amorph leaf cuttings/tc

From: Steve Marak samarak at arachne.uark.edu> on 2002.06.11 at 21:49:26(8986) Petra, I think you, Kathy Upton, and I had some discussion of amorph leaf cuttings as far back as the early 90's! On Tue, 11 Jun 2002, Petra Schmidt wrote: +More > I've done the leaf cuttings with newly emerged leaf material and with older, > end of the season leaf material and both seem to respond the same, not all > successful but what survives will form a tuber and send up a leaf. I've > swapped notes with other aroiders playing around with this and there's more > failures than successes, but I think placing cuttings under mist makes a > positive difference (cool moisture). I've tried a few with and without > rooting hormones as well, no big difference seen there. Again, I'm just > playing with these when I can afford the time and plant material. I still haven't tried titanum, but there are several species I routinely propagate by leaf cuttings. Of those, I have also not seen any difference between cuttings taken soon after leaf emergence or later, with one exception: if I wait until the plant is near dormancy again, they don't ever seem to take. I don't really find this surprising. But right up until you see that characteristic very slight change in appearance that signals oncoming dormancy, yes. I haven't kept any records, but I'd say that across the few species I've tried I'm getting about 60% to take. As to what I mean by that, I take a set of relatively small cuttings (to minimize leaf surface lost by the donor) all at once, either from a single plant or set of clones, which all tend to stay in synch. Having given it/them one setback, I don't take any more during that growth cycle. So, I wind up with 3 of 5, 4 of 6, etc. That's with no mist but relatively high (65-70%) humidity (no pun intended). It's been a very easy and trouble free method for me - I put them on shady shelves in the greenhouse and tend to forget about them for weeks at a time. This discussion has gotten me interested again. I think I'll try a few new species tonight. Steve -- Steve Marak -- samarak@arachne.uark.edu

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