Cutting how to.

Cut a ~6-8” branch from your plant, we will trim it down as we go

I’m cutting the branch with a sterile blade, right about where my baby finger is sitting

You want to cut the stem on a ~45 degree angle as is creates more surface area on the stem to pull water into the cutting

The lower leaves are to be removed with a sharp blade. Rather than cut perpendicular across the petiole (leaf stem), I cut twice at 45 degree angles to the stem - the ensure no stipules are left on the stem- we want to remove all vegetative tissue - you can see I missed a bit

Now we trim back the laminae - the leaf blades

By trimming these back, we reduce the amount of leaf material on the plant - which actually reduces the plant’s ability to shed water (by removing stomata)

Approximately 1-2 dollar coins worth of leaf surface area is sufficient

Cutting dogma is “always have at least one node in the medium (soil, rockwool, coir etc)

The dogma was from the belief that roots grow from the node (where the petiole/shoot meets the stem)

Water cloning has showed that roots actually grow from anywhere on the stem - but habits

I like to do all the trimming at one time, up to a point. We’re making backups of genetics being tested here, so we just need a couple to survive. Otherwise I cut enough to root a tray.

The cuttings can sit overnight in containers, these were cut last night, but trimmed today

You want to try and get all the cuts to roughly the same length

The uniformity will help when we plug the cuttings into the medium & create trays

Longer cuts can shade neighbors & slow the rooting process

Ideally we want all the rooted cuttings to end up the same height

This purple stemmed Slurricane shows a properly trimmed & removed petiole / stem node

The colour contrast makes it easier to see that we have removed all shoot anatomy, stipules, etc

Why does it take so long to properly take cuttings?

Wash & sterilize everything!

-bucket for soaking the cubes
-10 x 20 nursery trays & inserts
- cutting blades

In a #CoVID world, know plants get viruses too, blades & hands can transfer viruses from one plant to another