Propagation: Making Rooting Gel, 0 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
Rhapsody,

"The clarity is not an issue!"

Your original picture seems to show a cutting rooting and growing in a gel medium. My concern is that a gel is not an appropriate rooting medium for many, perhaps most, plants. If the gel is meant just to stick some of the rooting hormone to a cutting that you dip in it and then place in a more conventional rooting medium, like Perlite or Vermiculite or sand or whatever, then the gel seems to be appropriate. In that case, the gel would be just a way of adhering a reasonable, rather small amount of the rooting hormone to the cutting stub.

When I use the powder form rooting hormones, I dip a cutting into water to get it wet, then into the powder, and some of the powder sticks to the cutting. Then I stick the cutting into a small plastic pot containing rooting medium (I use a mix of Premier ProMix BX and Perlite) and place the pot under a humidity dome that is lit with fluorescent lights. Some of the powder usually falls off in the transfer process. If all goes well, in 10 to 14 days enough roots will have formed to remove the pot from under the humidity dome and let the new plant develop on its own.

I have used several commercial rooting hormone powders, including Hormex and Rootone. The variable in this process is the rooting powder, and how much of it sticks to and stays with the original cutting. I also use the commercial liquid product called Dip-n-Gro, and it is also an issue of how much of it sticks to the cutting and remains with it. Dip-n-Gro is my current favorite rooting hormone.

"I do not care if it turn lime green so long as it works!!"

I can understand that a gel would be superior to both a powder and a liquid by having a known amount of it dependably stick to and remain with a cutting. But aside from the interesting view of the developing roots, it doesn't seem to me that a gel is an appropriate rooting medium. Think of the mess when it comes time to re-pot the cutting in a gel to a larger pot! And the issue of getting adequate oxygen to the developing roots remains.

The attached picture shows some of my zinnia cuttings that have successfully rooted. I took that picture a couple of seasons ago. The "clear" plastic pots let me observe the root development well enough to judge when the cuttings can be taken out from under the humidity dome. I think I used Dip-n-Gro on them. Incidentally, Dip-n-Gro does not keep it potency indefinitely. It can lose its potency after a year or two. This coming Fall I will start with a fresh bottle of Dip-n-Gro and take some cuttings to rescue a few choice "breeder" zinnias from the killing frost. That will let me experiment with them over the Winter. (I have some hand-hybridized zinnias growing indoors under lights right now.)

I am interested in alternative rooting methods, because I learned about the loss of potency of the Dip-n-Gro the hard way, with several trays of cuttings that didn't "take". They really should print an expiration date on the package, and insure that their dealers store it properly. I wouldn't be adverse to making my own rooting hormone and storing it in the refrigerator.

ZM
(not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)