Last year I took some blueberry cuttings in December or January, placed them in some sand in the shade and watched them start to break dormancy a couple of months later. Not long after that I watched them shrivel and die. This year I wanted to try it again, especially since the time to renovate my container blueberries is loooooong overdue.
Not the prettiest pruning job (below) but it was cold and I had to use a hatchet to separate out the new starts as the upper half of the soil was frozen solid. Ok, so I could have waited but these guys tend to bloom very early and if I didn’t do it now I was afraid the time would get away from me. As it is I only had enough soil (I used a 1/3 topsoil 2/3 peat moss mixture) to do 3 of the 6 buckets. I will probably wait till next winter to do the other three. I ended up getting either 11 or 14 (can’t remember now) rooted starts from the 3 buckets. I placed 3 per 3 gallon container unless it was a small clump then it got its own pot.
Along with the rooted cuttings I thought I would again try my hand at rooting some cuttings. I had a rather large pile of material I cut off during the drastic pruning and decided to do yet another little experiment. I have read where some people take off strips of bark about an inch long at the base of the cutting on one or two sides. I treated half of the cuttings this way. I divided each half of cuttings into 3 groups and all cuttings were dipped in some Dip and Grow diluted to a 5x concentration for 5 seconds. These would be treated as follows.
Group 1.
The cuttings were stuck in some topsoil/peat mixture I had used for the renovation. I placed two wide mouth quart jars over these cuttings. One jar over the cuttings with the 1″ slit and one jar over the cuttings without. The container was placed outside in the shade.
Group 2.
I read where some people have had success rooting roses in a ziplock baggie. One side of the baggie has the cuttings with the 1″ slit, the other the cuttings without. This was placed under flourescent lights in my basement. About an inch of the baggie was left unzipped.
Group 3.
Also under lights group three was stuck into a float tray filled with coconut coir. A single goldfish lives in the water under this tray to keep mosquito larvae at bay. The debris floating in the water is from the feeding a few moments ago.
28 responses so far ↓
1 OldRoses // Feb 17, 2006 at 7:36 am
This is so great! I can’t wait to find out how all the different experiments work out.
2 kerry // Feb 24, 2006 at 7:15 am
I noticed yesterday that the twigs in the baggie have some green on them. I’ll try to post some pics this weekend.
3 Bart // Mar 11, 2006 at 6:23 pm
I TOOK SOME CLIPPINGS FROM MY BLUEBERRY BUSHES AND THEY ARE REALLY STARTING TO GROW HOW LONG DO YOU LEAVE THEM COVERED? SHOULD I PULL ONE UP AND CHECK ROOT GROWTH?
4 kerry // Mar 11, 2006 at 6:39 pm
Bart,
How long ago did you take the cuttings? Some of mine are on their 3rd set of leaves but no roots yet. If you tug lightly and the cutting doesn’t come up more than likely it has rooted. As for how long to leave the bag on that is a good question. I am still learning about all of this myself. It seems to me that the bag should stay on at least partially to keep the humidity up till the cuttings are well rooted. I have heard of people opening the bag little by little and eventually removing it when roots show at the drainage hole of the pot. If they are very crowded in the bag then perhaps a larger bag is in order? Keep me posted.
5 Bart // Mar 12, 2006 at 10:57 pm
I did not write down the exact day, it was about 5 weeks ago. I have the cuttings in a seed starter container and several have started hitting the cover of the container. I have tried rooting a cutting once before and I got the cutting to this stage, but I am sure I did not leave the cutting covered long enough, and it died.
6 kerry // Mar 13, 2006 at 12:00 am
Bart,
It sounds like your cuttings are just ahead of mine time wise though I believe mine are growing slower as they are in probably in a cooler environment.
From everything I’ve read it seems that they can put on quite a bit of top growth before roots start developing. Can you remove the existing cover and somehow fix a clear plastic cover of your own that is taller to give them more growing room? Perhpas an aquarium turned upside down over the tray of cuttings or something to hold up plastic draped over the plants. The idea is to keep the humidity up so anything that would do that and give them room to expand should work. How many new shoots do you have coming out of each cutting? Some of mine had 4 but I cut them back to 2.
Do keep me posted on your project. I’ve tried this before also and failed as I didn’t use any kind of cover. I had plenty of new growth then they all died.
7 Kerry's Garden // Mar 14, 2006 at 7:30 pm
Update: Blueberry Cuttings Day 30
The blueberry cuttings of the lowbush varieties Northcounty and Northsky are coming along so far. These are 30 days out from cutting and are the farthest along. The cuttings outside under glass still aren’t showing any signs of growth and th…
8 kerry // Mar 17, 2006 at 2:07 pm
According to the book Plant Propagation A to Z, Vaccinium should take 30-80 days to root and have an 80% success rate.
9 Kerry's Garden // Apr 17, 2006 at 7:06 pm
Update: Blueberry Cuttings – 9 wks
Its not looking good. I’ve lost all of the cuttings that were in the plastic bag. The ones in the float tray are right behind them. I have to wonder if they didn’t put out leaves too soon. The only ones still kicking are the ones under…
10 Rosomane // Jan 21, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Try putting a brown paper bag over the cuttings to reduce the light level. This was suggested for propagation of rose cuttings to encourage root growth instead of vegetative growth. May be worth a trial. Another thing to try would be bottom heat.
