
  And then this leaf here, you might remove it completely, you might leave it
• 2:40
  on, or you might just cut it in half. That's another option.
• 2:43
  And you're thinking well we need the leaves for photosynthesis this plant's
• 2:46
  going to grow big and tall and some plants like tomato yeah they will they'll
• 2:50
  produce adventitious roots these are.
• 2:53
  Adventitious roots is just a fancy word for a root that forms where a
• 2:55
  root doesn't normally form and tomatoes you put them in water and they'll form
• 2:59
  cutting so you don't need to remove too many leaves but if it's a plant that's
• 3:02
  tricky and you're only going to get maybe 70 80 50 success rate you want to
• 3:08
  reduce the area that can lose water because the loss of water from this cutting
• 3:13
  is going to be what determines the success rate.
• 3:15
  Can it form enough roots before it dehydrates and dies?
• 3:19
  And so that's the issue. So you might cut that leaf in half and you might remove it altogether.
• 3:25
  You might even remove some of these leaves, these small leaves,
• 3:27
  but you want to leave the top bud because the top bud is where the auxin is
• 3:31
  traveling from, the hormone that creates rooting.
• 3:34
  And then transfer that in a nice wet plug into a very, very humid environment with at least 100%.
• 3:42
  And you can get more than 100 you can get fog and mist and you could put a fogger
• 3:47
  or a mister in there or you could just mist it once a day with a hand mister
• 3:50
  and then in a dome or some sort of tray there are loads of ways of propagating
• 3:54
  you could have a whole propagation tent.
• 3:57
  Low light levels you don't want too high light levels because again that stimulates
• 4:02
  the auxin if you have a low light level and you get too much evaporation if
• 4:06
  there's too much light not much airflow is required making sure the the medium
• 4:11
  is moist but not wet and waterlogged,
• 4:15
  and it should be good so they'll take they can
• 4:18
  take anywhere between a week and eight weeks or longer to root depending on
• 4:22
  the species and you might give them a little help with plant hormones which
• 4:28
  we'll talk about in the next episode so yeah that's the technique for taking
• 4:31
  cuttings there are different techniques and you could take smaller micro cuttings
• 4:36
  and things like this or you,
• 4:38
  yeah so that's cuttings hydroponics daily until tomorrow thank you very much.