Rooting Hormone

Greetings. I wonder if rooting hormone looses potency with age? I have some that it quite old but has been well protected in a tightly sealed opaque plastic container for a long time (i think it must be about 10 years old). I live in Mexico and rooting hormone is not available to me so i can't go out and buy more.

I did read on the internet that honey can be used to replace rooting hormone and i have tried that. Hard to tell if it worked for me or not because i am a novice propagator and in the process of learning the various methods. Thank you, Beverly

I heard it does lose potency and especially affected by changing temperature

Thank you so much flow...i suspected this might be the case.

When I was younger, an elderly gentleman(who was botanist) taught one of his tips for rooting plants.
He would grind up willow limb, twig, and leaves. Slow boil them, to get the sap out. It is one of the first root tones.
Sometimes, He just soaked the cutting in it for a day. And water some hard to root cuttings with it.
This seemed to work pretty good for me. When I wasn't using it, I kept it in the frig. I don't know how long it would keep.
So I only made it, When I needed it.

Hope this helps

Mad

I love to hear about these gardening solutions of yesteryear. I think the gardeners of yore were probably smarter than we are because they were not soooo inundated with products. I would like to try it, but i'm not sure we have any willow trees around here. I have read about using honey if rooting hormone is not available and have tried it a few times. Sometimes i get roots and sometimes i don't so it's hard to tell how much the honey helps but there are some master gardeners out there who use it. Thanks for this tip Mad,

I've never tried honey, but heard it works in a pinch.

Bonpland Willow grows in your area, and has the same hormone. :)

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/167218/

Mad

Willow water (salicylic acid ) Also stronger concentration is Aspirin(salicylic acid ) I am looking over a an aged bottle of and Take Root) Indole -3 -Butric acid (0.1%) Those are amino acids Available as vitamins . Willow water ,IF I remember correctly is an Ancient source of indole ..
Not any of these concentrations have to be potent , only viable ..
Every so often I get the combination correctly , only the aspirin does not do well for me so far (seems to strong)
However I was using the Butric acid from a vitamin with something (likely willow water) and it worked rather well .

I am not giving advice here only hope to add to the thought your having looking for an answer
Ancient oil and boiling and powder making (old as the Bible) is interesting and a long learned art ...

juhur7

It is interesting, But these days, I just go and buy the root tone :)

Mad

Truth is usually myself also : You might take a look as to why ... Here if I get the link correct;

http://www.youtube.com/user/CrewOf2Dubadu

Thank you Mad and Juhur...what a lot of nifty information. I will research the Bonpland Willow. If it is here it's probably by the river. There is a product available here not exactly like root hormone but i've always been a little bit suspicious of the ingredients. Now i can check the ingredients with the info you've provided here and that should give me a good idea whether or not it is okay to use.

I was reading where Milk (animal fatty acids) excites the Butyric acid (sorry for misspelling that earlier) Maybe that is were the old Milk & Honey phrases came from
I might try a few grains of powder of GABA with a little Milk &Honey next time I have extra or a lot of cuttings of something .
(With the indole source ) ( or the Milk and Honey with willow water) Couple combinations to play with .. lol
Sounds a little difficult when we are talking 0.1% through maybe 4 or 5 % combinations ,, easy to use to much ..
This did spark up some interest though ,, as to say with me too !! lol Things do get that way ...

Yes I am getting carried away aren't I lol

“Willow Water” – How it Works
“Willow Water” is a homebrew plant rooting hormone that is easily made and can be used to increase the strike rate (growth of roots) of cuttings that you’re trying to propagate.

The way that it works can be attributed to two substances that can be found within the Salix (Willow) species, namely, indolebutyric acid (IBA) and Salicylic acid (SA).

Indolebutyric acid (IBA) is a plant hormone that stimulates root growth. It is present in high concentrations in the growing tips of willow branches. By using the actively growing parts of a willow branch, cutting them, and soaking them in water, you can get significant quantities of IBA to leach out into the water.