11 Don // Jul 10, 2008 at 9:38 am
What’s wrong with simply pulling a slip off of a mature plant and rooting in water? Also maybe air layer where the slip was pulled from? We have blueberries and we constantly make a mistake and mow down the young ones, but somehow they miraculously come back. We want to propagate them so we have enough plants to carry us through the occasional mowing disaster.
12 kerry // Jul 17, 2008 at 9:23 am
I have tried bottom heat but not cutting off the light level. My thoughts were that even the stem could photosynthesize to give the plant enough energy to start the roots. It would be worth a try.
I’ve never tried starting them in water. I’ll have to give that a try too.
13 Julie Ouyang // Sep 9, 2008 at 11:57 am
I heard from Knock’s farm in oregon. The shoots you cut needs to be first year grow. I think he did in spring. I tried a lot only one sounds survived.
14 kerry // Sep 10, 2008 at 11:51 am
Julie, thanks for the info. Did you try to root yours in water?
15 ralf // Feb 7, 2009 at 11:49 pm
try airoponics works every time
16 ralf // Feb 8, 2009 at 12:02 am
need heat in water 26c and a rooting hormon. I use rizzotonic a product from canna . You can propargate anything using the airoponic method
17 Joanna // Mar 16, 2009 at 6:45 am
How big should you cut the shoot and where should you cut from?
18 kerry // Mar 20, 2009 at 9:32 am
Joanna there are differing opinions on this and I am not sure I am the one to answer given that none of mine survived. Some say a pencil sized twig with a bit of older growth. Some say green wood, some say older wood. For me I’ve found that just digging up the suckers that naturally occur around the base of the plants are my best bet.
19 Rupprecht // Mar 21, 2009 at 9:04 am
Who long did it take for the cuttings to start put out leaves? What will i have to when they do?
20 Dwayne Haskell // Mar 23, 2009 at 9:12 am
For hardwood cuttings to root, the tops need to be kept dormant, while the bottoms will benefit from heat. Usually green wood is used if I remember correctly.
If the soil is kept over @45 degrees F, roots will develop. Also, they still need to be watered once in a while. If you don’t see moisture on the inside of the glass, they need water.
Those jars probably are letting in too much sun, which heats up the tops and makes them flush them out. Try painting them with white paint, leaving a few small strips of clear glass to allow unfiltered light in. Also, removing the glass once in a while exchanges the stale air and reduces the moisture around the cuttings. I would guess the same is happening with the baggie.
Blueberries root easily under intermittent mist. Have you thought about giving mist a try?
Thanks for sharing your experiments.
21 kerry // Mar 29, 2009 at 5:58 pm
I have toyed with the idea of setting up a mist system but have never gone through with it. I know that many of the things I have a hard time with tend to root much better with the misting. I like your painting the jar suggestion. I’ll make use of that one at some point.
22 Rupprecht // Apr 19, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Kerry have you tried taking a root cuttng?
I have one that is showing signs of growth and started to grow two little roots.
23 jeremy // May 30, 2009 at 4:40 pm
cant you just plant blueberry seeds?
24 kerry // Jun 7, 2009 at 5:56 pm
I’m not sure. If the plant is a hybrid then no. I’ve never tried it to find out.
25 jeremy // Jul 19, 2009 at 9:14 pm
i hear you can plant seeds it just takes a really long time
26 kerry // Jul 22, 2009 at 9:44 am
I wonder if they would grow true to the parent. I do believe the ones I have are probably hybrid plants.
27 Ron // Aug 3, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Blueberry varieties are not as highly bred or different from each other as apples so a (tiny) seedling would probably grow up to give fruit similar to it’s parents. Also, apparently they need that genetic diversity (like plums and pears) to set fruit better.
Cuttings grow up faster, and I’ve found with Hardy Kiwis that a 4 or 5 node section of stem that is partially hardened but with life still “flowing” through it will root easiest. Don’t waste your time with the tenderest parts (unless you have a tissure culture lab set up).
You should see some of that semi-hardwood type of growth on your blueberry bushes now. I’d give it a try and here’s my unsolicited advice
- dip the end in weak hormone powder (NAA or IBA, or both). I think DipNGrow works better on dormant woody cutting.
- stick it deep enough to cover one node in a moist, sterile medium like peat/perlite “soil”.
- make sure the soil is free draining or never waterlogged
- keep them in the shade under constant high humidity with periodic ventilation
- a big upside down tote with lid works good on a small scale.
- the cutting tray(s) can sit on the lid and the tote lifted off everyday to mist with a simple hand pump spray bottle and then replaced.
- if you see roots coming out the bottom out of a small cell pack then you’ve been hugely successful to this point and the hardest part is done.
- after that, put them in quart or gallon of loose soil/compost in part sun and keep the soil moist.
- they need to grow as much as possible (bigger root mass) the first year without over-fertilizing (so they will go dormant naturally). That will help them survive the winter better.
Winter cuttings are handled different and in my experience are more difficult. The biggest problem is the tops budding out before roots form to supply them with moisture. Use cold tops and bottom heat to encourage root formation. However too much soil moisture will cause the “wood” to rot quickly. Light is not even necessary until root-then-buds form.
Here is a good dormant fig technique:
http://figs4fun.com/Rooting_Bag.html
I wrote more than I planned but I hope that all makes sense.
-Ron
28 kerry // Aug 9, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Ron great into, thank you. I’ll have to pick up some rooting horomone next time I am over at Worm’s Way. I’ve had great luck with the figs by letting the cuttings spend the winter in the fridge and putting them in damp soil in the shade once spring hits.
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