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More cuttings help

Viv, just my thoughts but at this point (or even before) I take the plant out of the plastic and put it by a window.  Looks like you have good enough roots.  As far as using perlite, I have always used it after taking the cutting out of the baggie, when I transplant, I leave almost all the perlite attached to the roots.  Its to dangerous to try and remove it and it makes for a great medium for growth due to the aeration factor.

Ok, I just lost an entire post somehow. 

So I'm going to be "quick" in responding this time.  (riiiiiight)

The whole purpose of the bag is to increase humidity.  If the roots can't uptake enough water, they can't keep the leaves hydrated, and the leaves will droop as they release water.  Adding the bag forces moisture to stay in the area around the plant, putting more water in the air around the leaves, thus preventing water loss. 

If your roots are in good shape, not broken, and there are plenty of them, you shouldn't need the bag.  If you want to see if you still need the bag, remove it.  Check the leaves every 3-4 hours.  If you see excessive leaf droop, put the bag back on!  Keep an eye on it for a day or two. Especially watch for leaf droop after transplanting young cuttings, and if you see significant droop, don't be afraid to put your new transplants into a sealed bin or under a bag for a few days while they recover.

This is my understanding of it, at least. 

When I talk about when to go from indirect to filtered to unfiltered light ... I want to show you what I do and how I feel like it's time.  This is just my suggestion.  I could be totally full of crap.  Just keep this in mind.  I'm only sharing what I've had luck with.

I look for three things in my leaves:

1) How translucent are they?
2) What shade of green/yellow are they?
3) How shiny are they?

Young leaves are almost like film, you can see light right through them, they're stiff, thick and small, smooth and really shiny a lot of the time.  Here is an example - notice how the light just passes right through them and they almost have a sheen to the surface.

When my leaves get to this point, I will either give them several hours of filtered indoor light or 1-2 hours of direct indoor light.

To me, when a leaf matures in newly rooted cuttings, it isn't about size, it's about how opaque it is and how rough/flat (not shiny) it looks and feels.  Lots of chlorophyll in the leaves makes a dark, dark green leaf, really opaque.  When my leaves get dark, dark green and I can no longer see through them, they go to direct indoor light.  This is what I want to see in a "mature" "full grown" leaf:





To prevent leaf schorch, I go through a similar process outdoors just like you would when 'hardening off' veggies.  I give them an hour or two of direct outdoor sunlight per day and gradually increase it OR I keep them in a spot that gets a couple hours of morning sun, and afternoon/evening shade, and gradually move them out to get more and more sun each day.

Outdoor sunlight is much more aggressive.  Most modern windows in houses are treated with some kind of UV-filter coating.  As we all know from getting sunburns, UV rays BURN flesh, be it the skin of a leaf, or the skin of our body.  So keep this in mind when you're talking about unfiltered/direct light "indoors" versus direct/unfiltered light "outdoors".  Just because your plant can handle several hours of indoor light directly doesn't mean it can take it oudoor.

Granted, some of us live in old homes with single-pane glass windows or lead windows with no UV coating... something else to think about.

Just my process.... your mileage may vary.
You will get to know "leaf scorch" very well if you put your plants outdoors too soon, or for too long of a period in direct sunlight.  It will take a couple of days to show the effect - you can screw up one time, one day, for a couple hours too long, and it won't show up for a week.  So...be careful. 

Leaf scorch won't kill them, but the leaves will turn bleach white and shrivel.  New leaves will grow out to replace them, but ... it's just another hit your plant can take in development.

 

One last point - I double the amount of time in the sun every 3-4 days. 


I go from indirect indoor light all day long straight to filtered indoor light all day long.  I only "ease in" when it comes to direct indoor sunlight.  I'll start with an hour of direct mid-day sunlight.  3-4 days later, two hours.  3-4 days later, four hours.  3-4 days later, 8 hours.  3-4 days later, I'll be at all day. 

I follow the same "ease in" process when I take my newly rooted trees to outdoor sunlight.  An hour of direct sunlight, then double the number of hours every 4th day or so (1hr first 4 days, then 2hrs on days 5-8, then 4hrs on days 9-12, then 6-8 hours on days 13+ until they're out there all day).

Doesn't always prevent leaf scorch, but it's an effective way to "harden off" your plants.

