Stengelbrand, helpful hints on dealing with it!

Thanks so much Gretchen! I will. Of course I will have to travel a bit to look in one. LOL

kell
What about those large containers from wallyworld that have the rope handles on them. I used them last year for washing and bleaching pots and they were great. I am sure I don't have any as large as yours but I was able to do everything I had in them and have room left over.
I wish I cold describe them better for you. but they are just big round like a 1/2 barrel with rims and rope handles and are usually with the storage containers.

Alice, that's what I use to wash pots in plus I also have a big wash tub that I use sometimes depending on the size of the pots. I also have about six sets of clippers that as I use it I put it in Physan to soak and use a fresh pair. I also have a five gallon bucket with Physan that I soak my shovels in as I use them.

shelly and rootdoctor got the idea...
replacable blades on most of those... buy a box, most razor knives allow you to take the blade out very easily, I have one I got at 84lumber which snaps apart, it doesn't require any tools to change the blades.

I learned this when I was taking 2,000 geranium cuttings at one time...
virus and whatnot spread very easily from plant to plant with them, in time this just seemed the most reasonable solution.

For those of you worried about taking woody cuttings with a blade, it takes a little practice but is very easy to do with a razor. I was instructed by an old grafter in the use like this...
I had a little leather thumb guard when i started out, I don't require this any longer.
Ligustrum is a fine specimen to practice as it is fairly soft when woody.

best of luck,
Drew

I am so glad that somebody knew what I was talking about. I do pretty much the same thing but was using bleach. I am looking now for a source for the physan and have a call in to my local greenhouse to see if they have any there. Otherwise will have to do wormsway or ebay to get it.
Glad to know all of this before I get back outside.

I use those wal-mart tubs as water buckets for the horses when wer'e on the road. They hold 18 gallons and cost around $5.00. They're blue with rope handles...

Another overlooked thing might be when you mix in some dry fertilizer into your pots? I usually use a fork!

I wish Monica would once again do a complete thread on this.

I'll say it again, what would we do without her?

Thanks for the ideas. I do have those huge tubs but they are not big enough!

Really Vi, there are so many ways we can contaminate our brugs. We really need to think about it! I just bought 5 new little saws to root prune this spring my tree brugs. I was lucky, they were on clearance at Target. I will boil them also in between.

I just found out on ABADS that I lied to you all... aphids do NOT spread SB! They spread brug viruses but not fungus! SO Sorry!

This message was edited Feb 27, 2004 12:13 PM

Kell, you mean to tell us you lied to us. Well, I never!! LOL

We know you wouldn't intentionally steer us wrong. We still love ya anyway.

Hi. Thought y'all might want to consider these. I just ran across these pruners last week. They are a heavy plastic, except for the changeable razor blade itself, so there is very little that will rust on them. As you can see, extra blades fit in the handle. They were under $14 at wallmart, and should last a long time, even with bleaching regularly, and would be safer than the regular razor knife. But no, I don't own any stock in the company ;)

Oh lagata! Those look great! I'm on my way to wally world. Thanks -- Gretchen

Stanley is a good name too, isn't it? If you get them and boil them for 5 minutes, would you let me know how they stand up to that?

I know Ada, i am so bad! I felt terrible too!

Those pruners looks like they'd crush a cutting.

but then again, I'm anti-pruner.

I snap my cuttings. If you practice, you will learn to break 'clean'.
No need for pruners or blades.

If trying to control a fungus ..you use a fungicide.
If a bacteria ..a bacteriacide.
You have to know what you are dealing with to decide a contol.

Those cutters look really nice and I would love to get me a pair. I like the changeable blade and the fact I would have to have them sharpened.

Bleach, Physan, Consan, and the like is probably great. And I am mindful that we need to be careful, but I hope that we keep in mine our comman sense and not go into over kill.
Dee

Gee Alice, aren't you the smart one! LOL.

I hope boiling kills everything! I am used to this routine now!

Dee, I agree but it depends on how far into brugmansia you have gone. To what depths of brug depravity you have fallen!

