Propagation by Cuttings: Summer Field Notes

northern gooseberry, Ribes hirtellum collected a few years ago from a farmyard in SK and now growing in the nursery. It's a native gooseberry species with few thorns. This handful of cuttings are at thirty days under mist in the greenhouse and stuck with a strong iba talc, a heavy rooting response - native Ribes seem to root fast and heavily, maybe there's selection pressure for it.

red lake currants with heavy rooting after just over three weeks. these had some bottom heat for the last week, I have a few heat mats and move things around, it's tricky to bottom heat whole benches and still have good drainage, and most softwood doesn't need it, in fact it can be detrimental if your mist doesn't run for any reason. for anything that needs more than four weeks to root, bottom heat is a good addition. here I have several clumps of rooted cuttings about a dozen to each small pot, the spacing is fine to get them to start and then I carefully pull them apart and pot up into a better mix with far less perlite. this explodes the space required, and takes some planning. this year I may need to expand the shaded zone where these are hardened off for a week to solve a traffic jam.

goji berries have these attractive purple flowers all summer, they have this unusual perpetual growth through the whole season into late fall where the vines have all stages of fruit - the flowers, green fruit and red ripe fruit. today I collected some cuttings a bit late in the season (july 8), usually june is better but now there are long 1-2 ft shoot extensions of pliable softwood to pick, and that new growth that I'll stick under our mist has flowers and fruit and all! and they root in about two weeks. these goji are growing on established vines (sort of a shrub or an upright vine it's a weird plant) and it's heathy in zone 3 (-40). I've had some difficulty overwintering them in the nursery, but I suspect that they are like grapes, once established the cold hardiness improves. I would advise a sheltered location if you're on the Canadian prairies, or if you're in the city that's probably enough. the fruit are unique tasting, like a grassy tomato, I enjoy them. another fun property, I can root small cuttings and that same fall the small plants will fruit, so I pick them for our seed shop. goji are easy to grow from seed, but cuttings are faster for the nursery.

a native currant with crazy fruit, Ribes gladulosum aka skunk currant - heavy rooting on these cutting after 30 days. even up the stems and out of the pots, that's a strong rooting response. the native currants are just tough, the grow vigorously and in a heat wave when cultivars start to show signs of stress in their leaves. the native ones are always the healthiest looking. this set of cuttings is a mix of local plants found along a lakeside, and seeds the usda sent last winter, I have them in two plots as accessions. this process I've been following, to collect the plants by seeds or cuttings. get them growing in a carefully labelled place in the nursery, and then once per year in june collect the new shoots to make more, it's a fun ongoing effort to build a germplasm, a collection of genetics to grow and preserve, and one day to try some breeding work with. aspirationally, a hybrid between these fruit and a larger cultivar would make a very cool looking fruit. are there any glandulosum hybrids out there? kind of want to make some. did you know that black velvet, one of our fastest growing gooseberries is a cross with the Worcesterberry (Ribes divaricatum). interesting Ribes hybrids are possible, in fact many of them do have some tangled mix of hybridization. Jostaberry is another good example.

black ice plum, a western sandcherry hybrid. I hoped it would share the strong rooting potential in other chums - cherry plums as the common name refers to prunus besseyi hybrids like sapalta, opata, manor, new oka, dura etc - a collection of these hybrid bushy plums that go back to the Hansen breeding in South Dakota. Black Ice is a newer cross from Wisconsin, and it's usually grafted. But it's a sandcherry hybrid, so here it is - I'll grow them along with the other chums in our collection. My grafts from last year are fruiting, so it also has that going for it.

softwood season is what makes me love propagation. I build this greenhouse for it, and these not fancy benches ad hoc put together for every summer have misting nozzles going off all day. about my fifth year into it, there's a bit of magic in the suite of variables to collect a cutting ... (do some recipe) ... and then get a plant in a pot. it's both easier to get some result than you would expect, and harder to get perfect and know all the ways to kill a plant than you'll anticipate. my posts here lean toward the behind the scenes, because it's what I enjoy and I think it's interesting - maybe there's some educational angle but it's in these small pieces if you find my blog where i've put it together. today is july 6, and yesterday we had a power outage (lightning strike to an electrical pole) so for 18 hours the mist didn't run. I hand watered, but was impressed that none of the cuttings drooped or looked stressed or wilted. quite a few have small roots now, and the mist can get backed off. in fact they're starting to be ready to pot up, especially the ones over a heat matt. this workflow I use, differs from what you might google - I use 4" pots of peat/perlite mix and stick 10-15 cuttings each. it's way too close to grow the plants, but it's perfect to root them. a little easy to get too wet, and then leaves drop, but in the error brackets for it to work, if you have more room then more spaced is better, airflow between misting and at night when it's off is better. there is some fun stuff rooting in here this year, dare I say it's the only collection like it.

