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Propagation by cuttings is the most preferred and easy technique, plants are true to the mother plant and can flower within the next two or three years. Grafting is a method for those who are skilled, and used for those cultivars which do not root readily as cuttings, or if the plant must be reproduced in a shorter time.
The easiest way to root cuttings is to stick them into the ground and wait. However, only very few people will be successful by this, living in a very suitable friendly climatic area. Most other people need to use or establish a propagator box. This is something like an old terrarium, preferably with bottom heat, and a light source. The box should be completely closed to insure a humidity of 100%. This is best done with a thin plastic sheet, glued with water to the box. Cuttings can be hold this way in the box up to a year without loosing freshness.
I prefer to stick the cuttings into individual small (4 cm) plastic pots, since the rooting time might differ considerably. The bottom of the box must always contain water for appropriate humidity. Cuttings must have at least 16 hours of light (use any fluorescent tube). No sunshine please.
Propagation boxes can be kept at different temperatures: temperate at 18 to 22 degrees of Celsius, or warm at 25 to 28 degrees of Celsius.
The temperate box.
This is the more easy method, since the constrains on the soil are less. It takes longer to root, but does not take many care. Best potting soil is peat with sand (about 5 to 1 mix by volume). Add about 2 grams of calcium carbonate to 1 liter of potting medium to adjust pH. Keep the medium moist and wait.
The warm box
In the warm humid atmosphere most soil will decompose very easily, and the cuttings will stay too wet and fungus infected. Furthermore, there are hotter and colder spots in the box, and water will evaporate from the hot to the colder spots. This way is extremely difficult to keep the soil moist, it is either wet or dry, and both conditions are deleterious to the plants. Keep the box extremely clean, and sterilize the potting mix in a pressure cooker, if you use the above mix. It is thus indicated to experiment with different potting material with more advantageous properties. I first tried vermiculite, a puffed glimmer material. It works, but decays within half a year. Presently I use pure living peat moss (sphagnum), cut into pieces of about 1 cm. This material is stable, fungicide and grows itself well in the box. It has a lot of air pockets and cannot be over watered. Root balls with the moss can then be transferred into normal peat mixture. However, Camellias tend to create a lot of callus if too much air is present (allegedly), and some cultivates have difficulties, whereas others do well. Recently I started experiments with composted coconut fibres, which do not decay, hold water very long, and have enough air without pockets. It is also fungicide. I will report at this place on further experience with this medium. I suppose that also fur bark of the right grain size is a very appropriate medium.
The cuttings
You can take cuttings from camellias all year, except during the short vegetative period. A good time is summer, when the new shoot is half ripe, i.e. the bark turns just brown. Cuttings may root then within 6 weeks. However, any other time is suitable, it just takes longer. I have successfully taken cuttings from a mother plant frozen to about -15 degrees of Celsius. There is a lot of magic in the time of day to cut. One cannot always follow this advice: Select the mother plant, go out and stay with her over night, and do the cutting in the dawn. You can do it in sunshine, but clouded days are perhaps better. If you cannot stick them immediately (you are on a journey), put them in a plastic bag, tie it and place them in the refrigerator (+5°C) in the mini bar at your hotel room. They can be sticked weeks later. (The fridge has a positive effect anyhow, and some professionals cool all their cuttings for two weeks before sticking).
A cutting may have 1 to 5 leaves, 3 to 5 are normal. Some methods say that you have to cut underneath a leaf axle, take off the leaf and take off a sliver of bark. You can believe this or not, it is difficult to proof any differences. Thus you may cut an internode, and leave or peal off the lowest leaf. It doesn't matter.
Important: Write the name of the cultivar with a black felt marker ( Edding 400) on a leaf! Etiquettes are easily lost and/or intermixed.
The rooting
Cambium cells are living cells underneath the bark. They are specialized to control and make the radial and longitudinal growth of the stem, by dividing and elongating. If wounded, cambium cells loose their specialization and produce a rather undifferentiated cell mass, known as 'callus'. Callus cells proliferate and cover the wound, thereby protecting the plant. The first step in rooting is always the callus formation. Fresh dividing callus is white, and later it turns brown when it is no longer growing. Roots can only be generated from white callus. If you recognize brown callus, cut it off and restick. Optimal rooting occurs if the callus formation period is short. Some Camellias and perhaps certain cultivars tend to stay in the callus period, and the callus becomes larger and larger. A large callus can provide a plant with water and nutriments, so it can live several years; however, under stress the plant dies, and else it remains a cripple. If this happens, take a sharp knife, cut down the callus ball and restick (eventually repowder, see below).
Dormant vegetative buds of a cutting can easily shoot, especially in the warm box. Further, with light and humidity and warm temperatures, the shoot ripens, induces new buds, which eventually convert into flower buds. However, be aware: This all can happen without any root formation! Thus it is very difficult to judge whether or not the cutting is rooted and can be taken out of the propagator box. With Sphagnum moss as the substrate, you can lift the plant, and rooting is easily recognized. With more denser substrates, you should wait until root tips occur at the bottom holes of the pot. If they do not show up within 6 to 9 months, or if the buds turn brown, discard the cutting.
Rooting powder
Under the influence of plant hormones, callus cells can differentiate to shoot tissue (under kinetin) or root tissue (under auxin). Auxin is produced in young leaves and perhaps in growing vegetative buds, and transported towards the roots. If the stem is cut, the auxin will accumulate at the cut and hopefully induce callus to form root tissue. This is the reason that rather young shoot cuttings root best.
This knowledge is the basis of rooting powder application. The powder is inert talcum, with about 0.5 or 1% of an artificial auxin. For Camellias, the useful auxin is indole butyric acid. Too high a concentration of auxin inhibits root formation.
Try Seradix No. 2, for semi hardwood. Powder application is not very accurate, but for amateurs the best way. Professionals better apply solutions, but their preparation and lifetime is too difficult to control by amateurs. Don't wet the cutting before dipping, too much powder might adhere. I dip my cuttings into pure aceton, which is more fluid than water, and then into the powder. Auxins are very soluble in aceton, and it has an antifungal effect. It works, but may be mistery.
Rooting powder decays with moisture, light, temperature and time. Store the powder in the fridge, never dip cuttings in the plastic box itself, and replace powder after a year. If no powder is available, stick the cuttings without, rooting will be delayed, perhaps, by 3 weeks.
Aftercare of plantlets
Plantlets are either seedlings or rooted cuttings in their first two years.
Roots of young cuttings are extremely sensitive to excess moisture. If water clogged, the plant is lost. Remember that small pots are very difficult to water control. It is therefore of paramount importance that the potting medium is well aerated, and will not decompose to cloggy earth within a year. I very much hope that the mentioned coconut fibres are an improvement, I will report when I have the experience.
Vegetative growth of Camellias is obviously best at constant temperature of about 25 degrees of Celsius, with at least 16 hours of high intense light (10.000 lux), in a humidity of 60 to 80% (not more). If kept this way (I have them in the basement), young plants may have several shoots per year instead of one or two, and develop much faster to healthy plants soon abel to flower.
Camellia Propagationby Klaus Peper |
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