How do you take cuttings?

Hi

I'm having about a 50/50 success rate with my cuttings.

I have read from other people that some of you are up at 100% , so I would love some advice from you.

My failures are staying upright in the rooting medium but rotting from the bottom of the cutting up inside the stem. Eventually (after about 2/3 weeks) they will just collapse where the stem has rotted above the soil level.

Other cuttings taken at the same time, using the same method, medium, humidity dome and rooting gel have all done really well and are full plants now.

If it helps your advice my system is as follows:
- I take cuttings 3 or 4 leaf nodes down and remove lower fan leaves and maybe some other pruning/clipping nof leaves depending on the cutting etc. 45degree cut, rotting gel, straight into pre-watered ph neutral mix of soil, perlite and/or vermiculite.
They then get put into a humidity dome and misted once a day.

Your help is always very appreciated. This would be almost impossible without you guys.
kiss-ass


Cheers
Plantsman

Look for a nice healthy brance then look for the new leaves on top new growth the next step is follow it down the stem counting each brance[nodes] you want at most 4 nodes from top then snip it of at a 45 degree angle once you have it in your hands i cut it again but this time under some water this stops air getting trapped in the stem still at a 45 degree angle then get a razor blade and put small little cuts into the stem at the bottom makeing sure only just to cut a little dont go all the way trough not even harf way.The next step is to take of the bottom 2 set of leaves i take the full brance off at this point you should be left with your top set of new leaves and 2 more set of leaves lower down put your clone into some rooting gel and your there load of stuff on you tube you should watch that too.use gel i think it's alot better than rooting powder but both work take more than you need just incase any don't make it.Don't let anyone tell you it's hard its easy has punch grow them in rock wool cubes and it may take a couple of weeks for roots to show they need putting in a propagation unit i only use water and multithrive at a ph of around 5.5 dip the cubes b4 you put clones in squeze out some of the water then for a week or so just spray cubes but most of all the leaves this is the plants only way of getting feed untill it recives it's root system also spray propagation unit lid 1 /2 aday but don't over do it with the water spraying leaves and lid 2 times a day is ok morning and last thing at night.

Well, i been offline for a while, dont worry folks I didnt get spun, just been sorting out my wedding plans!!
Anywho, thanks for all the responses to my cutting problem. Anyway, I've been experimenting a bit and it seems the way that works for me is to put the cuttings straight into 100% vermiculite. Also i've started making the 45o cut under cutting gel so that no air gets to the cut only rooting hormone.

Anyone got anything to say or we all gone quiet for some reason...?

Sounds like your cuttings are too wet. I had the same problem on my first few batches of clones. Make sure the medium is nice and wet when you plant the cuttings but don't keep watering it every day. Let it get dry enough so that its just barely moist before you water it again.

be sure to make good sized holes and don't let the rooting hormone come off as you put them in, get your ph around 5.5

Yeah, I think my soil was too wet. But like I said i've started using 100% vermiculite now and they're rocking! I also think that I may have been knocking off the rooting hormone, so thanks dudes. I take cuttings of all plants in my profession but never with such care and attention as this!!
I'd say i'm getting about 90% success now. Some of them take fkucing ages... like nearly a month, but it rooted and is started to bud nicely.
Sweet