Thanks for the help again Jason. I will try taking the bag off tomorrow after work so I have time to watch it for a few hours before bed. It shouldn't be a problem to do this at night?  I probably don't really need to worry about outdoor light for a while. One part confuses me, I see you go outside direct light at midday in increments, but what do you mean you do the same thing for outside?   
Can i ask with regards to the bringing the plants outside and getting them used to the sun. What should I do if I am working during the day? I don't get home until about 5pm. In the spring and summer there would still be a few hours of sunlight, but that isn't much. I guess I could come home on a lunch break and they would be out for 3 or 4 hours...
 


I edited my last post for clarity.  See if that helps?

Yeah, that is what I was figuring you were saying. Now I just need to figure out how i am going to do it when spring hits.

Hey, just an update. I have not watered anything since we talked about how to water and most plants are doing well and the soil still feels damp and has some weight so I am leaving them alone. There are a few that I think I ruined with the over watering and not putting bg enough holes for it to adequately drain, but I am seeing if they will recover after I enlarged the holes got out as much water as I could and seperated them. Now I am having a little mold show up on the cuttings that are growing. It seems to be mostly on the tip of the cuttings. I scrapped it off and one some of the shoots where it was I trimmed it off. Is there anything I can do better to treat them if it crops up again? ALso is there anything I can do to try to prevent it? I have been airing out the containers daily and like I said I have cut back on watering. <br>

How are you prepping your cuttings before rooting?  Soaking in anything, brushing with anything, scrubbing with anything?

I'm tellin' ya, watering is the biggest thing people screw up.

You can't water a twig the same way you do a houseplant, and I think this is what trips people up.  A houseplant has well established root system, so it's actually able to suck up the water.  A cutting has less than a dozen roots total?  It's lucky to be able to suck up much of anything.  I've seen some creative ways to control water - like, member 'genecolin' had one, using a meat-injection syringe (for marinating meats) to deliver targetted water, that was a good one.

When I did these cuttings I just rinsed them with water and used some paper towels scrub them . It wasn't until later one when I read that people use a little bleach in water. What do you recommend cleaning new cuttings with? I didn't have any mold issues with the baggies or even the first cuttings potting and wrapped covered individually. It seems to be mostly what I have in the storage containers. I think it is probably related to the initial over watering. The potted cuttings are still growing accept for the ones that didn't drain and were way to wet.

I take antibacterial dish soap and a soft toothbrush to my cuttings first, then dunk in a 8%-10% bleach solution for a minute or two. 

I like the soap and brush because it foams up and I can see where I've been.  I take extra time to scrub around the leaf scars and the terminal buds, as I'm sure you've seen, these are the big places that mold seems to creep up.

Mold needs two things to grow:  a food source and moisture.  If you're seeing a lot of mold on your wood (above ground), you may be too humid in your boxes - if you have a lot of water in the base of your container, or big beads of water (rather than fine haze or no water) on the sides of the bin, this would be my biggest suspect.  Remove the excess moisture or the food (removing the food source is tough!) and you can combat the mold.

There isn't any water at the base of the container or on the walls, after you warned me about the over watering and making it to humid I cleaned it all out. I do not see any dew on the walls. Maybe the plastic wrap is keeping in to much humidity. I mostly saw the mold on the top of the cutting if it had a cut top and not a bud. Also, on tips of growth maybe were a leave had scriveled or stunted when I was working out how to contain the cuttings. I think I will maybe leave an air hole in the plastic wrap and see if that helps.

So scrubbing with antibacterial dish soap and soaking in a bleach solution really won't kill or hurt the cuttting?

Seeing mold on the top of the cutting isn't terribly unusual.  Everything above the top-most node is basically dead wood.  Dead wood, like dead leaves...is food for mold.  I usually just take some ligh bleach mix and use a q-tip to dab it on the top of the cutting.  If it gets bad, I will cut the top of the cutting down to just above the last node very, very carfeully with very sharp pruning shears that have been wiped down and cleaned with rubbing alcohol.

Thanks, I will do that if I see anymore mold on the tops. I think to I see something else that I guess I made a mistake on. I went in the containers and examined very pot. I see now that all the pots I was lazy with and left the wood skewers on when I was trying to wrap them individually have mold all over them. I removed the skewers and I will see if that helps.

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