benches of softwood are nearly full. I collect cuttings from mid June until around the summer solstice, this works better than july cuttings - if you can get them after this flush of growth, and before they begin to transition to semi hardwood that's the right window. some bushes especially if they've been pruned will send up large shoots to use, and these produce larger plants in the first year. My flow with these is to collect until third week of june, then in early july start to pot up the ones which have rooted into 21 cell trays with large plugs into a peat mix with low perlite. those trays are then moved to a zone with mist and shade but less frequent, for a week to give the plants time to harden off. like a conveyor belt, the ones in that zone the longest are steadily moved outside. I'm a small nursery, and out of a love for the biodiversity and effort to collect and propagate a large germplasm - this setup can over 150 species or cultivars in small batches, sometimes as few as half a dozen. so a few thousand plants each year, and always new stuff. it keeps me busy until mid august, if it doesn't root by then we go on, the plants need enough time to resume growth and size up before hardening off in sept/oct, we have hard frosts in sept and snow by the end of oct, when it's all packed away in the root cellar, after our fall sale.

mock orange flowering later than most other trees. not common around Manitoba, cool to find a collection of trees to take some cuttings from

purple gooseberry. unknown cultivar, the original bush is at least 30 years old and thriving in full shade. the one in this photo is a few years old, it's crazy vigorous. after a hard prune it flushed out with a heavy crop of fruit and large shoots for cuttings. gooseberry needs a stronger rooting hormone and more time than currants, here I'm using 8000ppm iba talc and I expect them to need 6-8 weeks to root. for comparison, established hinnomaki red has about 2" of shoot extension, I'll collect cuttings for the other gooseberries early next week.

valiant grapes from hardwood collect in early spring, these were on bottom heat for a month in the root cellar, then moved onto the mist bench to start hardening off. now at about six weeks they have enough roots to pot up. about half are going to stay in bins to root in bulk and I'll sort out the largest as bare root plants at the end of the season, for this same potting mix in a bulb crate topped with the medium they rooted in, a method that's growing on me, using the black bulb crates like a small air pruning bed, easy to move around and reuse. grapes can be propagated from softwood, but this hardwood method produces bigger plants and makes good use of what you prune off, the trick is a heat mat to get them to callous and some mild conditions for the top growth, here I'm going from a humid root cellar to a humid greenhouse under shade, and eventually they'll go outside.

indigo gem haskap, here a mature bush in a shady spot shows its growth habbit - a bit sprawling. some haskaps like to grow more upright and tall, this one is good if want on cover an area. I do trim it for cuttings and that keeps it a bit smaller, and if you grow it in full sun it's going to be larger and have more fruit. this one enjoys being in this forest context, in nearly full shade.

mist propagation, one of my favorite things. cuttings stay alive for a couple of months, the mist goes off for just ten seconds every 10-20 minutes over these benches. the fastest to root, maybe the currants can be just a couple weeks. I run this from june 7 - aug 7, the slowest are the sour cherries and gooseberries. still taking cuttings, the benches are going to be packed full this year.

mustang, bushes planted four years ago to trim for cuttings. we've had lots of rain so the cuttings are big this year, 12" to too long I had to keep them 6-9" so they stick reasonably in the medium. 4000ppm iba, a bit of fungicide (secret ingredient in seems) and bottom heat on timed mist, mustang is a cherry plum, a sand cherry hybrid and anything with sandcherry it it's parentage is easy to root under mist. makes me want to create more sandcherry hybrids, propagation like this is easier than grafting.

epsilon cherry plum, a happy addition to the collection here. to get this on its own roots - I was lucky enough to get scion wood over the winter. grafted onto wild plum, here on an interstem on chokecherry rootstock. the growth flushes out, I collect cuttings and root under mist. by this fall, a set of plants will go into a bed where it can grow the way it should as a bush. for here, I can trim it next june and root more, etc. this flow can work for any plant where only dormant scions are available, and it's how I'm trying to establish stock blocks for softwood propagation. you can do it with hybrid prunus, but also any cultivar where the hardwood may not root. I'll use it for some Ribes next spring, sometimes it may be easier to graft first.

Theissen saskatoon seedlings. a large fruiting cultivar, and a larger tree than the wild ones. while the seedlings aren't exactly the same as the cultivar, they should be very similar. saskatoon/serviceberry is notoriously difficult to propagate clonally, you basically need to use tissue culture, or some crazy etiolation - like grow it in a pot in the dark for a few weeks then take cuttings. seedlings are easier.

potting some elderberry, hardwood set on heat mats in the root cellar, so damp and even temps. this set rooted in 2 weeks, the rest are about 50/50 so maybe another week. rooting grapes in the same way this year, pots of well draining mix, 8000ppm ima talc and bottom heat. after potting, the elderberry are a bit droopy so set them under timed mist for a while. everyone starts hardwood cuttings a bit different, the easy method is stick in the ground. well this works only if you have the right climate and local environment, and soil. could I just set them in pots outside, maybe but even in a cool cellar they're sending up top growth without roots, so it would have to be very early in the year. elderberry is very borderline in zone 3, still looking for the most cold hardy ones.

