Water rooting

The Greek

The Greek

Active member
Anyone on here try water rooting?  What was your experience, good or bad, and any tips?

I am experimenting for the first time with a small batch of cuttings. These are live wood, but lignified, and each one has 4-5 nodes
I scrubbed in soapy water then air dried. Since all of these are branch-ends with the tips intact, I opted against using parafilm.
I clipped the bottoms to get a fresh cut before putting them in water that was diluted with a tiny amount of root hormone.
I did not scrape/score any of them - and I emptied that first batch of water with hormone after about 8 hours, replaced with just water
I am using plastic cups with enough water to cover 1-2 bottom nodes, and swapping out the water every 12 hours (warm water)
I have a open ziploc covering each cup loosely, and both cups were sealed in a clear plastic bin and placed by a north window for some indirect light
Temps inside the bin are steady at 74-75 and humidity level ranges between 80-90%
This is Day 5 and no sign of anything yet. I decided to crack the top of the bin a little today to allow some fresh air in (which of course will drop the temp and humidity levels in the bin)



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@"The Greek"#39 . Hello my friend I gave you a like because of your adventurous spirit in trying this water propagation method. I have no more experience than you do with water propagation. So why cannot say whether I approve or disapprove of your particular water propagation attempt. LOL I am too attempting a water propagation. I did not use a rooting hormone. I read about a few attempts at Water propagation. I picked one then my gardening partner saw a video from the Korean gardener which documented a 17 day water propagation without changing the water. After a week I threatened to p** on his 5 gallon recently up potted fig cuttings if he didn't change the water so he did. It looks like we may have a couple of lenticles forming, but I am not sure. Meanwhile we did start 30 Harvey cuttings that have been in the crisper for 7 months. We went Big Pop 50% Pro mix 50% cocoa. They got a bleach bath, and dip and grow treatment. We did not go with a week starting solution of synthetic fertilizer. The first time I went with General Hydroponics very weak strength. Okay to stay on our thread, in the next week we're going to try 10 or 20 root Riot compressed peat cubes in pH water was maybe very very weak synthetic fertigation, and dip and grow. We may also try a group with just pure water but also application of dip and grow in root Riot cubes. So far my summer propagation results have led to some essential successes, but also a lot of failures. Pray for my cuttings as I pray for yours.
 
Rooting in water has not worked very well for me. But I have several friends who love water rooting figs and swear by it. I have had some success when I have started cutting in water. Once the initials (the little whitish nubs) start swelling, usually after a few days, then I put them in my rooting medium and they seem to do fine. But I couldn’t really tell if it improved anything to start them in water so I stopped doing that. It is fun to experiment with it. I’m sure those who have mastered it can give you the low down.
 
I did not have much success either, I did successfully root a pineapple in water. :)
For me direct rooting is more my speed.
Please keep us updated with your water rooting Costa, I'm curious. :)
 
You’ll have better success soaking dormant cuttings for a day and rooting a different way.

There’s only one person I’ve see do this successfully and encourages other’s to do it in pickle jars. He must have special water because they all rot with mine.
 
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feedback!  From what I have read water rooting is not good for dormant cuttings, so I will never attempt that. All of my cuttings are live wood - either semi- or fully lignified, but definitely not dormant.  So only time will tell - will keep you all posted on my experiment!
 
@"The Greek"#39 . Please keep us informed. My Horticultural intuition says some of these methods will work. Just hard to know which methods, and when you will achieve a breakthrough.
 
I would save the water rooting for things like coleus.  Some plants do well with water rooting, and others do well with a soilless mix.  Figs, in my opinion are part of the 2nd group.  You will almost always end up with stronger plants with a higher overall success rate with rooting in some kind of medium (promix, sand, perrilite, peatmoss....etc).  Unless by water rooting, you mean a propagation station with a bubbler that aerates and circulates the water to spray on the lower part of the cutting...that would work.  But it is fine to give them a few days in the water before transferring to a medium (promix is my preferred).  
Experiments are always good though, and keep us posted on the results.  I would do frequent water changes.
 
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