Sometimes when you’re growing a plant, everything goes right. The leaves are healthy, the fruits are flavorful and vibrant, and it grows healthy and strong faster than you’ve ever seen. Wouldn’t it be great to have that growing experience every time? With plant propagation, that reality is possible.
In this blog, we’ll cover what you need to know about plant propagation, like why you might want to clone plants, crucial tips for propagation and the benefits and challenges of the process.
Why Plant Propagation?
Cloning starts when you have a need for more plants of a particular species. Seeds are individualized, which means plants grown from seeds will have minor differences when compared with plant clones, also called cuttings. Cloning gives you more predictable results, which can make it a very valuable process for a hydroponic farm, especially if you’re growing crops commercially.
Additionally, plant propagation only costs your time and a bit of rooting hormone. Seeds can be expensive, especially when you’re buying specialty crops varieties. When growing crops, cost-savings can mean the difference between a profitable operation and one running a deficit.
From peppers to strawberries, your growing operations can benefit from utilizing plant clones. On top of it, propagating plants is an enjoyable process. Growing a smaller cut of another plant is like watching a child take their first steps. You’re helping a baby plant put down its first roots, which is one of the most rewarding things involved in crop cultivation.
What’s The Science Behind Plant Clones?
The science behind cloning plants comes from the concept of plant propagation. While cloned plants are not identical to their mother plant, they share a majority of their genetics. The growing environment still has an important impact on a plant’s productivity, but good genetics provide a foundation that future generations can use to thrive.
A prime plant provides potent potential for possible progeny, which gives your crops a greater likelihood to share the same attributes of the mother plant than seed-grown varieties.
Benefits of Plant Clones
Plant clones enable more precise control over your plants. Instead of relying on purchasing seeds that may vary in quality and condition, you can propagate your best crops repeatedly, with the knowledge that those plants are already successful.
If you have a successful mother plant, you can duplicate it for continued performance. Whether you prefer a crop for its unique taste, adaptability to a specific climate, or some other quality, you can easily replicate it across an entire farm.
If you have a particularly valuable crop, you can also profit from selling the clones to other growers. This can provide additional revenue for your agriculture business, or be a great way to market your services.
Challenges with Plant Clones
The largest challenge with plant clones is that they’re more fragile compared to seeds, which have more natural protection during early development due to their shell.
Another challenge with cloning plants is the fact that the duplicated plant will have the same undesired inheritable traits. Some of these traits might not be immediately identifiable until maturity.
This is why it’s especially important to confirm that the mother plant you intend to clone is an ideal, adult specimen.
The Steps to Plant Propagation
It’s important to consider that different plants are propagated with different techniques, depending on the plant. You can save seeds, cut roots, propagate by division and more. The following method will serve you well for most crop varieties that grow well in hydroponic systems.
1. Examine Your Crops, Identify Your Mother Plant and Clean Your Tools
Healthy plants will have numerous leaves, vibrant colors and even growth. Before you start, it’s also important to clean your pruner with soapy water or isopropyl alcohol. Then, dry them thoroughly.
2. Make Cuttings From the Top Leaves of Your Mother Plant
When you take cuttings from a plant, you want to crop the stem below the node. Use your pruner to cut at an angle about a quarter of an inch beneath the node (about a fingernail length). Cutting at an angle will increase the surface volume for rooting hormone application. This means that your plant can grow roots faster than cutting at a straight angle.
3. Apply Rooting Hormone to Cuttings
After cutting your cutting away from the mother plant, you’ll want to dip the exposed area into rooting hormone. While there are powdered varieties of rooting hormone, we recommend using Technaflora’s Rootech Gel.
4. Insert the Cuttings into Grow Media
Next, take your cutting and insert it into your grow media. These will change depending on the system that you have, but our preferred grow media is peat moss. Insert the bottom of the cutting into the center of the media, and slowly twist while pushing it into place. This ensures that the rooting hormone stays where it needs to be and confirms a tight fit in the cutting’s new growing environment.
5. Place Cuttings into Nursery Tray, Mist, Cover, & Set Under Grow Lights
Once the cutting has been housed in the grow media, take it and place it into a nursery tray. Repeat this process until you have your ideal number of clones. Then, lightly mist the clones with a spray nozzle (Just enough to get them wet) and cover them with a plastic humidity dome.
If applicable, open the ventilation holes at the top of the grow tray just a slider to keep the environment humid, but not so much that the clones develop anerobic bacteria growth. Finally, set them under moderate power grow lights set to a schedule of 18 hours on, 6 hours off. This gives plants plenty of light to develop but doesn’t stress or dry them out.
6. Nurture Clones Before Transitioning Them to Your System
Check in with your plants 3-4 times a day. Re-mist if required, typically around 3 times a day. This process should take anywhere from 4-14 days, depending on the plant. After your clones develop strong roots that poke through the bottom and sides of the grow media, then you can move them to your growing system, where they can develop to maturity. It’s important to provide these plants with water quickly after moving them, as this helps their roots adjust to the environment.
Summary
In conclusion, plant propagation through cloning offers a cost-effective, predictable and rewarding approach to crop cultivation. It allows growers to replicate their best crops, ensuring continued success and potentially providing additional revenue streams.
Despite the challenges, such as the fragility of clones and the potential for undesired inheritable traits, the process is manageable with careful selection of the mother plant and meticulous care during propagation. With the right knowledge and tools, anyone can embark on this journey to create a thriving farm.
At Pure Greens, we provide turnkey container farm solutions that meet the evolving needs to growers, with climate controlled growing environments that allow for year-round growing in any climate. In addition to our grow spaces, we build systems with built-in nurseries designed for easy plant propagation. Contact us today for more information about our systems.