some plants are graded into a small not for sale size in the first year, chuyskaya sea buckthorn here getting potted up and will probably grow a foot by the end of the summer. it's part of softwood propagation, most of these were sold out over the winter with this small tray held back. I think this cultivar is rare in the US, unfortunately I can only ship plants inside of Canada

rooted softwood sizing up. the light green is new growth from the last 4-6 weeks. here our growing season slows down in sept, by next month they'll all be hardening off, we'll get some frosts and usually the leaves will drop by the end of oct. fall sale will start sept 22 the first day of fall (second annual) and we'll be shipping plants out for about 2-3 weeks.

I have a side quest to root plums as just a badass way to propagate them. benefits could be a healthier, longer lived tree. the last toka trees on their own roots were last century when Hansen was making crosses. I've been able to root it with some high degree of initial success, but plums get messed up and don't harden off the first winter when you do this. Trying these large plugs, so far growth has resumed (a good sign) and by october if the leaves are still green I'll move them into the greenhouse to try an extended fall season to enter dormancy, then pack in the root cellar. maybe also a low N fertilizer. the last time I tried this was in ground and bare root, hoping this run works better, trying to find the right protocol, other plums can also root.

currants from cuttings this spring, I have a fun selection of new ones that will be large enough to propagate in 2026. this process of collecting material, rooting in and establishing a stock bed is ongoing. Some of these cultivars are going to take research to dig up their origins, Onyx is a good example.

Ribes cynobari, divaricatum, glandulosum seedlings from the usda. native currants and gooseberries from a very small seed this spring, taking off in these six inch pots, now into stock beds. next june we'll be able to take softwood cuttings. woop going to collect them all!

ohxf 87 softwood rooted heavily after a few weeks. pear rootstocks have been a bottleneck, so hoping this gives me some more supply. In Canada we just don't have access to bulk rootstocks like in the US, they're at least 6-8 ea and limited to mostly less cold hardy options. as a small nursery the only realistic option is to propagate your own, and for zone 2-3 we often use seedlings. pear seedlings are a bit tricky to grow, I'm getting better at it and found a better supply of the seeds but it still takes 2 years to get them up to size to graft, so far. clonal pear stocks are less cold hardy but much easier if I can get a stoolbed going.

bei tang, a hybrid between cherry plum and apricot. happy to see that it roots, it wasn't a guarantee, a good outlook for propagating more. complex prunus hybrids are exciting because there are many possibilities, and with the sandcherry parentage it's just a few years to fruit and get to the next generation. this method of propagation started with dormant scion wood, grafted in may and then cuttings taken in early july have rooted by august. these ones will be stock plants, even if the original grafts don't survive for any reason what I really want with a cherry plum is something bushy growing on its own roots. #propagation

highbush cranberry can root from softwood cuttings, these ones at 35 days have some decent rooting. it's a bit sensitive to even misting because the cuttings are large, I try and take them with 3 nodes. about half rooted, but that was more set I think, some dried out, other pots had 100%. A tricky plant to root or grow from seed, trying some of both this year. #propagation

crandall currant, finally got this one to root. third year attempting it, you need vigorous cuttings good drainage and double strength IBA compared to other currants. treat like a stubborn gooseberry I guess. Crandall is this exceptional clove currant with large fruit and doesn't taste like black currant, mild to no astringency, good flavour. What's crazy is it doesn't taste like other clove currants, Ribes odoratum typically has fruit half the size with a different flavour, they're more sour, better for jam. Crandall is good off the bush. Of particular interest to me is the population of wild Ribes americanum I found that have a similar flavour. I'm growing our seedlings of each this summer, and now I can get a stock bed of crandall growing in a better location, the parent plant is in full shade, you want them in full sun to get the most growth.

altaiskaya sea buckthorn, double flowering plum. the sea buckthorn were collected june 25, so a decent rooting response at around 3 weeks. double flowering plum is a nice surprise, this is the 3rd year I've tried to root it and with some tweaks to the settings it rooted heavily. I have a bush I planted in 2004 to take cuttings from, it's a low spreading bush, attractive flowers.

elderberries, haskaps ready to pot up. after about a month under mist just about all of the cuttings we did in june are rooting, I try and wait under they're at a medium to heavy rooting stage, which for me is a decent mass of roots 1/2 - 1" long. this is the 4th year I've done this propagation run with the timed mist and keeping notes helps, every species and cultivar is slightly different so there are adjustments to the hormones, cutting size and when you take them, if they need bottom heat, how fast they root, and how sensitive the plants are when hardening off. nothing like moving a tray of cuttings outside and they all die on the first hot day, or they just won't resume growth and die over the winter. my point is you have to murder a lot of cuttings to get some practice ;) this year I'm actually doing less than last year, but using larger pots and more dialed in process with lessons learned to try and get larger plants by fall, so they all pass the grade and are ready to send out in our fall sale and then the rest in the spring.

