Pondering a rooting situation....

Does anyone have any ideas, thoughts, epiphanies....? The picture is of two cuttings I made of H. imperialis var. rauchii: it was one large cutting from a vine on my tree that I cut in half. Look at the roots of the two = totally different growth. (Edited to say), both were rooted in the same pot, at the same time, same conditions....

Why? I haven't a clue. But I am going to take a couple of hoyas and make multiple cuttings, noting their position on the vine...and see if it has any relationship to where they are on the vine...last? first? in the middle?

This message was edited Feb 14, 2009 7:00 PM

we are in totally if not completely different climates carol, but i have noticed that cuttings on the north side of the pot seem to root faster and more vigorously than than on any other side of the pot. not sure if this is because of light exposure on the sides of the pots.

Hmmmm Interesting proposition. It would not pertain to these, tho, as I had to put the clear container in a one gal. blowmolded pot to keep the stems upright...so they didn't get much light to begin with.... Will consider that when I do my experiment...

it could simply be lack of vigor in the weaker plant. sometimes all the conditions are right, but some organisms simply lack the "will to live"

there are really so many variables that it would be difficult to isolate them all to run a true scientific experiment. could be uneven moisture, could be light, could be temperature.

Both the cuttings came from the same vine, same plant, were side by side in the rooting pot (not a half an inch between them), same light, same moisture same same same. It HAS to be their 'seniority' on the vine....

higher seniority = better root growth?

That's my guess. Am going to do some experiments with a couple of hoyas and see if it is so.

To throw my .02 in here...

I root dormant cuttings of my conifers (Thuja, Chamaecyparis, Tsuga) that I take at the end of December/early January and cuttings from the shaded (north) side of the plant root much better than cuttings from any other location on the plant. I'm not sure why this is? But from the statement above, it may hold true for other plants as well.

The next time I take some cuttings from my hoyas, I will need to make note of whether the cutting is from the sunny or shaded part of the plant and see if this makes any difference at all.

Do you think if we asked David Liddle to take cuttings from only the shaded part of the plant, that would be going a bit too far??? (:o)
Thanks,
Mike

I have cuttings which have rooted and sat in the pot for 2 year and not moved, and then tried another again from the same species.....ie H subclava, and immediately Im getting new growth on the new cuttings. Oleanders root in water, yet this spring on pruning, when I put all the cuttings in water only half have rooted well and the rest are still healthy but without roots..all the same length cuttings from the same previous years growth and the same length. Maybe just pot luck, Carol?

Dom