Hello everyone. I received a small Letizia airlayer from a generous member earlier this year that, because of the time in season, had not yet made a huge root mass like we often see on posts here. Having only one serious root and a few hair roots it dropped leaves right away. So I treated it like an unrooted cutting. Popped it in promix and monitored. After a few weeks it make 3 good roots and I put it in a 3/4 gallon Belden jumbo square (love those, big space savers) in promix and wrapped everything above the soil in grafting tape. Just today it started reopeming the tip bud and a side bud that will leaf out within the week. A wonderful success story.

So I am sharing this so people know not to give up on a premature air layer when the season ends. And to propose this line of thinking. Once it starts making roots, it will likely continue so long as soil is evenly moist, not a swamp, and the top doesn't dessicate (grafting tape fixed that). Maybe it would improve propagation accuracy to take shorter air layers just until they start to produce roots. Remove leaves before cutting off of tree, then treat them like a cutting that has just barely started to root. This way you could improve rooting succes and perhaps take more air layers in a season. Rather than one per main branch at a time, maybe without having to sustain vegetative growth a branch could support more or at the very least you could take successive partial air layers throughout the season. It also has implications for smaller air layers on very young trees.

Thoughts?

Sometimes I take off air layers late in the season and notice that the leaves wilt right away. I just remove the leaves and any small roots and treat like a cutting. For me, this means wrapping in plastic wrap and sticking in the fridge till spring. Certainly worth a try to save it.

You can actually cut an airlayer (that doesn't have enough roots) below the layer and set the cut end it in a glass of water to keep it from wilting. I accidentally chopped a tree that was growing and kept the top leaves on the green section happy like you would a cut flower and then got roots from wadding sphagnum moss and wrapping with plastic above the water line. When I read the title that is what this was about.

That's s novel idea Hoosier, thanks for sharing that. It seems like a decent way of extending the rooting time on an immature air layer. I apologize if my title was a bit confusing.

No worries, there are no terms for this sort of thing.