sea buckthorn rooted at three weeks, this is about the stage where they can get potted up. these are on bottom heat, mist every 20 mins through the day, and an iba/naa mix with some fungicide, a recipe that's working better than anything else I've tried. but by far the easiest way to propagate these is the dig up suckers from the roots and pot them, if you just need a few and you have the room. softwood is my preferred method, the only caution I would advise is to wait until the cuttings are this size and not overly succulent, and provide some shade and consistent mist, with good airflow, they can be sensitive to over watering or drying out.

evans cherry and other Prunus cerasus hybrids can root from softwood, with some stronger iba and bottom heat to speed it up. the same works for some plums. the trick is what comes next, get them to grow a bit and then harden off for the winter, still working on a protocol to make that reliable. #propagation

currants at 3 weeks can be heavily rooted so time to move them into individual pots. these stay under mist and partial shade for about a week and will get slowly hardened off. too hot, sunny or dry too fast at this stage and you get crispy leaves. with some luck and a bit of fertilizer they'll resume top growth for the next couple of months. next up, cherry plums and haskaps. elderberry roots fast but it was the last cuttings I took. gooseberry is a mix, trying some bottom heat, generally 4-6 weeks for them. slowest cuttings take 8 weeks, after that in my opinion some variables were wrong, like timing / juvenility, hormone, temperature, fungi, too wet or dry.. there's probably more. helps to keep notes. #propagation

sea buckthorn softwood starting to callous after 10 days. I found an aqueous iba + naa mix works particularly good for these, AB testing last year had far for roots on our in house solution. should be rooted at 30-40 days.

cherry prinsepia bush, Prinsepia sinensis an unusual shrub with tiny hooked thorns hidden in the branches, and a sour fruit with trypophobic seeds. I collected seed from this stand last fall and got it to germinate, it does have a deep dormancy. trying out some softwood cuttings to see how they root. probably a good alternative to barberry, and a larger shrub than a goji, more people should grow this one

zone 2, an area for potted up softwood with less frequent mist. about a week in this side of the greenhouse and they're ready to move outside, on a cloudy day when possible. about the time they're ready to move growth is often starting to resume. to catch all of the long days of summer I try to get this done as fast as possible, if you are just starting cuttings now it does work but they might not have enough time to put on some root mass and a bit of top growth before winter, so now I take all of the softwood cuttings in june and try to root them by the end of july .

sapalta cherry plums, 4 weeks under mist with some bottom heat, medium strength rooting hormone. it's a hybrid with the western sandcherry, which is why it roots from cuttings so easily. more people should grow cherry plums, imagine a bush with one inch plums

Jostine, a cultivar of jostaberry which is this cool currant-gooseberry hybrid. gets me super interested in hybrid Ribes crosses. Jostine rooted enough to pot up, not quite as heavily as some of the Ribes nigrum and rubrum (black and red currants) but it's fast growing so I expect these will get up to a transplant ready size by fall #propagation

haskaps heavily rooted at about 4 weeks

cuttings hardening off. rooted over a few weeks, potted up and moved to a shady area with mist on a different schedule, one min every couple hours. a while in here and they can go outside.

often when you see new leaves the softwood cuttings have rooted. at 3 weeks into the season some of the earliest cuttings are ready, a small tug on them also indicates rooting. these are cherry plums, the succulent leaves desiccated but the cuttings are still in good shape, and after these are potted up, hardened off and move outside they should hopefully grow a bit this fall and be included in our fall plant sale.

seems these leaves aren't abaxially pubescent.. (fuzzy/hairy under the leaves), and when you crush them they aren't skunky.. there's a few indicators that it's Ribes americanum. but the flowers is more like the other one. a hybrid? takes a bit to grow out specimens and get a confident ID. what I'm interested in here is the difference between american wild currant and northern black currant. oddly these ones have astringent fruit (more like R. hudsonianum), and my other source for R. americanum have awesome tasting fruit (reminds me of crandall). I like finding genetic variation in wild populations, it means you can make a good selection and clone it through softwood cuttings.

softwood cuttings about 2 weeks into the season. think i'm just about done, it's better to do these in june and give the plants time to root and put on some growth. today was sea buckthorns with an in house iba naa mix. timed mist 15s every 15 mins, heat mats, shade, getting it all dialed in with a few years of records, this is my favorite part of #propagation.

collecting lilac softwood, this is the right time there are new shoots with a few nodes. they root in about 5-6 weeks under mist, faster with bottom heat.

elderberry growing in zone 3. this was my second winter with them, and even with a good snow cover all of the top growth wasn't alive in the spring, but maybe it's fine they easily regen from the roots. now that I know, will just plan to crop them all for cuttings in the fall, which is totally fine for me. I'm also going to take softwood, so these poor bushes might not get very tall. anyone else growing elderberry where it's -40 in the winter?

