Taking Dahlia Cuttings

blown_dry · 2023-02-04T23:34:14+00:00

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

SteveM

MissyWeitzel They're doing great, thanks for the heads up, and don't seem to be bothered by the 2" of rain wee had a few days ago. If I ever decide to go into the pot tuber biz this is the method I will use to root cuttings. I will use a slightly more porous mix (than the Sunshine #4) by adding perlite. For selling cuttings locally I will keep using oasis for now because there is no prep involved (mixing soil, washing and filling cells) and a block of oasis is easier to water consistently than individual soil/media cells. When I sell cuttings wholesale I don't care if the tuber eyes are buried in oasis.🙂

drewtheflorist

Tried with/without over the years and don't see much benefit to using hormones to root dahlias. Some plants, Ficus in particular, have a delay in growth caused by hormones. Ficus will root fine with IBA but will sit there for a month or more until the hormone "gets out of it's system" , where as a newly rooted cutting of ficus sans-hormone will start new growth immediately after rooting. Fall cuttings of Aggie White

KitCMC

Does anyone have advice for moving overwintered cuttings into a colder space? They’re currently in the house (65-70°F). The garage will be above freezing from now until planting time, but probably 15-25° colder at night. I can keep the lighting on an identical schedule.
It would probably be ideal to transition them incrementally, but will they adjust if I make the move all at once?

Bessie

KitCMC is it possible to have the cuttings on a heat mat? You can get creative with ways to distribute the heat of one mat to cover many cuttings, the dollar store may have some ideas. Perhaps use an inverted disposable aluminum pan or cookie cooling racks to not have the cuttings directly on the mat? During the coldest part of the day/night have the lights come on, which will provide heat. This means the lights may be off at the warmest part of the day.

drewtheflorist

KitCMC Probably won't hurt ---it will just slow or stop the new growth. This early in the season, that may not be a bad thing . I just moved mine from the progagating case ( a floral cooler @ 75 degrees strung with LED lights and a heat mat ) to the greenhouse which might get down to 50 degrees at night. Have done it this way for years, I wait until the night temps hit above 40 since it's so costly to heat the greenhouse .

KitCMC

Bessie heating mat is a great idea, especially if temps dip down.

KitCMC

drewtheflorist thanks, that’s great to know! The temp changes you describe are almost identical to the what I’m working with. The cuttings, and I, could definitely use a little break from intense growth anyway.

ksc

I move stuff to my cold greenhouse from the warm house all the time. As long as it doesn't freeze the cuttings should be fine. Be careful of over watering them, the cold will slow growth and make them susceptible to root rot if too wet.

KitCMC

ksc thank you, this is reassuring AND a great tip. I’m just going to go for it!

LoveLanguageDahlias

I've taken almost 300 cuttings this year, and lost two (so far). Both of the same variety, Verrone's Sandra J. One rotted off in the cell tray and the other in a 4" pot. They were the only two; she was stingy with her sprouts too. I assume that some varieties are more susceptible to rot than others, has anyone else found this to be the case. I'll look it up again, but I listened to an episode of The Quince Flower Podcast from Australia where they interviewed a grower who said that when he started taking cuttings some varieties were "more enthusiastic" than others, but as he kept taking cuttings from the same variety year after year, they were better and better for cuttings. (It was an episode I listened to while potting up cuttings so didn't take notes! 😂

Teddahlia

"I assume that some varieties are more susceptible to rot than others." The same varieties that have a propensity to rot in storage may well have a higher incidence of rot when taking cuttings. I take lots of cuttings every year and have my sanitizing protocol that is chlorine household bleach to sanitize the pots an flats used for propagation. The ancient garbage can I used to soak the material sprung a leak and I substituted a smaller container and then got lazy and did not add the bleach for the last batches. Water is not good enough. I lost 14% of a batch to "black leg" as the Brits call it. Generally, besides being varieties that rot in storage the smaller cuttings were the victims. I have noticed there is an ideal size for cuttings as judged by rooting quickly and well. 4 to 8 inches is my ideal. I take lots of 2-3 inch cuttings as I am impatient and they do root but more slowly and with a higher failure rate. They were the ones that rotted in that batch.
By the way, my overall average for success is about 95-96% and losses are generally the smaller cuttings and white cuttings and seldom the 4-6 inch cuttings. I take a few leaf cuttings but they take way too long to mature.And I do not use any rooting chemicals.

LoveLanguageDahlias

Teddahlia Thank you, Ted, for so much helpful information!! I'm also experimenting with some white cuttings, more light green, really...I'll see how they do, but I got some late season sale tubers and many had sprouts too nice to compost.
Cuttings taken 4/10...

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