Has anyone tried to use tea tree oil to prevent mold when rooting? It's supposed to be anti-fungal, and I have some left from spraying the peach trees, so I was wondering if there's any harm in using it. The only thing I can think about is it may inhibit root growth?

Oil might have an adverse affect, not sure the cutting will be able to absorb the water needed to grow roots with a layer of oil, or maybe water will absorb at the ends and stay too moist cause it cant escape out the bark. Unless someone else here says "yeah it's the best, I use it all the time" I would only do limited experiments.
Lots of things are anti-fungal, they just don't persist very well, so if your treatment expires and your cuttings get too wet, you will see mold. Tea tree should persist well cause oils do not dry fast or wash away with watering, so you may be on to something keen.

If I was going to try anything, I would put sphagnum moss in the blender, and strain it and spray the resulting juice an an anti-mold.

Is that Ph related Jon? Sounds easy, not sure the blender is even necessary for it to work, a long soak and good squeeze should produce the same. You are talking about the long fibered stuff that gets used for orchids right?

Sphagnum is supposed to have anti-fungal and anti-mold properties.

Same way that Willow tree has special rooting properties, willow tea is a great liquid rooting hormone.

Hi Jason,

Is there any particular brand of willow tea you know of to use for rooting?  How is it used?

Thanks,

noss

Hey Viv, an article is worth a thousand words - I hope you don't mind my linking rather than explaining:  http://www.ehow.com/how_4905464_willow-tea-natural-rooting-hormone.html 

I only know about this because of one special person I met here at F4F.

I use liquid sea kelp in water with a spray bottle to help combat fungus, and I have been reading about compost tea and I intend to try it this year. I think that the sea kelp helps a lot, and I have read that chamomile tea also has antifungal properities but I haven't tried it.

Susan

Hi Jason,

I don't mind the link rather than your explaining.  Trouble is, I don't have a willow tree, nor do I know anyone who does.

Ah well, we can't have everything.  :)  I wonder what citrus oil would do?

Thanks,

Viv

It is also called willow water. Here's an excerpt I found.

"Native Americans and early settlers used willow bark for toothaches and applied it to the source of other pains. But they also recognized that you can actually grow a whole new tree by taking a stem and sticking it in moist soil. The hormones in willows cause rapid rooting, and they discovered these same hormones could induce rooting in other plants, too.

Willow water

To harness this power, they made a tonic called “willow water” by collecting willow twigs, trimming the leaves, immersing the stems in a pail of water, and pouring the water on newly planted trees, shrubs, and bedding plants. Commercial rooting preparations contain a synthetic form of indolebutyric acid (IBA) and growing tips of willows contain high concentrations of IBA, depending on the quantity used and length of time you soak them. Any willow (Salix) tree or shrub species will work."

But it doesn't even have to be so serious, you can just cut some long pussy willow branches and put them in a vase, use the water from the vase when you change it. If it gets nasty dilute it some more. And after the willow has grown roots you can still plant it. Willow will add a small amount of sugar as well as the rooting hormone so use sparingly to avoid burning roots and feeding mold. Sugar is good for soil bacteria and fungi, so it is best for established plants, it does burn roots the same as salts, but will not accumulate in the same way.

Susan, I make an aerated alfalfa/seaweed/compost tea that works great. But i would be cautious about using this with fig cuttings and very young seedling plants as my recipe does seem to promote damping off if used too soon on vegetables. (it also smells really foul if not aerated and stirred regularly. The same microbes responsible protect the plant later on from pathogens.  Dilute seaweed extract alone is good to use on very young plants, makes them sturdy without growing too fast due to the lack of nitrogen.

Also add garlic to the antifungal list. And colloidal silver, but i think that might be a little to reactive/expensive.

I used tea tree oil for mold control with success!
some cuttings shwed mold after they were already potted(I assume with no roots). I put pure tea tree oil onto the moldy areas (directly above soil or on their tips) drop by drop. some cuttings needed more than one treatment, but it worked!

I have no experience with treating whole cuttings with tea tree oil. I think with my method just a small part of the cutting was covered with oil.
try it!
better not lose a cutting due to mold AND tea tree oil treatment than lose a cutting due to mold WITHOUT any treatment. I think cuttings cant heal themselves from mold...