trimming up haskap cuttings, this guy was hiding in the leaves. catch and release caterpillar.

haskap, currant, gooseberry cuttings under mist.

chicago hardy fig, overwintered in our root cellar. stock plants, i'll cut them back for softwood and hardwood material, second photo is hardwood cuttings started this spring. hardwood was a backup, had no idea if the fig would survive because our root cellar is kept below freezing

I enjoy this process, softwood propagation season. the cuttings are starting to fill up one bench, over the next two weeks I'll take all the cuttings for the summer and fill a couple of 10ft tables, that seems to max out about what I can manage. the spacing is close at this stage, 6-12 per 3.5" pot 50:50 peat coarse perlite, mist at around 10s every 20 mins, off at night. #propagation

softwood season. cat friendly activity

trying grape cuttings like this, in our root cellar where it's a bit cool and quite damp. dipped into some iba talc, a bit of cambium exposed, 2-3 node cuttings. last year through sheer neglect we had bundles of cuttings root in these conditions, but I wonder if I should move them outside and just keep in the shade. I was going to wait for some root development, and the root cellar isn't being used, figure at least they don't need to get watered in here. have a few shelves like this. advice welcome, still figuring out grapes

common purple lilac, shoot extension is at the right stage for softwood. they can take a bit to root, but over the years I'be had good strike rates with lilac. next week I'll collect cuttings.

trying a late season low nitrogen fertilizer. here I’m mixing some, and then show a small gooseberry that I would like to bulk up on it’s roots before winter. quite a few plants have good root ball by now, but slower rooting cuttings from gooseberry, sea buckthorn, sour cherry could benefit.

some early success introducing a few Prunus into tissue culture. this is the tricky part, an explant (cutting) from the field needs to be sterilized, at one week these ones are in good shape and starting to grow. #propagation

d’artagnan cherry from u of sask getting potted up. cuttings from june 19 are at the right stage to pot and harden off, cherries take a while. next up trying some things to get them to resume growth and put on root mass before winter. #propagation

haskap starting some new leaves after rooting. This is a good result, if they can grow a bit through august then harden off in september.

debbie’s gold apricot on it’s own roots. manchurian apricot has some rooting potential, maybe also for rootstock. does anyone stoolbed them? seeds are easier for sure but always in short supply #apricot #propagation

subculturing some american wild plum. first time trying this, will update if they grow and I was able to keep everything sterile. #tissuecultureplants

hardwood sawdust for stoolbeds. my wood shop has this pile from the dust collectors, aged hardwood a mix of walnut, cedar, oak and all kinds of exotics. at the bottom it’s ten years old, but the high eastern res cedar content keeps it from completely composting. In the next video I’m topping up the new ussurian pear stoolbed, cut to the ground this spring, hoping we get rooted stocks this fall, nearby there are a couple other stoolbeds with siberian crabapple #stoolbed #stoolbeds #propagation #rootstocks

juliette cherries, finally got to try some. most of the u of sask sour cherries look similar to me but do have different flavours, and I’m sure sugar content, tartness and ripening times. I’m propagating juliette and d’artagnan this year, so I have plenty of cuttings but not so many cherries yet.

hollyhock mallow (think I have the ID right but google says they top out at 4 ft) this one is a large herbaceous perennial, grows like a monster and covers the whole end of this raised bed 6 ft tall.. last year I tied it back with rope to keep the walkway clear. this one was started from a single cutting.

canadian gooseberry, Ribes oxyacanthoides. stems full of fuzzy thorns. This plant set fruit last summer and there’s a tray of it’s seedlings growing, also trying some softwood. native species are great, I want to plant more of them around our property along walking trails.

highbush cranberry, Viburnum trilobum at six weeks into rooting. I checked them for roots a few weeks ago, and in this batch about half were good and were potted up and the rest needed more time. Many plants root like this. Six weeks in the full batch rooted. On other years when I took the cuttings later they didn’t root as quickly, the juvenility is important if you want a rooting response. next year I’ll make sure to try nannyberry, Viburnum lentagowhich is probably similar since it’s closely related #propagation

Chuyskaya sea buckthorn, a nearly thornless Russian variety. The softwood roots quickly, and they also spread with rhizomes and sucker, given a large bush the later might be the easiest way to propagate them. I did some of each this year. #seabuckthorn #propagation

cherry plum cultivar new oka, well rooted after a month. I started some plants last year from scions, so from graft to rooted cuttings, into a bed for the year to make more cuttings the next spring.. I have maybe a dozen here going into pots. more next year,. it takes time to let the stock plants recover from a heavy pruning. I also collect some new oka from the prairie genebank at u of sask last month from some old bushes. going to try keeping these in either 2.5 or 3.5” pots this summer and if they’re large enough I’ll have them available this winter.