I have so many brugs now and even more seedlings. I truly believe that the more of one kind of plant that you have the more you have the chance for weird things to pop up. I lost a rare Japanese Maple collection years ago. I was just devastated. Something going thru your beloved collection killing it is a horrid sight. It took me several years to get over the trauma.

I am willing to go into overkill because I have such an investment in them monetarily, emotionally and time wise.

Also because I am a nurse, I think it is easier for me to see how not to cross contaminate and then not to do it. I just treat each plant like they are on full precautions except I do not wear a mask! LOL.

But I can see how hard it can be for some to grasp it. My DH is a walking contamination unit! You can tell him exactly what not to do and 2 minutes later he is doing it! It just does not make sense to him at all.

I need to understand SB just a little more. If you take a healthy cutting from an infected plant, will the cutting possibly be okay given proper precautions? Or, will it carry the disease with itself? Thanks!!

Morph, once a plant is infected you can't get a "clean" cutting from it. New tip growth might look clean & healthy but it is still infected and will eventually show disease symptoms.

Got it. Thanks, Sue. Wanted to confirm and just remove what I think is an infected cutting. Hate to lose it, but I've others to keep me busy!

Morph, what cutting do you have that you think is infected? Do you know the name of the cutting?

I found a very suspicious looking rooted cutting . So I bagged it and trashed it !
It has been on a slow decline for a couple months so I just moved it out of the plant room .
I found the marks on the main stem and on the new shoot it had put out last winter. There was no evidence of promising new green growth and the shoot was dieing back.

These are poor pictures but are all I took. It is a Kyle's Giant White brugmansia.

Sorry if I posted on the wrong thread
§

Oh, Scooterbug, I see what you mean.

Edited to add: I checked all of my brugs carefully and none of them are showing any sign of illness.

This message was edited Mar 1, 2004 12:23 PM

Hey guys, unless you have a double purple percolating, if they look bad and and are sickly, toss them!! Not worht the worry or the chance they are sick. You will soon have so many cuttings that you will understand it is important to keep your collection healthy. Brugs around here on Dave's are plentiful, just be patient for a few months!

Thanks, Kell. That's good advice.

Yeppers......I do not have any plants worth losing my whole collection over , albeit small compared to many of yours here at DG. I also will not waste time on straggler cuttings and seedlings anymore.....
§

i, too got some cuttings from David and others, so far, knock on wood, i do not have any SB problem on my lot.

when the cuttings came, i washed them in warm water and H2O2. the cuttings i had soaking in water, i washed and change water once a week. i have added 1 drop of tea tree oil on the water. the cuttings in water has been soaking since Oct./Nov. 03. they are heavily rooted and growing nicely.

the ones planted in soil less mix [50% peat moss and perlite] are doing great too! so far, since they were planted, i have only watered twice since last Oct./Nov. 03. when i watered the potted plants i used 1 tbsp of H2O2 and 1 drop of tea tree oil in 1 gal. water.

something is working right for me this winter. i do not have any spider mites, no white flies, no aphids. these plants are located in the back patio with glass windows covering the entire area. the back patio has never been heated. sometimes the temperature there goes down to 20ºF. hth

When you soak your cuttings-do you soak the whole cutting or just the cut end of the cutting? If it is the whole cutting-how long do you soak it?

When soaking new cuttings you always submerge the whole piece , just laying them in a tray works for me. You may need to put a small saucer on top to hold them down =0
I use very warm water and H2O2 also =)
I leave them in for 1 hr...........MaVie ,how long do you treat your cuttings?
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This message was edited Feb 29, 2004 5:23 PM

When they are actively growing, how often do you use the Tea Tree Oil and H202 mix? If you use it each time you water, can you use it with Peters when you fertilize? Thanks! Gretchen

Scooterbug,thank you so much for your help.I never knew that-from now on,I will do this to all my cuttings.

