Some time last winter I had decided to cut down two apple trees. Since both (Bardsey & Rosemary Russet) are exemplary trees here, (not fruit, sigh) – disease resistant, partially self fertile, heavy bearing; RR has really nice scaffolding without my help & Bardsey is natural semi dwarf – I thought they might be candidates for root stocks.
I have a large pot & five gallon bucket with soil & pine chips on top just outside the back door in a semi-protected place. Then I dipped each cutting in rooting hormone powder, dibbled a hole and pressed the soil gently around each piece. Nothing else except to check to see if getting dry with a moisture meter & water accordingly. It got cold outside & this spot warmed a bit more also.
Looks as though at least one is breaking bud as of yesterday. I didn’t bother labeling them, since RR has enormous leaves. Either the rooted cuttings are Rosemary or not.
Not accurate measured, around 60% perlite and 40% peatmoss. On a seeding starter heat mat. Can’t adjust temperature,only one temperature setting that I don’t know the degrees of the temperature when it is plugged in.
I was extremely surprised that the bud9 can be rooted so easy. I just didn’t want to throw away a cutting and there was room for extra in the container. So I push the little cutting in the soil. Hoped it grows but didn’t expecte it will.
I tried rooting some grape vine cuttings this year. I put them in mason jars with damp planting mix. I set them on a heat mat in my garage. The heat mat gets to 10-15 degrees above ambient temperature and the garage was cold, so I don’t think they were warmed enough, so then I layered two heating mats on top of each other. That probably was too hot. Around 100 degrees. Even still, about 1/3 of them rooted. That was the first time I’ve had any success with grapes. The rest look like they have “maybe” callused, so I’ll leave them in the damp planting mix with no heat. Next time I’ll do it indoors to control the heat better at around 85 and I’ll use a more sterile medium. I did Bluebell, Early Campbell, Lorelei and Ontario. At some point I think I lost track of some of the varieties, so I’ll have too wait a few years to verify, lol.
Thanks for the insights. I have an issue with mats running very hot so I started layering some towels between the heating mat surface and the tray. I also really needed to get the temp of my soil for citrus germination so I use a culinary thermometer to get soil readings. Low tech high reward. Nice work. Those are very exciting results.
Maybe we can trade grape cuttings in the future.
This year, I rooted Reliance, Candice, Stuben, Golden Muscat, Chamboucin, and the Golden Manukka and Black Manukka that Richard sent me. Grapes , like the figs, are relatively easy to root. Peaches are difficult. I have never rooted any peaches. My biggest problem of rooting cuttings is getting the soil too wet. I am always worry about the root dry up so I keep adding water to the soil. The result was rotten roots. In the future, I will use transparent container to root cuttings so I can monitor the roots’ growth
Your is precision monitoring. I have never the soil temperature. I just figured if it is good for seeds to start it should be good for the roots to grow. I use the cheapest seeding start heating mat I can find
Dude, I made a mistake against myself by failing to follow what you were saying. At no point I blamed you for it. I’m still trying to figure out how you can get offended at that.
But for what is worth I’m sorry you are offended by my reading faux pas.
In your location, figs should be easier to root. But two weeks in the ground seems to short to grow roots. Good luck with the figs. Hardy Chicago is easy to grow fig and has reasonable good flavor
figs have been easy for me to root, but apples I’ve never tried. will optisorb/perlite plus a little rooting hormone work on them? with figs I just do that mix and some warmth and dampness. take two weeks or three. will apples take longer?
I could put a full sized apple or two on the neighbor’s lot, they already are asking where to buy seedlings and if they can try to grow from seed. I bet they’d like these if I could root them and they’d pollinate my trees
Rooting hormones definitely help. They usually have fungicide mixed in to prevent the scions from rot to soon. I have never rooted regular apple scion. The one I used was the top portion of the rootstock that I cut off when I grafted regular apple scion onto. Mine took 5 weeks to grow roots.
I’ve found root cuttings of Goji berry is at least as easy as raspberries.
But, rooting apple and pear cuttings…haven’t had any success.
And looks like maybe 5% dormant honeyberry cuttings are still alive taken in December or thereabouts and stuck outdoors.
I’ve stuck some figs, some cranberry viburnum…too early to tell.