black nanking is a nanking x western sandcherry hybrid (prunus tomentosa x besseyi) . both of it’s parents root quickly from softwood, and it’s the same. here is a cutting about 30 days in #propagation

highbush cranberry roots in about a month, that’s the easy part. trying a few things with these this year, like keeping them in pots and phosphorus fertilizer, the last couple of years only half over wintered. these guys and sour cherry I struggle with if they just go right into a bed. #propagation

little cherry plum dropped it’s leaves but bounced back. probably from too much mist. I try and calibrate it for the day depending on temperature and cloud cover, we’ve been getting way more rain than usual and on those days the timed mist can be dialed back. some setups use an electronic leaf for this, I prefer just to check on the plants a couple times daily during the season while they root. #propagation

black currants are fast and heavy rooting with softwood, here are well rooted cuttings of Tiben at 21 days. So this week I’m going through all the currants and checking them, anything at this stage can get potted up and then moved to a less frequent misting zone to begin hardening off. With that setup, I’ve also put them in the shade for a week and watering often, or on other year set them just outside of the mist in the greenhouse so they catch the edge of it. #propagation

IBA + NAA left, IBA talc right on cherry plum. I think left will quickly become a better root system

kinda cool that you can outfit a tissue culture lab off amazon.. have a growing list of cultivars that just need to be propagated this way. will be posts soon with results.

red elderberry had a stronger rooting response with a quick dip in captan before sticking. 100% of the treated cuttings rooted in 21 days. 4000ppm iba talc / stimroot 2 powder, and the fungicide was a solution 1 tsp/ liter . The reference manual for woody plant propagation recommends this. Probably applies to black elderberry, now it’s on my list to AB test with anything that’s slow to root or has discoloured stems this year. Funny thing you can’t buy Captan in Canada any more, but it’s easy to find on ebay. #propagation #softwoodpropagation

haircut. all of my stock plants are getting trimmed for softwood. in the first year it’s just a few cuttings each, enough to make a stock block in a small bed. I could tc these plants but I’m going for max variety low volume ea. how many berry bush cultivars do you grow? yes.

trimming softwood in my kitchen. you can collect cuttings and keep them in the fridge for a few days safely, and I find it easier to trim the leaves inside. it’s also a good time to make labels. #propagation

softwood propagation started for 2024. the mist will stay on until september. these new pots let me ab test hormones and combine trays. #propagation

goji berry rooted using two different rooting hormones, on the right using an iba+naa liquid solution was a much better result than the usual iba talc. #propagation

plants started from hardwood at about ten weeks and grown under lights to get a head start. moving the last few bins into our greenhouse where they’re get more light + heat + water.

from last july, this is why I’m testing different rooting hormones. on the left is a much more dense and fibrous root system starting, it doesn’t even look like the same plant. it’s an IBA NAA mix in aqueous solution, right is my baseline 4000ppm IBA talc. #propagation #rootinghormone

own root plums are putting on way more growth than expected, this set is the earliest june cuttings. many plants have an ideal window of maturity / time for softwood, takes some experimentation to find out. A protocol is the details like timing, materials and methods to propagate plants, and specific protocols for many of them are a bit hard to find and usually lacking in details because that’s a propagator’s hard earned IP I guess, so I just figure them out. #ownroot #ownrooted #propagation #softwoodpropagation

highbush cranberries are ripe. collecting seed for our nursery and also growing cuttings from these trees growing along our road.

collected goji berries today, so cool how they ripen all summer. I have rooted cuttings from this bush, they’re tasty and large, probably a cultivar but not sure.

prunus maackii, manchurian cherry rooted softwood from spring grafts. One of my goals this year was to use this two step process, and i’ve had some luck with a few prunus species. #propagation

trying out jewel black raspberry cuttings from the canes that just fruited. not sure if they’ll root, but they were going to get pruned this fall anyway. I didn’t want to use the new canes coming up, they still have a few ft to grow. Jewel grows quite a bit like a blackberry, where wyoming black seems to grow more compact and bushy like a raspberry. maybe it’s because I have an older plant, or do all black raspberries grow long whippy floricanes?

temporary setup for hardening off newly rooted plants. every day or two I advance the trays forward until they’re into the sun and out of the mist. they’re also fertilized to help kick start some growth. given 1-2 weeks the small pots fill up with roots and some new growth starts, then they’re ready to plant into beds until next fall (2024). some things like fast growing currants or grapes could be acceptable size to ship this fall, trying to decide if I should grade them for size and offer some p+0 this winter. For sure most trees and shrubs propagated from softwood need a full year, some seedlings need 2 #propagation

own root hydrid plums, “toka” cultivar developed 100 years ago in south dakota. The bright green flish of growth after rooting is a very good sign that the new trees are healthy. I wonder how many of them have been grown on their own roots like this. #plumtree #propagation #ownrooted

