Today in Agomática we are going to comment on a topic that we have left abandoned since our beginnings, and they are cuttings. We haven’t dedicated any articles to you until today, so we hope this can redeem us and be the beginning of many more. An extensive contribution of photographs to make the cutting easier to understand. Let’s see what Eduardo tells us about cuttings.

OBTAINING PLANTS FROM CUTTINGS

A few thousand years ago, quite a few, some of our ancestors, a tribe, no more than 50. We are located somewhere in Andalusia, next to a water bank. They are hunters, although they collect fruits and seeds. They dominate fire and their settlement is winter. They have already been here in previous years and, with the spring, they will leave to the north, after the herds that go up to the pastures. In the hollows they have set up camp, some of the tribe wander from here to there, almost all women and children.

Others, including the elderly, cut poplar branches to make beds, firewood, and hunting spears. Also for defense. There are bears, a huge saber-fanged tiger, lions and vermin.

The little ones make holes around the entrance, others bury logs in them to form a palisade. They have to reinforce the shed and they do it with esparto grass. It is dry, from the previous year, the one they used to shake the skins and tan them.

The cold, the beasts and with them our ancestors left, until the following winter. What they do not know is that, after their abandonment, the spring rains flooded the margins and part of the camp. Winter returns and hunters. Without giving credit to his vision, some of the poles of his palisade have sprouted and, curious, they are the same as the riverside trees.

Humanity has just discovered the cutting , the simplest thing to reproduce most plants. This is the way I imagine History, it is possible that it contains some truth, the important thing is that all culture was transmitted from parents to children and today we enjoy it, it is therefore a duty to teach and transmit knowledge.

The plant is a living being with little cellular differentiation.  It does not have a liver, kidneys or muscles, and that is why it is quite easy to cause cell differentiation for a part, leaf or wood to transform its cells into roots.

HOW TO MAKE A CUTTING?

First we must know when and from what part of the plant we can obtain the best result, whether it is a leaf, a stem with or without a leaf, in vegetation or dormant, wood of the year, two years or more.

As a general rule we will say that the deciduous plant is better to get the stake , a branch, in early winter. But this does not mean that we stagnate immediately, except in a warm bed, and even then and everything may not give good results.

We will take the stakes and we will have made a perpendicular cut to the stem in the upper part, the one that will remain in the air to understand each other, and another oblique in the lower part, which will be the part to bury, stake, and we will wrap them in newspaper, never in plastic, all in the same direction. We will keep them in a cold and dry place horizontally, in a refrigerator or buried in dry sand. The stake is still alive , remember it. It is not a piece of wood that we bury and it resuscitates sprouting, no.

After the winter cold and depending on the area, for some January for others it will be March, we dig up the cuttings, with 5 knots at least, and prepare a piece of land or some pots. If the stake requires it, we will immerse it in a rooting-enhancing liquid , or in powdered hormones for hard stake, the part cut obliquely, and proceed to stake, at least three knots , it is advisable.

Another tip. Do not get cuttings from flowering woody plants, they generally do not root.

AND WHAT DO WE DO WITH THE EVERGREENS?

There are fewer generalizations here. The rosemary rooted in midsummer, carob not rooted. Well yes, but in difficult conditions for the uninitiated. There are books with “recipes” for each type of plant, “THE STACKING”   by Van den Heede , I reproduce a bit of a sheet:

I will explain a bit, but first I highlight the Peat + sand : in August, this species has already flowered and is cut in full vegetation, in green it is said, a witness lot in water, H2O, for 21 hours, 0 rooted. Just below: in IB (indole butyric acid, 100 mml / liter solution) 21 hours, 80 cuttings valid after 43 days.

I have not looked for anything on the net, but I suppose there will be lists with many plants and their ways of cutting, but the experience is a degree.

We are going to see in different photos very easy staking:

These plants can be cut without a petiole or almost without it, but the care is greater.

An explanation: The petiole or petiole joins the stem with the leaf and those that do not have are called sessile or seated. Why sitting? Well, in contrast to “petiole” which means “foot”, from pes pedis and it is not what we think, that is to say, standing leaf or with foot and seated leaf, sedere, from which “sedentary” will surely come.

Forgive me these metaphysical paragraphs, but you can see that Latin is useful to an Engineer every day of his life, to understand and explain better and go a little further. I do not understand the current teaching, forgive me the teachers and young people.

I continue. Steps to cut a Saintpaulia and all those that resemble it: good kitchen scissors, clean, and a fish tray, also clean, even if it has soil from the previous cutting:

It is important that the tray is perforated to ensure proper drainage of the makeshift container.

What kind of land? Peat, sand and mulch or well composted substrate.

THE PROCESS OF FORMING CUTTINGS STEP BY STEP

1 STEP: MAKE A CLEAN CUT

2ND STEP: BURY THE PETIOLE UP TO THE UNDERSIDE, UNTIL THE LEAF SETTLES.

The petiole is lightly pressed on the moistened substrate until the leaf is in contact with it, without actually burying it.

I have taken this sheet for various reasons. It’s not cut well, but I’ll fix it. It has a slit. It is by “sedere” on the edge of the pot. It is possible that now, those of you who have them, understand why the leaves of Saintpaulia break on their own or so easily. And finally, there it roots, which is why the blade, touching the ground, should be slightly raised. Better with photos.

We fill the pot and press the earth gently. We take the seedling and support the roots in the ground to proceed to burying it. No watering like a beast, please.

THE RESULTS

I hope I have been useful and the wood cuttings are still pending. But before that someone asked me something about the fertilizers.