Cloning Machnines - Transferred from QDMA forum

[yoderjac]

Lately, I've been trying to start different plants from cuttings. I'm learning as I go. I eventually have been having good success with elderberry. I also tried persimmons. Details are at the end of this thread: http://www.qdma.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47890
Right now, it looks like my success with persimmons will be very low or zero. Eight out of ten of them I tried have now whithered. I'm expecting the other two will follow suit soon.
I knew before I started that rooting persimmons from cuttings was going to be a challenge. There are some real advantages of this if I can get it to work because I know the new trees will be female and will be as promiscuous as the original tree.
I am now considering a cloning machine. I am looking at a botanicare clone machine 25. It seems reasonably priced at about $130 with shipping.
- Does anyone have any experience with cloning machines?
- Has anyone tried them with hard to clone cuttings like persimmon or jujube?
- Does anyone have an experience with this machine or any other specifically?
- Any experience with specific rooting solutions?
Thanks in advance,
Jack

 

[yoderjac]

Back in college I did a research project on the use of sub-irrigation for propagating different species of vegetative cuttings vs your typical overhead mist propagation. This was for herbaceous species though. We used a botanicare model not sure which one anymore but it was a 50 or 60 site model. Basically my findings showed that time to root was decreased by a few days and the incidence of disease, primarily botrytis, was zero using sub-irrigation. Overhead mist had nearly the same percentage of successful propagation but some botrytis was seen in a small percentage of the cuttings. We used a combintation of IBA and NAA treatment to help facilitate rooting. Without digging through some old files I couldn't tell you what percentage of each hormone was used. I've never tried any hardwood cutting using that method but sure have thought it would be a neat experiment.

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks. I'm considering this as one possible approach to achieving my goal but I'm having a hard time finding data that give me confidence. The other option is to simply start trees from seed and then T&G graft scions from the target tree at the appropriate time like they do with apples.
I was really hoping a cloning machine would be the answer...

 

[yoderjac]

It seems to be hard to find information on propagating persimmons using cuttings. I finally found one study (it was in Portuguese and I had to use google to translate it). They looked at the use of different concentrations of IBA in both hard and softwood cuttings.
It was focused on Japanese persimmons not American but the results are probably relevant. They didn't really show that IBA helped. However, the most useful thing I found was the final conclusion:
"Thus, it was concluded that the persimmon cultivars vary in the potential formation of roots and shoots; herbaceous cuttings are more likely in the propagation through cuttings compared to hardwood cuttings."
So, I think I'll give it a go this summer with herbaceous cuttings.

 

[yoderjac]

Well, I decided to try one of these machines. I just ordered a Botanicare 25. When starting cuttings in medium you can't really see what is going on with root development. I think this machine will allow me to try different techniques, and see what effect they have on the cuttings without killing or setting back a plant by digging it up.
I think there are a few things that I'd do differently next time.
- I think I'd use an angled cut on top of the plant angling away from the last bud instead of a horizontal cut.
- I think I'll use some kind of sealant on the cut to reduce drying.
- I think I'll select 2 year old wood.
- I think I will scrape the bark off the lower part of the cutting to expose the cambium layer like you do when bark grafting.
I still have two persimmons alive and my fingers are still crossed.

 

[yoderjac]

When I got back from the Farm today, my cloning machine had arrived. Expecting it to, I did a little more persimmon pruning and I saved the trimmings.
I put the thing together and tested it with no problems. I plan to put it into use tomorrow. I'll report back and let you know how things go.

 

[yoderjac]

I haven't tried, but can't hurt, why not try a few air layering experiments, score a few young branches hit em with rooting hormone, wrap in damp sphag, and then cover in plastic and leave till fall. Check for roots, prune off your new tree, plant after the mother plant, and the new one, have dropped their leaves for the winter. most of the dips are IBA, indol-buteric acid compounds of differing strengths.

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks for the suggestion. I've been reading everything I can find on starting Persimmon trees from cuttings. Several folks have tried air layering and none have reported much success.
I tried to root some in Farfard 3B in rootmaker cells. I started them with the cells sitting in solid flats with heating pads under the flats. I kept them on a cold window seal with just natural light for several weeks. I used 0.08 rooting hormone. The idea was to stimulate rooting by heating from below and slow budding until roots were established. I tried 10 of them. After several weeks, I moved them from the heating pads into normal hanging cells in an indoor greenhouse.
Nine of them leafed out eventually, but all of them shriveled up. The last one was shrivelled today when I got home. I plan to do a post mortem on them tomorrow to see if any had significant rooting.
I have not been able to find anyone who has tried a cloning machine with Persimmon. That is the main reason I decided to experiment with this myself.