I drown all recieved cuttings , if even in only very-warm water, killz the wee lil buggiez......LOL

P.S......................I did not get the pictured cutting from David.......just so you know.
=)
§

Kell, I hear that about loosing a collection...
Twice now, I have lost an entire collection.
One time was a rare plant collection that took 7years to amass...
Once was a greenhouse that froze.

in the end tho, I have come to the conclusion, if I have to worry 24/7 (and I easily could) it isn't worth it anymore.
I got into plants because I adore everything about them, not so that I could have another responsibility to give me more grey hair.
:-)

I wonder if tissue cultureing could get rid of SB, kinda like virus indexed pelargoniums.

drew

Well, now that I've seen it and am learning what it can do--but still not sure... I do think maybe we need some guidelines in our time of greed!

Maybe, no one should offer cuttings unless they've grown the brugs for a year?

Maybe only one brug should be sacrificed from each doner?
Or that all cuttings will need to be in that Physan soak--and therefore, be no longer free. We must try and STOP this!

All I know is--I'm scared!

It IS scary!!
I hate to say this, but Im sure that more than just myself is thinking it.... SB got into the US, because people couldnt wait. I dont think people will be "willing" to hold off on sharing cuttings, for the same reason. (We just get too caught up, and have to have things now) I am holding off on getting cuttings, and sharing. I HATE IT, because SO many were generous with me. BUT I would rather have people mad at me for not sharing, than spread this nasty, NASTY disease more.

On the other forum for just pictures I saw a note from someone who didn't know where her cuttings came from because she had lost the emails.
For anyone who has traded things here on Daves there are some wonderful tools to help find trades.
On your home page there is an option to look at any posts you have started.
But also under forums you can search and find anything that you have posted to other forums (I hope that makes sense) I know I check here occassionally being concerned that I might have promised something that I haven't done.
If they were cuttings you received through offers here, you may be able to track them even without the emails that you had.
Also don't forget that any emails you have sent from the site, you can still look at.
We have wonderful tools here and this may be one of those times when we need them all!
Hope this helps.

Kell, I've watched you posts.

Email me.

life is too short to be worrying about plants. all i know is if u take extra precautionary steps in handling cuttings, none of this problem should be of great concern... at least not in the stocks i am nurturing in my place.

Shirley/Scooterbug, i do not soak them for long. i just rinse off the cuttings in water filled with alcohol then to water filled with H2O2. after rinsing off the cuttings, some are rooted in sterilized bottle with water, H2O2 and drop of tea tree oil. these cuttings rooted in water, i do the same process at least once a week.

cuttings rooted in 50% peat moss and perlite are premoistened with water, H2O2 and tea tree oil combination. since they were planted in Oct. they were only water twice. i try to keep them on the dry side all these time.

Gretchen, on regular growing season i mix foliar fertilizer with H2O2 and water, using the foliar feeder bootle. i do foliar feeding twice a week. sometimes, i alternate alcohol instead of H2O2 with the foliar fertilizer. having done this religiously last summer, i was able to keep some of the plants growing outdoors, indoors this winter without any bug problems.

i am on the adventurous side, i tried these practice/s at my own risk. if u will try this in ur yard, i would not like to take the responsibility on ur own experiment/s. i am very precocious as i venture... following suggested measurements prescribed on labels of whatever it is i used. always remember, more sometimes is bad, instead of being helpful. i am very confident of what i do basing on materials i researched on the internet.

But the problem Ma Vie, is if you get an infected cutting that is showing no signs of SB when you get it.

It is almost worth it to stop getting new cuttings in once you have enough good genes to just do your own hybridizing like some of Monika's friends have done. I guess it depends on what your goal is in growing these.

I just wish I knew if all SB infected cuttings failed to thrive from the get go.

Kell, i am not knowledgeable enough about SB. all i know is ... to take precautionary steps when cuttings come my way.

i was a wee bit concern in the case of David. others had problem with the cuttings they got. so far, i got a lot of cuttings from David, none, NONE of what he shared with me had any problem.

i am merely trying to point out the extra steps i did might have prevented any problem. i do not know, i am no expert. i am merely trying to share little bit observation and practice i did on my own. so far, i am able to grow healthy plants from cuttings on this end.