7 replies to this topic

[carnivoor]

Early november I ordered a little Ceph plant and when it arrived I decided(after reading about the plants dropping dead all the time ) to take a leave cutting just in case something went wrong.
I put it in one of those throw away food containers I use for my VFT flower stem cuttings(peat/sphagnum/perlite with live sphagnum on top).
Now,almost 10 months later, nothing has happened yet. The leave turned a bit redish(the part that is visible) but I can carefully move it, so still no roots. How long does/can it take for a cutting to root?

BTW the original plant got a serious fungus infection, I tried to brush it away at first(I never had good experiences with sprayng plants, the leaves always get brown or shrivle up) , but in the end it got so bad I had no choice. And after spraying just about everyting turned brown and died. A couple of days after that the first new leaves started to come out of the brown mass and it's doing ok again. While trying to clean out the dead stuff I broke of a piece of root with some green on it and planted it in a new pot. It's still green after a couple of weeks so I guess it will survive too.

Edited by carnivoor, 03 September 2011 - 15:45 PM.

[Marcus B]

carnivoor, on 03 September 2011 - 15:41 PM, said:

Early november I ordered a little Ceph plant and when it arrived I decided(after reading about the plants dropping dead all the time ) to take a leave cutting just in case something went wrong.
I put it in one of those throw away food containers I use for my VFT flower stem cuttings(peat/sphagnum/perlite with live sphagnum on top).
Now,almost 10 months later, nothing has happened yet. The leave turned a bit redish(the part that is visible) but I can carefully move it, so still no roots. How long does/can it take for a cutting to root?

BTW the original plant got a serious fungus infection, I tried to brush it away at first(I never had good experiences with sprayng plants, the leaves always get brown or shrivle up) , but in the end it got so bad I had no choice. And after spraying just about everyting turned brown and died. A couple of days after that the first new leaves started to come out of the brown mass and it's doing ok again. While trying to clean out the dead stuff I broke of a piece of root with some green on it and planted it in a new pot. It's still green after a couple of weeks so I guess it will survive too.

It depends on the temperature, as they root best when warm.  It can, therefore, take anything from a couple of weeks to several months, even over 12 months in some cases.  Keep the base of the leaf exposed as the seem to root faster if not buried, but it needs to be able to draw water from the substrate it is on.

[Neil Cornish]

I've had similar things happen when taking leaf cuttings. Sometimes the base of the root seems to swell but no roots emerge and this can be after many months. You'll just have to patient and pray that it forms roots otherwise it will eventually die. Maybe this happens when not enough of the leaf is removed? On average I usually start to see some new leaves emerging above the moss after about three months, some growers report new leaves much sooner than this.



Regards Neil

[carnivoor]

After posting this I decided to give it another try, I took a new leaf cutting and a little trap and put them in the pot my other cutting is in.
Less than a month later both or sending up little leaves, the original cutiing ; still nothing .I guess it wasn't a good cutting to begin with.

Edited by carnivoor, 08 October 2011 - 12:07 PM.

[Peter Hewitt]

The speed of new plant formation can take up to six months or more. i have taken many Cephalotus leaf and root cuttings over time and even when placed in identical conditions and with exactly the same protocols followed some emerge as quickly as four weeks and some in the same conditions take much longer. As long as the leaf/root is green, there is every chance it will eventually produce a plant. I have also found that the longer it takes, the stronger the resulting propagule will be once it emerges.

[bodaciousbonsai]

My Cephalotus German Giant just starting getting roots from a young pitcher cutting its been about 2 months today actually.

Edited by bodaciousbonsai, 11 February 2012 - 04:56 AM.

[Daniel G]

Sometimes the age of the leaf, and the conditions play a big part in chances of rooting.

Last October, i took a cutting, and it only showed root formation about a week ago, but another leaf i took and placed in in identical conditions has roots forming, and that only took 3 weeks!!!

Humidity seems to help too, as long as you can keep the air flow good.

Alot of it is down to luck. (And fertilizer   )

[RL7836]

I agree with the variety of comments from the many posts - there is some form of serendipity within the process and definitely no guarantees.

Peter Hewitt, on 07 October 2011 - 21:29 PM, said:

As long as the leaf/root is green, there is every chance it will eventually produce a plant.

I have even had the pulled leaf rot away to nothing. When I dug a bit under the surface there was a ~0.8cm callous. I left the callous alone and it eventually sprouted a plant. Go figure....