Hybridizers: It can be fun to breed your own zinnias - Part 3, 1 by Zen_Man

Zen_Man wrote:
EM,

"You could probably root cuttings of some of the unusual zinnia plants and sell them online. People like unusual plants."

I may change my mind at some time in the future, but for the time being this is just a hobby for me, strictly for fun and not for profit. And, at the moment, I have no idea how I would ship zinnia plants with reasonable assurance that they would arrive in good shape.

"I know zinnias are annuals, but I can't tell you how many women I've seen in Lowes or Home Depot with their shopping cart full of potted zinnias. I always think to myself that they could have bought seeds, especially since the ones they are buying are just plain seed strains."

I've seen that, too. There are probably several reasons for that, some having to do with simple convenience. Some people may have tried growing from seed, and had a discouraging failure. When I was a kid, our teachers drilled into us, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Maybe some people have had a discouraging failure with seeds, and rely on the commercial plants to avoid a possible repeat failure.

Even though zinnias are annuals, I have had some success taking cuttings from cutting plants. I had those second generation cutting plants growing nicely in the Winter of 2007/2008, with good prospects for taking a third generation of cuttings, when my entire indoor zinnia operation was wiped out by a thrips epidemic. I barely knew what a thrips was, much less that they could hurt my zinnias. My zinnias were all essentially dead before I discovered what the problem was, using a low powered microscope. Compared to a thrips, an aphid is huge. Now I know how to deal with indoor thrips and aphid problems, as well as mildew problems. I still wonder how far repeating the cuttings process could extend the life of a particular zinnia.

"I have found with my plants that when I try to root stem cuttings it's best to make a slit in the end of the stem before dipping in the rooting gel or solution. This really seems to help. You should try it on some of your zinnia cuttings."

That sounds like a good idea. I will try it on my next cuttings. If the solutions you have been using already contain both IBA and NAA, the Dip 'n Grow may offer only a minor convenience. The mist propagators may tend to wash the rooting hormone off of the cutting. The root-in-place method that I use keeps the hormones in place on or near the surface of the cutting, with only slow diffusion contributing to any migration of the hormones. I already do some "preprocessing" on a cutting, as this picture shows.

ZM