Salicylic acid (SA) (which is a chemical similar to the headache medicine Aspirin) is a plant hormone which is involved in signalling a plant’s defences, it is involved in the process of “systemic acquired resistance” (SAR) – where an attack on one part of the plant induces a resistance response to pathogens (triggers the plant’s internal defences) in other parts of the plant. It can also trigger a defence response in nearby plants by converting the salicylic acid into a volatile chemical form.

When you make willow water, both salicylic acid and IBA leach into the water, and both have a beneficial effect when used for the propagation of cuttings. One of the biggest threats to newly propagated cuttings is infection by bacteria and fungi. Salicylic acid helps plants to fight off infection, and can thus give cuttings a better chance of survival. Plants, when attacked by infectious agents, often do not produce salicylic acid quickly enough to defend themselves, so providing the acid in water can be particularly beneficial.


Willow water can be made from cuttings of any tree or shrub of the willow family, a group of plants with the scientific name of Salix. The more cuttings that are used and the longer they are soaked in water, the stronger will be the resulting willow water. Recommendations for the exact method of soaking vary. Cold water can be used, and soaking times of four or more weeks are often quoted. Other gardeners use boiling water to steep the willow twigs and soak the mixture for around 24 hours.





How to Make “Willow Water”
Here is the procedure for making willow water:

Collect young first-year twigs and stems of any of willow (Salix spp.) species, these have green or yellow bark. Don’t use the older growth that has brown or gray bark.
Remove all the leaves, these are not used. Don’t waste good green material though, compost the leaves or throw them in the garden as mulch.
Take the twigs and cut them up into short pieces around 1" (2.5cm) long.
The next step is to add the water. there are several techniques to extract the natural plant rooting hormones:
a) Place the chopped willow twigs in a container and cover with boiling water, just like making tea, and allow the “tea” to stand overnight.

b) Place the chopped willow twigs in a container and cover with tap water (unheated), and let it soak for several days.

When finished, separate the liquid from the twigs by carefully pouring out the liquid, or pouring it through a strainer or sieve. The liquid is now ready to use for rooting cuttings. You can keep the liquid for up to two months if you put it in a jar with a tight fitting lid and keep the liquid in the refrigerator. Remember to label the jar so you remember what it is, and write down the date you brewed it up, and to aid the memory, write down the date that it should be used by, which is two months from the date it was made!
To use, just pour some willow water into a small jar, and place the cuttings in there like flowers in a vase, and leave them there to soak overnight for several hours so that they take up the plant rooting hormone. Then prepare them as you would when propagating any other cuttings.
The second way to use willow water is to use it to water the propagating medium in which you have placed cuttings. Watering your cuttings twice with willow water should be enough to help them root.





In Summary
As you can see, this is a garden potion that is really easy to brew up, and it keeps in line with the Permaculture principles of avoiding waste and caring for the Earth – no purchased synthetic chemicals, containers, it’s all natural, and best of all, free! So, next time you’re out on a hot summer’s day enjoying the shade and natural cooling provided by a majestic willow, grab a few twigs and take them home to help you in propagating plants for your garden!

my goodness juhur...i appreciate your getting carried away :D. thank you so much. i will print out your instructions and keep them with my gardening information. now all i have to do is find a Salix which i expect i'll be able to do. you have provided me with information beyond my expectations. i love finding natural, ecofriendly ways of doing things and this is such a perfect example (and thanks Mad for mentioning it and getting juhur started on this journey.) i notice that there have been 50 views (& counting) so i expect there are many more people appreciative of this information. for me, it is not so much the cost savings (since i can't buy commercial rooting hormone anyway), but the happiness that comes from accomplishing things in the "natural" way as opposed to purchasing endless products. this has been great fun!

