Propagating through cuttings -- growing from seed needs time, but cuttings need lesser the time!

YOU NEED TO BE PATIENT- plants need you to be...
Being only 20 years old, I must admit that I have a very very short patience. Then again, we all do! haha
So I can understand the frustration of having to wait for plants to grow from seed.

I recall the first batch of seeds I ever sprouted were Thai Basil. I buried them in Cocoa Coir and watered them daily. They took about 5-6 days to sprout! I would go out each morning to see if I could see small green stalks, but to my disappointment, i'd see none. The first sprout I saw was at night, when i arrived home from my school's  Ayala Exhibit in which The Hydro Garden participated in for 3 days. My mom could hear me screaming. "It's growing! It's growing!" like a little child full of fascination.

But of course, plants need time & care (maintenance) but most of all, it needs its grower to stay patient. However, i couldn't afford the time then. This was foremost a school project and my department pressured me for updates on sales and progress. To me, progress meant the growth of my plants and the life of this venture, but to the department, progress meant "money", more specifically, income.

That's when, in a panic, I studied and researched of different methods to reproduce plants. Now, there are many ways to do this, but I found a cheaper and more efficient way to do it -- through cuttings!

PROPAGATING THROUGH CUTTINGS:
--This is the act of cloning the mother plant through its branches that are cut off and set to root on its own.

You can find many sites on tips of how to propagate through cuttings. Mind you! Not all cuttings root! There is a chance that the cuttings rot or die from other variables before it roots, or is not under the right rooting technique.

Many people use a rooting hormone , which is a liquid/gel and/or powder which covers the bottom of the cutting before being placed in the soil. This substance encourages the covered tip to grow roots. However, in Cebu, with much effort I have not yet found a rooting hormone.

The most common and cheap way of rooting a cutting is:
          a) in water
          b) in potting soil/mix inside a humidity dome


I have tried both methods and never had a high success rate. Not all plants will root through these methods. I was frustrated and puzzled.

HYDROPONICS - success in rooting!
I then experimented with my hydroponic system. I have several hundred basil growing and it holds all my mother plants. I kept a few plant slots available for my cuttings. I WAS AMAZED! I first started out with Thai Basil Cuttings. The cuttings rooted within 5 DAYS! In water, Thai basil cuttings need 1-2 weeks before they reach a certain stage enough to plant into the pots. But the flowing water and organic solutions I use in my system promoted a faster rooting stage.

Thai basil cuttings rooted in Hydroponic System in 5 days

5 day roots in Hydroponic system

Basil is known to root very easily. But i was rather shocked to see the result in just 5 days. They all have rooted and not one of them had rotted or wilted. I wanted more results! I wanted to try the impossible. 

ROOTING "DILL" CUTTINGS:

Dill is a wonderful plant used in many recipes. Take note: dill and fennel look very much alike, but they are the same. Below is a picture of how dill leaves look like.

sample: dill plant

Dill is known to grow only from seed and not from cuttings. Many other hobbyist say that it is impossible to root in water or in soil since it rots or wilts eventually.

I have tried rotting it in water, but of no luck, it did eventually rot and die.

However, since my hydroponic system did such a good job on my basil, i thought, "why not try the impossible?". I put a few cuttings from my dill plant, bunched them together and placed them in an empty slot of the system.

In 5 days, no luck. I didn't see any roots -- BUT! They were still alive. This is a good thing. It must mean that the possibility of rooting is present.

After 7 days, SURPRISE! It actually started to root.

Dill cutting rooting after 5-7 days!

5 days

7 days

ROOTING MINT CUTTINGS:

Mint is quite an invasive plant. Rooting them in soil won't be a problem. it would take about 7 days or more before u see it growing on its own. Within 4-5 days, the mint cuttings i took from the mother plant began to root in the system as well! whew! I'm on a roll!

Rooting Mint cuttings

wooh! it's rooting! success!

ROOTING TARRAGON CUTTINGS:

Tarragon is one of the biggest headaches i've had to grow really. They're not hard to manage, but they are hard to reproduce. They rarely sprout from seeds and they die if rooted in the water or soil. I put them into the system and after 7 days, still no roots. BUT, they are still alive. I have yet to see if they will root. In the meantime, i'm glad to observe that they have not rot or wilted.

They're still alive, thankfully. :D

I am to conclude that my hydroponic system is doing me well, aside from making my other basil grow beautifully, but i am not able to reproduce plants faster and easier. 

This is it for today, 'till next entry!

Ulyssa