I just bought some powder rooting hormone from Home Depot (Shultz brand). Neither the bottle nor the box has any directions as to how to use this. Last year I cloned a bunch of plants in the fall by just sticking them in water and for the most part it worked. I wanted to try the rooting compound this year.
After dipping the cuttings in the compound do I stick it in a glass of water or should I just stick the cutting in potting soil?
Coat the cutting such that when you insert it into the rooting medium the power shows 1/2" or less. I prefer to use vermiculite as a rooting medium and have it barely moist. Make a hole with a pencil, insert the cutting, and _lightly_ tamp down. For woody stems I prefer to cover the pot and cutting with a plastic bag. Set the cutting in the brightest light (no sun) or 2" from fluorescent tubes. You'll get sturdier roots (and a healthier plant) using this method than with plain water.
So what is your cloning question?
Cloning is typically done on the cellular level. Taking plant cuttings is more properly called propagation.
After dipping the cuttings in rooting hormone, they go directly into the rooting medium (soil, moist sand, whatever). Putting them in water would dilute the effect of the hormone.
Thanks for the info. I do have a fluorescent tube lighting area set up to help the cuttings get going. For some reason the garden shop where I used to get big bags vermiculite stopped selling it this Spring and would only sell me perlite. This is in Chicago Illinois. They claimed that they couldn't sell vermiculite anymore due to cancer concerns or something like that. Ironically, I don't think that perlite dust is very good for your lungs either. Anyway, after reading up on hydroponics, they claim that a 50/50 perlite and sand mix is equivalent to vermiculite so I'll have to try that with the cuttings since I do have a lot of perlite and sand.
The problem I see with this is knowing when the cuttings have enough roots to transplant without having to pull them out of their hole periodically. This winter I bought a 400W HID high pressure sodium lamp which allows for a 16 square foot simulated "summer" garden inside. After the cuttings root I'm hoping to simulate Spring in late Fall.
"This winter I bought a 400W HID high pressure sodium lamp which allows for a 16 square foot simulated "summer" garden inside. After the cuttings root I'm hoping to simulate Spring in late Fall."
That's insane. Are you hoping to burn your house down from the intense heat that will generate?
In any case, the sodium bulbs produce most of their light in the yellow range of the spectrum which is no benefit at all to plants. At the very least, you are wasting your money.
There are two types of sodium lamps: high pressure and low pressure. The low pressure lamps are the familiar yellow lamps (sodium D lines) which is indeed of minimal value to plant photosynthesis. The high pressure lamps, on the other hand, present a broader spectrum. They're not quite white lamps, more of a pinkish yellow color, and they're not an optimum match for plant growth but they have more energy in the photosynthesis region than the low pressure lamps and more energy per watt in that area than incandescent lamps. None of the lamps is perfect, which means that a significant part of the energy goes into heating the room (which may be an advantage in the greenhouse, although electric heat is not the cheapest form).
Astronomers have long recommended the low pressure lamps for outdoor lighting since the limited spectral coverage is easier to filter out than a wide spectrum from either the high pressure sodium or incandescent lamps. They have an ongoing campaign to minimize the amount of light pollution in the skies and have convinced many planning groups to specify or at least recommend the low pressure sodium for area lighting. For that reason the Home Depot lamps are more likely to be the low pressure lamps. If you want the lamps for growing plants, you are better off getting recommendations from a greenhouse supply house than looking at Home Depot.
I note that the original post specified a high pressure lamp.
It has been my experience that plants do like HPS lighting, although perhaps not as much as they like fluorescent lighting if you can get the intensity they need.
The lamp produces only a little more heat (and less intense heat) than a
300W halogen lamp, which are commonly used in floor lamps.All that heat doesn't get wasted if you run the lamps in the winter -- it helps to heat you house. It will be noticable on your electric bill. If you run the lamps during the summer, it can really get expensive because you have to pay (air conditioning) to remove all that heat.
I used to run a 400W HPS and a 400W MH lamp at the same time in a small basement room in the winter, but I decided it cost too much so now I just run the HPS and a few F32T8 fluorescents.
Bob
The 400W setup isn't that bad with respect to heat and electrical use. I chose not to get a 1000W setup because the bulbs and kit cost more and the electricity to run it would be 2.5 times as much. Since the 400W can cover a 4' x 4' area that was good enough for my needs.
They use these bulbs to grow marijuana inside as well as vegetables and flowers for indoors. Technically the high pressure sodium provides optimal red spectrum for flowering. The Metal Halide bulbs provide optimal blue for vegetative growth. I chose HPS over MH due to the length of the bulb life and when MH bulbs age its spectrum changes and I didn't want that. I can always supplement the HPS light with fluorescents to get more blue spectrum in.
The 400W HPS light I got puts out 45,000 lumens, much of that light is in the red spectrum. Similar warm fluorescents put out around 2000 lumens per 40 watt bulb. The cool fluorescents put out 4000 lumens per 40 watts. I spent a lot of time at the hardware stores reading labels. :-)
I'm running it 10 hours a day or 4KW/day which runs a little less that a dollar a day. It does supplement heat for the room and it provides simulated sunlight which can help with seasonal affected disorder (SAD). This is something people get during the short days of winter and when the body doesn't get enough sunlight it can make one depressed. The theory is that supplementing sunlight with a light like this can trick the body into thinking the day is longer than it actually is.
Plus I get to garden in the winter. :-)
If anyone is interested I found my light at this place:
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