Why would oil hurt the cuttings if wax doesn't?  Just wondering.

noss

I guess I can see a problem if the whole cutting is covered in pure oil. I was suggesting making a diluted solution, maybe 1/s tsp per quart of water with some soap mixed in, and then wash the cuttings with this solution.

I got this idea from another forum, a CRFG member used it for peach leaf curl (a fungal disease). I did the same for the last two years on my peaches and got no sign of disease or adverse effect (spray the dormant tree with the aforementioned solution).

Maybe I'm just paranoid about mold :)

Thanks, Pylot.  Could the oil be used as a dormant spray for the fig trees over winter?

noss

Noss - I don't know. Do you have mold / fungal issues with the fig trees in early spring?

Last year I sprayed the tea tree oil mixture on other dormant trees (plum) and did not observe any adverse effect. However, all the leafy greens it touched (chard) got burned. Probably because of the sun and oil combined? So definitely don't use it on any green growth.

My take on tea tree oil/products is that they taste like turpentine, so I'm not surprised if it would burn leaves.

I remember trying the tea tree toothpaste some years ago and it was horrible!  It left a nasty turpentine taste in my mouth, throat and nose.  I never touched that stuff again.

If it smells like turpentine and tastes like turpentine, it probably IS turpentine!

noss

yes, its important not to put the tea tree oil on the leaves!
yesterday I treated my cuttings with it, today some leaves look wilted/burned.

I just decided to check to see if this topic has been discussed before.  I was just reading about tea tree oil as a anti-fungal herbal (for humans) and was reminded I have a product that a friend of mine helped develop (AZ-41).  Jon knows him also (Joe Real); we had dinner together at his house one summer (the three of us).

Joe had said that this product which is largely tea tree oil and a couple of other things which I forget right now) was anti-fungal and also stimulated root and plant growth.  I sprayed a diluted solution of it on plant leaves many times to kill ants, aphids, etc.  I never saw any leaf burn though spraying any sort of oil on leaves during periods of high temperatures can be very problematic.

AZ-41 never got distributed very much because of a plant they used as a contact manufacturer went broke and then the permitting process was just too difficult.  I have a few gallons of it and may try it out on some extra cuttings to see how it works.

Recently I purchased some rooted fig cuttings from local nursery that doesn't retail anymore but owner was kind enough to make an expecption.
He rooted 15oo cuttings at that time, 100% success. Green house with controlled temperature, light and humidity.
He uses Australian tee tree oil to prevent mold development.

only thing i know about tea tree oil is.. it's in my hair dressing. it smells nice. 

Hello , i am new here .. i cannot find out how to post , only reply , so here goes . 
A short time ago , i read about willow tea and am impressed , i would rather not
use any of the commercial rooting hormone products .. okay , so i buy a bunch of 
willow bark and brew up about a gallon of tea . 
A few days later , mold shows up , floating on the tea .. it is off white with a bluish
center ... 
My question is ... is the tea still okay to use , or is this a bad mold for my plants . 
I also have to believe that buying or cutting more willow will have spores and 
make mold once the tea is prepared .. 
any info is greatly appreciated .. thank you much .. garce

First, please understand what is permitted to be labelled as "Tea Tree Oil" in the U.S. This is generally ANY plant from the tribe Myrtoideae including Leptospermum, Melaleuca, etc. The oil is a by-product of paper pulp plants and extracted as lignosulfates. They are in this form because sulfuric acid is used to remove unwanted oils from the pulp. These by-products, which are plant oils suspended in sulfuric acid are important in many agricultural and other processes. In particular, the lignosulfates are excellent chelates of micronutrients for plants. HOWEVER, the use of "tea tree oil" for fungus control is only viable because of the presence of sulfuric acid. FURTHER, chelated copper and/or zinc is a better control. For consumers, I recommend the retail product from Monterey Gardens brand "Liqui-Cop". For persons with (or in states exempt from) pesticide applicators license, I recommend "Kocide 3000". For the latter, a few pounds will last most homeowners a lifetime.