prairie sunset sea buckthorn rooted cutting. #propagation

own root plum trees well rooted in their pots, hardened off and going into nursery beds. Toka is the best cultivar I’ve trialed so far for this method, but steadily finding more through experimentation. Some prunus is very hard to root, like americana just gives up and drops it’s leaves, maybe it needs the environment more tuned like a different mist schedule, or some pre-treatment. If anyone has been able to root american or canadian plum (P. americana, P. nigra) by layering or cuttings let me know. #propagation #plumtree #treenursery #growingtrees #fruittrees #fruittreenursery

haskaps hardened off and going in the ground. these rooted a couple of weeks ago and had some part shade and gradually less mist, last move is into full sun a few days. if the leaves freak out and curl up and go brown then it was too fast, so slowly is better. signs of new leaf growth are good, the new ones will handle hot and dry full sun. #propagation #haskap #honeyberry

green elf plum rooted cutting. It’s an old cherry plum bred in Saskatchewan. It’s a cross between manchurian plum and sand cherry.. P. ussuriensis x P. besseyi .. kind of awesome parentage for a tasty green plum, I would like to cross it with some of the other chums which are besseyi x salicina.. one day #propagation #softwoodpropagation #plumtree #cherryplum

first sea buckthorns rooted this summer (seaberry). Altaiskaya is a russian cultivar that’s almost thornless. #seabuckthorn #seaberry #propagation

bunchberry rooted cutting, i think there’s a bottom node there. wasn’t sure if it would work, but they spread rhizomally. would like to get these established here #propagation #bunchberry

same plant different rooting hormone. nanking cherry at 5 weeks. right is off the shelf iba talc, left is an in house formula i’m testing made from pure hormones in an aqueous stock solution. left is a stronger result the rooting is up the stem and the roots are thicker, more dense. #propagation #rootingplants

kuban comet asian plum softwood rooted. Took about a month, firm softwood cuttings 4000ppm iba talc some bottom heat. Own root plum trees are the goal, just takes some trialing to sort out the recipe. These and most other plum cultivars I root this summer will spend the winter well insulated in the new root cellar that’s under construction at the back of the greenhouse - a must since they have a poor ability to harden off in time right after rooting. Chums do fine left in the ground, but many other prunus seem to need extra care just the first winter, plum trees especially - it’s like they get confused when you do this to them. #propagation

compartmentalization in an evans cherry cutting from a tray that was too wet, it was under a misting nozzle that drips. I’m showing the process of trimming and redipping in some iba talc - and the results. Also a bundle of cuttings from a tray at the right moisture level, all healthy an starting to root at 4 weeks. #propagation #softwood #cherrytree

west african basil grows more like a perennial than other basil species, i made some softwood cuttings to see how it roots under mist. Usually you can just use water, but not for this one. The leaves have this awesome deep spicy scent. #basil

old homestead cottonwood cuttings from our 125 year old tree at our old farm.

alpine currant from semi-hardwood cuttings at about three weeks. the fruit are cool range of red and yellow color similar to clove currant, and taste good. #propagation

riverbank grape vitis riparia, super cold hardy, survives above the snow in -40. video is softwood cuttings rooted in two weeks under mist. #grapes #propagation #softwoodpropagation

kappa cherry plums. working on multiplying these hundred year old cultivars like sapa, opata, dura, manor, and some newer ones like sapalta and new oka. prunus names are funny, I’m also grow nadia, green elf and p. cerasifera which are all very different species from the old hansen chums but… also called cherry plums. #propagation #treenursery #cherryplum

hey I got an apricot to root. own root apricots is one of my goals this summer since rootstocks that are cold hardy either have PBR or you usually need to grow from seed. #propagation

organized taking softwood cuttings. bagged cuttings are fine in the fridge for a day, prep the leaves and print some labels before heading to the greenhouse. Chums are a good example where good labels are essential, the cultivars all have identical foliage. #propagation

black nanking cherry rooted at 16 days. P. tomentosa x besseyi #propagation

potting basil propagated from cuttings. my basil project this summer is to grow as many types as possible. they’re going into pots and spaced to avoid cross pollination for seed collection. i might have 20 types growing, many are separate species with interesting characteristics. #basil

Highbush cranberry softwood cuttings.

Virginia creeper from seed some time in March. they’re up to the ceiling and still in small 2.5” pots. I would say you can get plants the size the garden centers sell in a just few months from seed. They way I usually grow these is from softwood or semi-hardwood in July, but seeds seem just as fast to establish new plants. #virginiacreeper #propagation

