Which Powdered Rooting Hormone is Safe? I'm grafting fruit trees.

I use willow water for rooting, but with grafting we want it dry not wet when we seal it off.

I look at the options for powdered stuff & it ALL looks AWFUL!!!

I know Stefan of Permaculture Orchard uses it.... but.... which one is safe?

MP

Sorry Matt, why do you want to use rooting hormone for grafting? is the idea to put the powder in the graft? interesting idea

http://www.rooting-hormones.com/cummins.htm
Stefan was using it, so I figured I look into it. Hard to know which is safe...

Paul Gautschi just uses thin black electrical tape to graft and nothing else. There is a new video with him in it on youtube that I will watch soon its called "2016 Pruning Class - Back To Eden Garden - L2Survive with Thatnub".

I like his simplicity in everything!

Thanks for the video

Still am curious considering the research and commercial usage in permaculture orchards. If it's toxic sick - then that's an opportunity for someone to dehydrate willow water.

Benton Lewis wrote:Paul Gautschi just uses thin black electrical tape to graft and nothing else. There is a new video with him in it on youtube that I will watch soon its called "2016 Pruning Class - Back To Eden Garden - L2Survive with Thatnub".

I like his simplicity in everything!

I also just use black electrical tape and an industrial razor blade. In addition to working on the grafts, the electrical tape is fantastic when I slice open my fingers with the razor blade.

I think that your willow water would be great for grafting. Seems to me that grafts work better with more moisture than less. (I suck on the cut scions to keep them wet.) The initial tests that demonstrated the effectiveness of using hormones during grafting used liquid hormones.

If you want to try I've been told by my teacher helder valente that lentil water is a natural hormone too. Ity out lentils I'm water for 24 hrs or maybe even just a night and the water is great as rooting hormone, and you get to eat lentils too!

I've used rooting compound the powder. and willow, the juce form willow bushes or trees. Wifey's mum in Auz uses honey.

When grafting, we are not trying to have the scion root, just trying to have it form a union with the rootstock. There really shouldn't be a need for any kind of rooting hormone with grafting.

Akiva Silver wrote:When grafting, we are not trying to have the scion root, just trying to have it form a union with the rootstock. There really shouldn't be a need for any kind of rooting hormone with grafting.

Research has shown higher success rates and stronger growth with hormone treated grafts. The hormones cause callus to form more easily. Callus formation is the first stage of rooting, and also of interlocking the scion with the branch.

Very interesting, I've never used hormones in grafting.

Safety is relative. Willow water is pretty safe, but you'll have all sorts of of biologicals too, since it's a living thing, which will probably kill your graft. As for rooting hormones, I use Dip n Grow, it is the most economical. The powders are a joke, in my opinion. A small bottle of Dip n Grow kept in the fridge will last you many years of rooting and apparently grafting!

Dip n Grow contains alcohol, IBA, and NAA. If you wear gloves and dispose of it properly, the safety risk is minuscule. Working with a chainsaw is far more dangerous.

I have used Dip 'N Gro also (for rooting, not grafting).
Never had any problems with it.
It is more or less, the industry standard. (For whatever that is worth.)

I'm still confused about why we need rooting hormone. It's awesome in air layering, but I don't see how it helps with grafting. All one needs is to get the cambium layers snug together... unless this hormone compensate for human error so we don't need to pay attention to the branches lining up?

Besides, grafting has a pretty high success rate as it is. Doesn't it? I usually get 75 to 90% success. Is that unusual?

Not being cheeky, honestly don't know. I've never bothered to read up on it. My grandfather taught me grafting and budding (which is even easier), and I just do it how he did it. Just knife, twigs and some raffia or electricians tape.

R Ranson wrote:Besides, grafting has a pretty high success rate as it is. Doesn't it? I usually get 75 to 90% success.

I don't get that high of success in my grafting. The N. Y. State Agricultural Experiment Station tested grafting 7 varieties of apples. The graft survival averaged 71% without hormones, and 96% with hormones. Their salable trees averaged 27% of survivors without hormones and 67% for hormone treated grafts.

Rooting Hormones May Increase Grafting Success, Dr. James N. Cummins, N. Y. State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, NY 14456

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:

R Ranson wrote:Besides, grafting has a pretty high success rate as it is. Doesn't it? I usually get 75 to 90% success.

I don't get that high of success in my grafting. The N. Y. State Agricultural Experiment Station tested grafting 7 varieties of apples. The graft survival averaged 71% without hormones, and 96% with hormones. Their salable trees averaged 27% of survivors without hormones and 67% for hormone treated grafts.

Rooting Hormones May Increase Grafting Success, Dr. James N. Cummins, N. Y. State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, NY 14456

Wow! I didn't realize it was normally that low. They must be doing something different than how I learned. I'll give the link a read tomorrow and see if they describe their method. I'm really surprised their success rate using traditional method is so low. No wonder they are seeking better methods.

I'm at 90% for apple, but only 50% for plum rootstock, so I may try this. Check these studies out-

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01140671.2006.9514399

https://www.uvm.edu/~ugrsrch/posters07/Downing_C_poster.pdf

It looks like maybe different species like different treatments, i.e. kinetin for grape and IBA for apple. Certainly root powder made a difference in this experiment. I'm grafting in 3 weeks, may bust out that bottle of Dip n Grow...

I've found that plum and other stone fruit seems to do better with budding than grafting.

Ooh, more links to read.