I have three kinds of willows , I would try and sneak you some , but with all the drug traffic everything gets x-ray eyed ,from here to there .
I believe a sandbar willow would grow where you are , Maybe a few from California can sneak you some if you have trouble getting them ...A kind of lol , That is not as funny as it is intended( in type) ...

oh no, juhur...it is hilarious...i have often thought there are all these tunnels used to move drugs out of Mexico and guns into Mexico, so why not use one of the tunnels already discovered and shut down to move plants and plant cuttings? i ask you "where is the harm in that"? i have thought of carrier pigeons, i have thought of any number of things but i am so law-abiding i make my ownself sick and would never ask anyone else to do anything illegal on my behalf. i'm pretty sure i can find Salix here and will probably have fun in the process :D

This was interesting I had left over willow water from last fall . I poured that into a bottle and added a small amount of milk Just enough to tell it was there ' I let it set two days ..
A clematis cutting that had done nothing in weeks ,, had two little leaves just barely above the soil . 6 hrs later it three sets of leaves and was just under three inches tall .. Two days after it is not much larger except the stem is huge and fat ,,It now has eight leaves ,,
Couple of show good effects but nothing like that had ,, interesting that the willow water ws only old and uncooked and obviously the milk had re-excited the rooting acid - hormones in the water .
Rotten odor when opening at first (the two days the water set ) less so , much less so, after the first set of gases escape the bottle ,,
Thank heavens ......

That is very interesting...what made you think to add milk? are you a chemist Juhur or a cook? I can hardly keep up with you. my goodness that little cutting really took off. every day is so full for me just now and i have some cuttings coming in this weekend from a neighbor who is visiting the mountain. He is supposed to bring back cuttings from senecio confusus (mexican flame vine) and also red shrimp plant and i have so many other cuttings and seeds starting, i can hardly keep track. :-D maybe i'll ask him to bring me back a willow tree while he is at it. say, that's an idea...i should grow my own! i'm sure going to look into that possibility.

Years ago I use to study something similar to chemistry ,, (atomic weights and measures of natural substance)
Reading through information was this : milk (the fats) excite the acid molecules in substances ,, Such as Butryic acid with indole , IBA I believe the abbreviate that as ,
That is the active substance and chemicals (same as commercial rooting powders ) in willow water (as you already know and we have been discussing) here .

Indole acetic acid for elongation and stems (be careful here from me with this one though) can also be used with a light milk water additive .
It was just to follow through some of this conversation ,, such as all the people showing store your (boiled and cooked )
willow water .
Mine I had only poured a tea pot of hot water (same as coffee pot) on my willow stems for making willow water.
I had left the remainder on a dry shelf all winter ,
So some of what is film viewed or shown is not necessary . sorting through the information to decide for myself .

This is to show you my cutting is real , not that good of one , only hey , only said I was gardening ,not that I was always good at it .. lol Yes it is small still only was hardly even visible to start with .. after weeks .. this all happened as said . in six hours..

Juhur said

now that's really funny...should be my motto. at the voting booth there was a question not too long ago "what is your garden's biggest problem" (or similar) and someone responded "i think i am my garden's biggest problem"...i thought that was hilarious. this should be my motto too...somehow i manage to bumble through sometimes anyway and at other times not so much. sometimes my garden takes pity on me and produces something wonderful. :-D

ought oh !! sounds like someone got us !!! us !!!! and us some more !!!

How about that for a long Me Too ^_^

This is really a stray but still has to do with propagation , I had some flowering onion and meadow rue seed I planted last month and the last week of the month ,
I tried an ice cube for temperature variation and a few short hours later today I have an onion root that grew across the top of it's starter pot 1/2 inch long , another "poof" after a wait for nothing ,
The rue sprouted , after a day , I don't know if the one plant will grow as of yet , looks a little weak to me , But with the ice cube trick , I got one !! still having a little fun with a few propagation ideas .. lol now if my blonde cucumbers would cooperate and grow like their suppose too I would be snoopy dancing !!!LOL

how facinating..i just stumbled on this thread..
good stuff..
my mom use to use willows in same way.. she..young adult during the depression (30s) really
knew how to stretch $$ and resources.. alot we can learn from those folks..
anyways..
she had her own solution..i know she "brewed" it..she also used root hormone too..
much thanks to all for bringing this memory back..
:) good stuff

I read one book that claimed that the most that rooting hormones could do would be to make a cutting root as well as it WOULD have anyway, IF it had been taken at the exact right time from a plant at the right stage of growth for easiest rooting.