 

[yoderjac]

My last surviving persimmon shriveled up and died, so I conducted a post mortem on them today. They all looked pretty much like this:

As you can see, there was very little rooting. Perhaps if I had kept them on the heating pad longer and waited longer before putting them in the greenhouse, they might have done better.
We will see if the cloning machine can do any better.
Here it is:

It has a plastic reservoir that holds 2 1/2 gal of water. There is a small water pump that sits in the bottom of the tank. The power cord exits through a pre-drilled hole with a rubber grommet above the water line. PVC plumbing is used to direct the out put of the pump to spray tips mounted on top (yellow in the picture).

The lid which just sits on top has 25 cloning sites. There is a neoprene plug for each site. The picture above shows the lower left two sites empty, the lower right 3 sites with cuttings inserted, and the rest of the sites with the neoprene plugs with no cuttings.
You simply fill the unit with purified water, adjust the pH, add cloning fluid and nutrient solution and you are ready to go. The next post will show my first use with the persimmons.

 

[yoderjac]

I used a variety of persimmon scions for this. I took them off of a local common persimmon female tree at the farm. I was afraid to use any of the improved variety scion wood I received since it is precious, at least until I get a few trees of it under cultivation. Here is a typical scion I started with.

Notice the yellow on the top end. Once of the things I considered that it takes so long for persimmons to root, it is very for them to dry out. So, after I cut them from the trimmings, I dipped the top end into some grafting seal. I did this with most of the scions. I also decided to leave the terminal buds on some of the scions for variety. Those are pretty thin scions, but I wanted to be sure I had a variety of one and two year wood.
After making a 45 degree cut, based on some of the reading I've done, I decided to wound the scions but scraping the bark off until the cambium layer was showing. You can see the slight green tint in the picture.

The directions for the cloning machine just call for the liquid cloning solution. But since persimmons are so hard to root, I decided to dip each scion in rooting hormone before starting the cloner up. I know it will wash off, but it will then be part of the solution. Here is the scion with the rooting hormone and inserted in the neoprene plug.

Here is the cloning machine filled with scions and ready to go:

The directions suggest you place the cuttings a foot or so under a fluorescent light. Some cloning machines come with a hood to help control humidity and keep the cuttings from drying out. This unit does not. A hood restricts the size of the cuttings you can use. So, I decided to simply place the cloning unit inside one of my indoor greenhouses. This lets me use larger cuttings. I also decided to leave the lights off for a while to slow top growth.
The instructions say that you should see roots in 3 to 10 days, but the reading I've done says it can take 30 days for hard to root species like persimmon.

 

[yoderjac]

This is pretty cool.....Never knew they made such a thing....:)

 

[yoderjac]

It is a pretty simple design. I don't think it would be hard to make one yourself. I just figured, being a novice, I'd remove any variable of doing a homebrew. If I knew the technique would work for sure on the trees I want to clone, I would have tried a homebrew. I'll bet you could make one for less than $50.

 

[yoderjac]

I stopped on the way home today at the pet store and picked up an aquarium heater. I ran the cord through the same grommet as the pump. I had to take off the lid to add the heater, so I got to check the cuttings. No roots of course but that was expected. Also as expected, the rooting hormone had washed off. All of the cuttings were dripping wet, so they are all being irrigated well.

 

[yoderjac]

VERY interesting thread!

Jack,
This cloning machine is pretty interesting, and I'm very curious about the results. To what temperature are you trying to heat up the water with your aquarium heater? 70-75 degrees F?

give er a go now, but don't get discouraged if you have poor results, but be ready to try again in the fall: http://tinyurl.com/a4f9ybl
while you have this batch going, I would try a few root cuttings also, find your favorite female tree, dig down a couple feet out from base, locate roots, take cuttings from 1/4 to 3/8ths thick roots. Cut 6 to 8 inch long cuttings, dust with mix of fungicide and IBA, lay horizontally in your cloning machine and give them a try. if horizontal not an option, orient tree end up in the clone machine.

 

[yoderjac]

