Not to worry, I'm looking to get several starts here so I can start trading and such with it sooner than later so I'm open to more trades on any of these items until I make it a point here to say that I'm not. I'll remove it from the thread title when.
Rooting hormone POWDERS well, are just counter-intuitive to what plants want, what they need. GELS are a step in the right direction, but still plants drink WATER. Can't live without it.
Then there's the issue of strength. One powder product I had was 0.01% (10PPM). This Clonex gel is 0.31% (310PPM). Now these ranges are suitable for say tomatoes, but for many things that are stubborn to root these ranges wont do much of anything. Most anything with hardwood / bark really needs 1000+ PPM. When working with pure grade chems it's necessary to dissolve them into liquid, and then dilute the liquid into the desired PPM rate. You dont ever treat plant bits with pure grade chems. This might seem like a hassle, but it enables one to dial in specific PPM rates for maximum results.
Next is the issue of potency. Powders hold their potency quite well, as my pure grade baggies can usually store for years like any drug / vitamin. Turned into water (liquid) form we're now in a whole new realm. Some PGR's, such as Kinetin (not used for rooting), only store in liquid form for maybe a week unless frozen. "Gels", such as this Clonex I have here, are more like a syrup (which is a liquid). Their actual shelf life, hmm good question. This bottle doesn't have a 'born on' date. I suspect shelf life is why stores like Home Depot only carry the lowest-of-forms powder product.
Last but not least, PRICEY hormone products only ever include but one or 2 rooting hormones (usually only IBA, sometimes NAA), and rooting hormones only. Sure rooting hormones signal plant bits to produce roots, but thats all they do. From all the things we do with plants, with intent, the plant bits we produce that are the most stressed are cuttings intended to be clones. This is why I started adding all of the vigor boosters I've brought into my inventory (Brassinolide, Atonik and newly Chitosan).
Other core plant biostimulants needed for plants in general are root zone beneficial microbes & symbiotic fungi. Now some use things like cinnamon in rooting hardwoods for the antimicrobial effect. This could be important in many cases, trying to maintain sterility, but unless one is using a sealed cloning chamber sterility seems to me to be as impossible as can be imagined. I know 97.383% of the time my cloning work is all done outside, usually stuffed into cocopeat, and stays outside. It's done in a big bucket and perhaps thousands of specimen of all different things get dunked in there each solution batch. So I opt to settle on the beneficial 'microbeasties' taking care of this issue. I also have some antibiotics, and once thought I could also market them for seed germination, but studies show lowered germination rates in the absence of probiotics so I like to think that adding them in deliberately would be the best choice for general use rooting solution applications.
Topic: Looking for Piper spp. plants (esp. P. Longum) & Vanilla (green & variegated) (Read 9511 times)