more success rooting hybrid Japanese / American plum variety Toka. cuttings at 4-5 weeks had callous dipped again in 0.4% IBA and restuck in groups, what I’m starting to consider renovating a tray, added bottom heat for the first time this season. Rooting response has been good, the bottom heat is enough that the medium feels warm. Wondering if any cuttings that take more than 4 weeks = should use stronger hormone and bottom heat. Slowest rooting cuttings I have under mist currently are a few types of prunus, cottoneaster and lilacs. Everything else rooted and has been moved out. This time of year also has an effect, in July species that would root heavily in two weeks are now taking four. Next year I’ll try these Toka cuttings in June and see how they root with 0.8% iba and bottom heat. I think this process can work with Malus, I had some success last year with baccata and those are all going into a stoolbed this fall. It’s fun to consider that these fruit trees aren’t propagated by softwood simply because it’s either been decided it’s not worth the difficulty, or if you have overcome that aspect there isn’t a strong commercial application - a commercial orchard will always use rootstocks. But for the hobbyist, it opens up new possibility for an own root variety of a cultivar which could potentially live longer, grow larger and be more hardy. At minimum if winter kills the top it’s going to regrow true to type. #propagation

added some bottom heat to a few trays to speed up rooting, maybe this is a good strategy late in the season. So far this year I’ve had good success without any bottom heat. Our mist propagation started up mid June and will run for a few more weeks, we start to get frosts in early September so that’s a hard limit on getting new plants rooted if they’re going to survive the winter. In the photo is a couple trays of plums going on four weeks. The leaves are healthy and some callous is forming. Some of them did root and those have been potted up. Waiting to see how to rest respond to a second dip in rooting hormone and the heat. This is also how I’m figuring out the strength of iba required, all trial and error and a keeping a log of what worked . #progation

Toka plum rooted cutting. who needs rootstocks? #propagation

prepared black currant cuttings for mist propagation in our greenhouse. These are from a consort currant bush I planted twenty years ago, because it’s old and large there’s all kinds of new vigorous growth for cuttings. From this step they’re dipped in rooting hormone and stuck in flats with a 50/50 mix of coarse perlite and peat.

these cascade hops are the first to show some roots in our mist setup after two weeks. Usually after there’s an inch or more if roots it’s time to pot them up and start to harden them off. I’ll wait for a few dozen to be ready before moving them, otherwise if starts to turn into too many small batches. Last year I found cuttings in a tray always have some early and late to root, even. few weeks apart. If would be more simple to start them in 50 cell trays and wait for the entire tray to root before moving them, and skip the step of potting up, but that would take up many times the space. Maybe next year. #propagation #softwoodpropagation #propagate #propagating #propagatingplants #softwoodcuttings #mistpropagation

malus baccata propagated from softwood cuttings under mist last summer. This is a way you could grow apple cultivars on their own roots into larger and longer lives trees. We had a low take rate but adjusting variables would increase it. Going forward it’s more efficient to stool layer, so over the next few years we’ll be making some selections for our bench grafts, the healthiest and fastest growing, most scab resistant and cold hardy should be selected. #appletree #rootstock #propagation #siberiancrab #siberiancrabappletree #treenursery

Nanking cherries (Prunus tomentosa) ripen here in mid July, and the seeds from this tree filled a bed of seedlings we’re growing this year. We also had good results with softwood cuttings, they root quickly and heavily, and we have grafts of them growing on our wild choke cherries. Quickly becoming my favourite prunus to propagate. On my wish list is some of the cool Russian cultivars. I wonder if it’s possible to import a bundle of scion wood with the right phyto and paperwork. #nankingcherry

Our mist propagation benches are filling up, there is an ideal time window around mid to late June that for this type of propagation. There are lots of things that need to go right, and in 4-8 weeks we’ll have turned cuttings into new plants. Because the season is short here in southern Manitoba we need to do this with enough time to develop roots and get them hardened off planted in the ground before fall where they’ll grow on through next year. #propagation

three new cultivars of black currants from dormant hardwood cuttings - growing indoors at 2 weeks from sticking. We also put some in an outdoor bed in May, and held back half just in case. I recommend doing this with a limited resource. These cuttings it turns out are doing better, I think it’s because of the consistent environment, used rooting hormone and low to medium light, humidity dome, even some wax and parafilm out of caution. I wasn’t sure if they would need a temperature differential from top to roots like bottom heat or the cold night time air. Using a peat potting mix just slightly damp. We lost a few in the outside bed because the soil is heavier, although it’s working well for other cuttings like willow. So long as we get some to grow then we can softwood propagate. #propagation #currants

with some patience the pieces of a succulent will root, and they look cool when they start to grow #succulents #propagation

collecting wild red osier dogwood berries for seed. We have these growing from softwood cuttings and also planning seed beds this fall. #propagation #nativeplants

wild high bush cranberry softwood at 28 days under mist #propagation #backyardnursery

Nanking cherry harvest .. Super tasty fruit from a tree I planted in 2004. Picked the tree over the weekend, so I guess these are ripe the same time as saskatoons. collected some more softwood cuttings. #nankingcherry

Nanking cherries at three weeks rooted from softwood cuttings in our mist propagation. #nankingcherry #propagation

Wild cranberry, viburnum sp. flowering today. Thinking about propagating. #cranberry #cranberries #blossom