Yes, they suggest keeping the water in that temperature range which is right in the range for tropical fish. I figured an aquarium heater was the easiest way to do this. I'm running out of power in my basement. I just moved the small indoor greenhouse the unit is sitting in to the basement from the family room. If I plug in the heater, it trips the breaker. The temp down there ranges from about 63 to 72 degrees over a 24 hour period. I also thought heating the water with the tops being cooler might help focus cutting energy on rooting over leafing.
When I did a survey, here is what I found:
- Root cuttings: A pain in the butt and hard to do in volume but reasonable results.
- Starting cuttings in a professional mix: Found no reports of success.
-Air layering: Found a number of folks who said they were going to try it on various forums but none reported back, so I assumed they failed.
- Cloning Machine: I could find no one who attempted it with Persimmon.
I'm not counting on success with the cloning machine, but it gives me a great platform for experimenting. For example, after they are in the machine for a week, I plan to turn off the machine and let them dry for an hour or so. I'll then take 1/2 of them and dip them in rooting hormone again. I let them sit with the rooting hormone on them for another hour or so before turning the machine back on.
After they have been in for 2 weeks, I'll repeat this process on 1/2 of the one cuttings treated after week 1.
I may repeat this cycle one more time. In the end, I'll have data on multiple exposure to rooting hormone. You can't do this with other methods.
I am looking at both air layering and using root cuttings. If I can get even marginal success from cloning machine, I'm considering keeping a root cutting source tree containerized in rootmaker pots. I would pull the tree from the pot, take enough root cuttings easily without having to dig up and injure a tree in production and verify the roots I got actually came from the target tree. I could then replace it in the pot and wait for the roots to regenerate before repeating the process. Just thinking out loud.
Thanks,
Jack

 

[yoderjac]

sounds like a plan, a lot of the stuff I read said to try semi hardwoood cuttings in the fall. if you get it figured out, I bet you will have a line of customers.........

 

[yoderjac]

Good point. I plan to try several batches this year with different aged wood.
Here is one more thing I'm mulling over. The problem with cuttings seems to be that root development is so slow that the scion runs out of energy before sufficient roots develop to support the plant.
One would think that Air Layering would be the ticket, but I couldn't try that until spring anyway. I've seen two techniques for air layering. One removes a section of bark and cadmium layer from the entire circumference of the branch. The other makes a cut and uses a toothpick to prevent healing.
I've seen several folks who said they were trying Air Pruning but I don't know which technique they used. None have reported success.
I would suspect the second technique would have a better chance with persimmon. By allowing some main root system support for the branch during scion root establishment, I would think you could have enough time to get good roots. If I get to air layering, I may try the second technique.

 

[yoderjac]

Jack,
I'll be following this thread. Post updates (positive as well as negative).

Jack, you are definitely an asset here on the forum.
A real, get down to the meat of the matter type guy.
I appreciate all you do here on the forum.

 

[yoderjac]

Thanks for the kind words. I'm not expecting great results. I would think if it was practical to do this, someone would have figured it out already and be doing it commercially. However, you never know when you may stumble on something that works fine for the small scale QDMer that isn't commercially viable. These things often get discarded or overlooked by the commercial sector.
I do plan to keep reporting back any results both positive and negative. Every success I've had is built on a foundation of many failures.

 

[yoderjac]

Hey, if you don't fail...you didn't try hard enuf.

Jack,
I KNOW you've been doing a lot of reading on propagating persimmons. Have you ever read this paper?
"Single-node Stem Cuttings from Root Suckers to Propagate a Potentially Dwarfing Rootstock for Japanese Persimmon?"

http://horttech.ashspublications.org/content/10/4/776.full.pdf+html
It was published in Hort Technology, and I believe it's interesting and might be helpful for your projects.

The USDA/NRCS web sight says persimmon can be propagated from cuttings, but not all cuttings are created equal. Persimon can be started from cuttings, but it's difficult. I started pears from cuttings, and got two pears from about a dozen cuttings. So with Persimmon plant lots of cuttings, expecting most to die.
Two things I noticed from your pics. #1 there should be 2/3 of the cutting in the medium, so the top doesn't dry out. #2 the hood, or a clear plastic bag should be used to create a humid/greenhouse effect.
Persimmon has no anaerobic tolerance, which means it doesn't survive in saturated soil or flooding. That tells me that the cuttings should be in moist, but not saturated soil. Rooting cuttings is a balancing act between rooting and rotting, and sand is less likely to cause decay than soil.
Some cuttings will leaf, but that doesn't mean they've rooted. When plants leaf, you're halfway there, and humidity is important when leaves appear. Without humidity or a mist system, leafed out cuttings are likely to die, because the leaves are drawing from a cutting that's not rooted.
When a plant can be rooted from cuttings, that doesn't necessarily mean hardwood cuttings like we discuss on the forum. Cuttings can be hardwood, semi-hardwood or softwood. It appears the best success with persimmon is semi-hardwood. Here is info:
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Seeding-Propagation-733/Wild-persimmon.htm
Good luck, and I hope to see success pics. :)

Does your rooting machine come with a lid? If not it may help to cover them with something to keep the humidity up. i agreee w/ brushpile you need to experiment with different types of cuttings too...dormant hardwood is a start but you can take softwood and semis later on. Also, you may consider something to keep algae at bay. A product called zerotol is often used...its basically a very concentrated form of hydrogen peroxide. It converts to something else rather quickly so you'll need to keep adding it. Try it without first but if you start getting slimes and algae you'll need to try something to set it back.