Like, by duplicating the hormones the plant would have been producing IF we had created the ideal growth stage for when we were ready to make cuttings.

"Plant Propagation" by Philip McMillan Browse, 1979, with the RHS.

Of course, how often do we plan a year ahead, and heavily prune, "lift", "drop", "stool", pin down, trench, or bury a plant JUST so that, a year later, it would produce a lot of shoots at the ideal stage of rapid growth to make more cuttings?

That author seemed very proud of his ability to root most things without needing any hormones! So maybe there was some boasting going on.

Just last weekend I read that Knockout rose trimmings might root easily in a bucket of water, and I needed to prune a KO Rose. Now I have a 5 gallon bucket full of branches, and an irrigation sprayer wetting down the leaves whenever I water the beds.

This message was edited Aug 22, 2013 4:46 PM

This message was edited Aug 22, 2013 4:47 PM

RickCorey_WA KO roses will root in plain water, but need indirect light. and you don't want to wet the leaves too much. They will get black spots, and fall off. just watch for algae on the stems. It seems to work best, when I cut the bottom just below a node.

Mad

Thank you, thank you, Mad!

I recently took the "mister" away from that bucket of cut stems (mainly because I needed it back in the raised bed it waters). No visible black spot as of yesterday.

I already had it in shade, but I think I'll drag it into even deeper shade. Thanks again! Maybe I'll spritz the water or change it, to keep it oxygenated.

I should probably try to find the tag it came with, to get the exact variety, and find out whether it is a patented variety (PP?), or "asexual propagation prohibited" (PPAF? No, that means ("Propagation Prohibited Application FILED")

But I don't expect the plant police to break down my door unless I sell them or give them away or post about it on the Internet ...

Hey Rick! I hear the plant police regularly patrol davesgarden...i think you're toast! :-D

Hi Beverly! How have you been? Is Junior still strutting and showing off? I hope so!

I will start to worry about the Plant Police dragging me away in handcuffs AFTER I succeed in getting something to root instead of rot.

And one article pointed this out: there ARE NO Plant Police. For a company to enforce its plant patent, they have to find you, then get evidence without sneaking into your garden, then take you to court and sue you.

So if I do succeed, I might give away tiny Knockout rose bushes to local over-55 manufactured home parks.

And hopefully I would still have enough left over to plant in the prison yard outside my cell's window.

I've been very well, thank you Rick...and i am happy to see you are continuing your mischievous ways :) Nice to talk with you again old friend.

I am sorry to say Junior is no longer with us. That was hard for me, but you know Rudbeckia just didn't seem to fit into a tropical butterfly garden. Butterflies, bees, hummers...none of them went near that plant unless they were sneaking behind my back. Given my limited space, i had a talk with Junior and we both agreed it was time for him to go. He did have a lovely life while he was here...so pampered and spoiled. What a mile high ego. He was very fond of you.

I find myself, after searching every nook and cranny of the planet for the plants that i wanted, with a garden full of "must haves" and nothing left on the list to search for. I have everything i wanted and searched for and believe me it was a lot of work with "search gymnastics" in the wee hours that you wouldn't believe. Everything is growing beautifully and the nectar-lovers are bountiful and i am amazed and not missing all those internet search hours one bit.

So what kind of mischief have you been up to (in addition to your KO Roses caper)?

It's great to hear that you've found all your "must have" plants!

I'm glad that Junior understood that some plants just don't go with some climates.

