heated propagation?

[astroboy76]

hey everyone,

after having some success with my japanese flowering apricot cuttings i decided ot buy myself a heated propagation kit. with the apricot cuttings i took 6 inch cuttings in mid spring after they had just hardened off, stuck them in a pot with half a coke bottle placed over them and all but 2 rooted within 4 weeks. i really want to root some of my pink hawthorn cuttings and some of my peach cuttings. i have had no luck with these in the past so maybe the apricot cuttings were just luck?
anyway, i now have myself a propagation kit with bottom heating. has anyone got an experience with this kind of unit? care to share what you have learned?

[Mitchell]

No experience with that unit, but have been contemplating heated propagating recently.

Thought I might run some black poly pipe, up onto my roof, lay out 20m or so then bring it back down to a large low tray.
If I was to leave the tap barely on it should drip into the tray, with warm water. A valve just prior to the tray would regulate flow to it.

If I get round to installing it, I'll let ya know.

[nealweb]

BUMP, I would be interested in hearing about this. I have been wondering of bottom heating might improve the success of rooting larger cuttings and so creating some nice mame trees. Where did you buy a 'unit' astro, and does it cost much? How does it work, electric I assume??

Thanks
neal.

[Mojo Moyogi]

Hi Astro and Neal,
Heating improves rooting greatly, heating plus misting or fogging in a tunnel enclosure is even better! You can put roots on dormant 3-4" thick Tridents, Elms and Zelkovas. Anything from the Rose family will root pretty reliably from oversize cuttings using bottom heat.. My self built propagating tunnel uses a humidity controlled fogging system without heat and has a capacity of approx 4000 cuttings. When I add flexible heat pads to it in the winter and temperature controlled fans it will have cost me about $1800 and I should be able to put roots on a bowling ball .

Mitchell,
With a passive solar heating system that you describe, your challenge is going to be temperature control, getting between 18 and 24 degrees celcius without a computerised controller similar to a solar pool heating system will be tricky. If you ever get it running properly it is a great way to do it, when I ran my old heating cable propagating bed through the winter it increased my electricity bill noticeably.

Check out Sage Horticultural http://www.sagehort.com.au for propagation components.

Cheers,
Mojo

[astroboy76]

hey neal,

I bought the kit for $60 off of the web. a site called green harvest. Only took two days to get to me. I took numerous cuttings from a whoel array of prunus trees i enjoy working with, some hawthorn and some malus. i used pure vermiculite (is that how its spelt?) and so far so good. I have about 30 cuttings in it. The bottom heat is subtle but effective. The whole kit has a high humidity. I allow the kit to remain closed all night and during the days i open the vents to airate. Will let you know how i go.

as for large cuttings? can someone explain this? i thought cuttings basically only worked when they were small. can you take larger branches for cuttings too?

[astroboy76]

oh and my kit claims to cost 1cent per hour to run so not bad

[nealweb]

Thanks Mojo and Astro. Sounds like for $60 it might be worth a try. Astro some species are very easy to root. I remember Don Burke one day planting man sized pieces of Erythrina indica trunk straight into the ground and they all rooted, he even got one in upside down and reckoned it send shoots out from underground and roots down from the top! I have only tried azalea's. I have got a few 1 and 2 cm cuttings going but without a very good success rate. Arthur has done some 1-2 inches I think but again, lost quite a lot. Cloching for humidity is essential and I think the bottom heat would help too.

Cheers,

neal.

[astroboy76]

well i have a whole bunch of prunus going at the moment. crimson peaches, double white apricots, tokyo cherry and prunus blireanna. there is no thermostat and i forgot to turn it off before worth this morning. all cuttings are fne but the cheery. they wilted a bit. i bought a thermometer and the potting medium was 30 degrees! hope i havent done too much damage

[nealweb]

well i have a whole bunch of prunus going at the moment. crimson peaches, double white apricots, tokyo cherry and prunus blireanna. there is no thermostat and i forgot to turn it off before worth this morning. all cuttings are fne but the cheery. they wilted a bit. i bought a thermometer and the potting medium was 30 degrees! hope i havent done too much damage

Wow, warm! The website Mojo mentioned has one with a thermostat from $155, that might be useful.

[astroboy76]

well its been about a week and all is still going well. have figured out that i only need to turn the heater on for 30 mins every few hours to maintain a failr consistent heat of around 24 degrees. i mist the leaves at the same time to keep them cool and leave one air vent on the top open so tings dont get too wet and cause rot or fungus.

the few cuttings that wilted when the temp wetn too high have started to stand up straight again so fingers crossed there was no irreversable damage.

now i have searched the web and cant find how long it should take to root prunus cuttings. my few mume cuttings rooted in about a month but it could have been earlier, i just didnt check them until then

[S.O.P]

CAT. NO. QT7200

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=QT7200

Super Simple Electronic Thermostat

Replace that old unreliable mechanical thermostat with a modern digital unit. This unit will switch 5 amps @ 240VAC resistive (3A inductive) between 5 & 35°C. You simply set the temperature on the LCD display & the thermostat will switch on below that temperature and switch off above it.This compact unit measures 75mm square & 30mm deep.- It runs on 2 x AAA batteries.- Will mount on any flat surface with two screws.- Power connection via screw down terminal block.- Supplied with instructions & mounting template.- Batteries not included.

Maybe something like this might help, unless you like manually switching it off?

[nealweb]

Seriously thinking of getting the heat bed with the thermostat now but do you use these in summer when its warm anyway? Just for consistency? Or is it something that I won't need until next winter??

Thanks in advance.

neal.