Semi-hardwood Propagation

The successful marketing of newly developed woody ornamental plants depends on the development of commercial feasible production strategies. While collecting specimens from the wild, conducting controlled crosses, and germinating seeds from open pollination can generate many new clones with great market potential, propagating these plants can present significant challenges that may delay or even terminate the introduction of new cultivars. Rooting woody stem cuttings can be particularly difficult, with success rates varying widely from year to year. In the past 10 years, we have propagated more than 60,000 plants in our woody ornamental plant breeding programs. Our successes and failures indicated that our first consideration should be timing to take the stem cuttings. Timing and types of woody stem cuttings significantly impacted the rooting ability of different species. Depending on the taxa, the better rooting percentages were majorly from semi-hardwood cuttings collected during late spring and summer. In addition to timing, stock plant source, hormone application, plant materials, hormone cofactors, and other environmental factors should also be considered.