It surprised me that butterflies, bees and hummingbirds ALL avoided the handsome stranger from out-of-town ... but I guess they are just traditionally-minded and not adventurous. Or perhaps, as you said, they sought him out when no one was there to catch them at it.

Unfortunately, last spring was so busy that I didn't get any crops planted. I did try snap peas for the first time, planting my "spring" crop after summer was well advanced. Fortunately, my summer is cool, so "Sugar Snap" and "Super Sugar Snap" still produced sweet pods before noticing that they were far out-of-season and gave up.

I recently replaced them with more 'Super Sugar Snap' peas, some pole snow peas, and a French variety of snap/snow pea with 5' vines: 'Carouby de Maussane' (called 'Pisello Rampicante Gigante Svizzero' in an Italian seed catalog.)

Now why would an Italian seed catalog call a French variety "Svizzero" (Swiss)? I don't know, unless they thought it would help to conceal the theft. But I forgive them because they have a so much more musical name than the French for "mange toute": mangiatutto ("Eat it all").

Clearly "mangiatutto" should be sung, not spoken. Sung operatically, with a flamboyant costume and dramatic gestures.

:-D You're sounding good, Rick! You mean the sugar snaps never made it to the table? O, sorry to hear that. It sounds like you are really involved with hybrids...is there that much difference when it comes to vegetables? At any rate, i don't have to deal with those complexities since all of my plants are in their unadulterated form. The butterflies prefer that. Although the Hibiscus does not make seeds so i suspect it may be a hybrid. It is one of the few plants i did not grow from seed, ummm and the Jasmine could be too (no seeds there either).

Interestingly enough, in my Plantas Mexicanas book a variety of Rudbeckia is listed as native or introduced to Mexico and this is why i tried it...but aside from being ignored, it just didn't look right.

How's the giant Delphinium? I'm pretty sure i didn't spell that correctly...hope you know what i mean?

My Pacific Giant Delphinium got bigger and bolder each year for about three years, and then did not come the next spring, at all. I've read that they have a limited lifespan, and probably should have tried to divide the rootball, or taken cuttings, during Year Two.

But I have lots of seeds and will try again. At least I now know that slugs will come from all over the neighborhood to devour as many trays of seedlings as I want to put out. So I'll protect them.

Both Sugar Snap and Super Sugar Snap are OP and would come true from seeds (peas) if I didn't eat them as soon as I took them off the vines. My very very late "spring" crop did well, but then got old and gave up around August. So I started more peas in the same bed, plus one other bed. The first bed is "up" and clinging to the first horizontal string, but my second bed has not emerged yet.

>> a variety of Rudbeckia is listed as native or introduced to Mexico

Hmm, I think of them as real hot-weather and dry-climate plants that should do well in Colima. But if the birds and bees and butterflies all rejected Junior, who could argue with them?

Delphiniums sprouted after 4 months in the fridge , I hope they get big enough before fall .
Blooms for next year if they do , They can grow another four weeks or so ,
The largest this morning ; tiny yet . but on the grow , they are . ^_^

See here .. If they don't get big enough , my flower garden is wiped out , two years in a row .
Delphinium
Feverfew
Gaillardia
Yarrow
Coneflower Oh well , The game is on ; if this was truly a test of my skill ? Well , I can't say that here ..lol

Ju ~ Let's hope the tiny seedlings will grow well enough to put out in fall. My seedlings are too small to tell yet.

Corey ~ I, too, have planted peas for a fall crop. I have not done this before since I usually just sow them in early and late spring. In one section, I have already tied them to their stakes. It has been quite windy in the afternoon. I don't want them to cling to the fence, as the deer will eat them, from the other side.

Great!

My first batch of Fall snap peas and snow peas have reached the second string, around 7" tall.

I should have weeded the bed with my second batch more often before planting! Last time I ran by that bed on my way to work, spouts if any were hidden by weeds. I'd better check again, they went into the soil Sept. 1 and should soon be big enough to see ... and pull weeds from around them.