Taking Dahlia Cuttings

blown_dry · 2023-02-04T23:34:14+00:00

Continuing from https://cubits.org/Dahlias/thread/view/92091/#end_of_thread

Teddahlia

Sand has been on sprouting medium lists but not recently. You cannot use beach sand but instead river sand(where the hell do you get that?). You can also use (I wonder how accurate this is) the sand sold at Home depot intended for childs sand boxes. It is sterilized. What is one of the biggest drawbacks? The weight and a bucket of wet sand may be more than what you can carry.

SteveM

KitCMC Saw this video of Dutch growers starting cuttings, thought you guys might like to see it too. They use damp sand. That’s a lot of plants!

She is much faster at "sticklingsproducent av dahlio" than I am.🙂

HiDahlia

KitCMC This is so interesting! Thanks for posting. How do you think they get the cuttings so uniform in size? Just by the sheer number of them? I wonder how much light they give them, they are not completely white.

KitCMC

HiDahlia I’d guess they bundle the cuttings, then trim them? I want the rest of the tour! 😆

Krista

KitCMC I want to go on the rest of the tour too! This is such a cool share!

Teddahlia

They sell the field grown "pot tubers" and need thousands of cuttings of the same variety to plant at the same time. That takes lots of tuber clumps pumping out cuttings. They have huge greenhouses in order to do this.

Teddahlia

I took 12 cuttings from my pot tuber of the best 2022 seedling today. I had let the sprouts grow taller and bit skinnier. It is really not a pot tuber as it is the entire clump that was grown in 7 inch pot in the ground last year and it was not divided.

MissyWeitzel

Teddahlia I used your method of light deprivation to elongate sprouts off tubers that keep making really fat ones and it worked! Too early to tell if the cuttings actually took, but the sprouts were definitely thinner.

MissyWeitzel

I made a terrible mistake. Well, actually 2 terrible mistakes. I wasn't going to say anything here, but maybe I can save someone else some heartache.
Earlier this "cuttings season" I was taking a lot of really small cuttings. I did it last year with success, but this year I pushed it way too far and way too small. At first it was because I was trying to get slow tubers to push more sprouts more quickly (which does work) but then I must have snapped into mad wannabe scientist mode and things devolved from there. Anyway, 85-90% of them took, but a majority of those are growing and developing roots SO much more slowly than cuttings I took that were at least 1.5". If I would have just waited I would be so much farther ahead. Small cuttings are great, teeny cuttings are not.
Mistake two. I tried hardening off some of those small cuttings that have been rooted for at least a month but are still quite small. That went ok until day 5 when they received 2 hours of sun. A bunch of them died. Larger cuttings with larger root systems did great! Small ones did poorly.
I know exactly what I did wrong and I still have hundreds of perfectly happy cuttings, but this was a gut punch.

blown_dry

MissyWeitzel Aw, I'm sorry. That's gardening sometimes for sure. 🙁

JessieC

MissyWeitzel Sorry for your disappointment, but it’s kind of you to share your experience! I’m curious just how small these were. I’ve also been impatient and I’ve taken quite a few that were under 2 inches, also some that were really spindly. Sometimes I also accidentally knock off a tiny one and just plug it in to see if it will go. It’s good to remember about hardening off with care—the leaves are just arriving on the trees here, so the sunlight is particularly intense.
I hope your other successful cuttings soften the blow of losing some. It’s always a learning experience for sure.

Bessie

MissyWeitzel I like that you shared your experience. It's easy to share successes, so humbling to discuss mistakes. I learned from your experience.

KitCMC

MissyWeitzel sorry - that’s a lot of time, hope, and effort to let go of. I’m glad you have plenty more to keep growing on!

MissyWeitzel

JessieC Some were 1/3"-1/2" range and that's way too small. Honestly for most varieties around 1.5" + has been just fine for me. Even 1" with a set of open leaves.

It seems like really small colorless sprouts do better than the same size sprouts that were growing under lights but that's a very casual observation. I haven't tracked it. I have no idea why.

Next season I'll be more patient! 😊

JessieC

MissyWeitzel Very interesting! I am trying a few white sprouts that came on tubers in the mail. They sure look ugly now, but I’ll give them a chance. And I have knocked a few ones off while planting, which I started today. I’m glad you reminded me to keep an eye on my cuttings in the sun! I’ve got a couple of trays of non-dahlia seedlings too, so it’s feeling very productive here 🤗

Teddahlia

It is true that medium sized cuttings(4 to 6 inches is medium to me) seem to root and grow very fast after they root. Short skinny ones just take weeks longer to get to the same size but they are still worth taking and I frequently put two cuttings into a pot, a normal sized cutting and a really small one. If the small one roots I remove it from the pot and give it it's own pot.

JessieC

Teddahlia Ted, I know you’ve said before, only I can’t find it….at what point is the tuber depleted? I probably won’t take more cuttings at this point, and I’ve got all the “donor” tubers to think about. Do you plant them or toss them? Thanks! I’m sure I’d never have had any success with the cuttings without your tutorials. My main goal (aside from just learning how to do it,) was to salvage a variety that didn’t do well in storage. Mission accomplished!
Edited to add a photo of my modest cutting setup from about a week ago. They’re doing so much better now that they get some fresh air and sunshine every day.

Teddahlia

Depleted pot tubers: The sprouts get smaller and skinnier and look like a poor excuse for a cutting. What happens next is disaster or you saved it. Some are so depleted they just die, perhaps they have some root rot but they are dead, dead, dead. Others respond to being given some liquid fertilizer and good growing conditions and grow well. Since, you took several cutting from this pot tuber, it has much less value to you as you will use one of the cuttings to make a pot tuber for next year. Really, it may not be worth saving.

Krista

Teddahlia The bloom in this photo looks like it has three different colors, it’s outstanding. I know there are more varieties that have three, but I can’t think of a lot. Can dahlias have more than three color combinations?

HiDahlia

Rooting in water seems to be popular lately. I tried it and am getting roots after 10 days. I don’t think I would use it as a primary method, but I do have a few tubers that are re-sprouting enthusiastically and I think I could save space by putting cuttings from the same tuber together in a cup of water. I used 3 oz cups that fit securely in a 50 cell tray.

Krista

HiDahlia I’ve been seeing this method shared on Facebook right now too. I’m glad you’re bringing it up here, I’m curious what the experiences with rooting in just water have been for the folks in this discussion. You’re right, it seems there might be some space-saving benefits!

Bessie

HiDahlia last summer was my first year growing dahlias from tubers. Reading on Cubits.org about Dahlias, I decided "Just for fun" to start small 1.5 - 2 inch cuttings in a metal lid (from a glass jar) with 1/3 inch of water. The lid was in a warm sunny window sill. Once I saw little roots(took 14 - 21 days) I potted the cuttings up. Not the most efficient way to make cuttings. All summer long I tried to brainstorm how I could improve on that metal jar lid🤓. No brilliant ideas so far. Now I've got heat mats and grow lights.

SteveM

HiDahlia That sounds interesting, I've never tried it. Do you aerate the water, change the water daily, or do anything else special?

Krista

I recently received this tuber from a supplier and I’m curious what causes this growth pattern? I’m wondering if likely, they took cuttings from this little clump before selling it to me?

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