Illustrated method for rooting Nepenthes cuttings

[jpyerry]

I promised that if I take a stem cutting from one of my Nepenthes plants I would do an illustrated guide to my method for rooting a Nepenthes stem cutting. So, as promised, here it is:

1) Prepare your supplies, in this picture I have included a soaking vessel, scissors, razor blade, cloning gel, cloning solution, an anti-fungal agent, a plastic pot, sphagnum moss, distilled water, and measuring devices. I forgot to include the zip-lock bag (a humidity dome would suffice for this, as well) and the plant's label. You will want to sterilize your cutting instruments and clean your work surface at this point. Also, follow manufacturer's directions and prepare a solution of cloning solution and anti-fungal with distilled water in your soaking vessel then pre-soak an ample amount of sphagnum moss in the solution. After it is soaked, squeeze the water out of the sphagnum moss and place it in your plastic pot. Form a hole in the center of the sphagnum moss about 3" deep.






2) Choose the end of the stem where you want to cut so that you have about 3-4 leaves (it is preferable to use the end of the stem so that your plant will have a growing point, it is further preferable to choose an area of the stem where new stems are forming, you can find such areas by examining the area where the leaf petiole meets the stem and if you see a growth coming out of the mainstem you have a good chance this stem will become a new branch). Also, if you get a new stem growth then you might get a plant that will produce lower and upper pitchers (when you root a stem that is in climbing mode, most often you will get only upper pitchers).

In the picture, you can see that I have selected a stem that has a new growth point, in the next picture, you can see as illustrated by the red line where you should cut, cut so that you have around 3-4 mature leaves with one growth point. Some guides indicate you can succesfully root cutting with fewer leaves, but I have had good success with that many leaves in the past.




3) Make your cut across the stem, some people prefer to cut with scissors, some with razor or scalpel. I generally use scissors at this stage, because it is a little easier and I am going to be cutting into my cutting a little more anyway in the near future. If you won't be dipping the cutting immediately, place it in some distilled water to reduce the possibility of an air embolus.



4) From this point forward cuts should be made with a scalpel or razor. Take the cutting and if you cut with scissors initially, recut the bottom of the stem with the razor or scalpel (the idea here is that scissors will crush the cells, and a crushed cell is a dead cell). Then, cut the stem so that you split the stem in half for about an inch to an inch and a half. The idea is that you want to expose a greater amount of the cambium layer.






5) Cut the lowest leaf off the stem (you may want to even trim off two, as I did in the picture) in such a way that the leaf is completely flush with the stem, once again we are trying to expose as much of the cambium as possible.




6) Starting maybe a quarter of an away from the lowest leaf (the one you just removed) make superficial cuts just enough to remove the skin of the stem, and then strip the skin of the stem all the way down to where the stem was initially cut. Do this circumferentially. Again, this is to expose the cambium layer.





7) With the exception of the top two leaves (ie the new leaf that should be growing and the next one back), cut the leaves in half transversely so that the leaves are now a little less than half of their original length. The reason we do this is to reduce transpiration.




8) Dip the all of the stem's cut areas in a rooting gel, my personal preference is Clonex, I've been using it for about a year now and have had much better luck with it than rooting powders. By the way, in these pictures I am demonstrating poor technique, one should not dip their plants directly into the main container of cloning gel, the best way to do this is to pour out as much as you need and then dip the plant in the now separate cloning gel to reduce cross contamination.




9) Place the stem in the hole that you created when you prepared your pot of fungicide and cloning solution moistened sphagnum moss and firm the moss against the stem, but don't pack it in, you want it loose but somewhat firm.



10) Place the pot with the plant in a Ziplock bag or humidity dome (high humidity is critical at this stage). Put the plant under lights, I use T5HO lights, the plant was placed about a foot away, the Ziplock is a good light diffuser so you can put the plant a little closer to the lights than you would if the plant were not in a bag, but not too close, you might have to experiment a bit with this. I would not recommend giving the plant full sun, as it would be too much light and would drive temperatures in the bag to lethally high levels.



11) Prepare a tag that includes the date the stem was removed.



12) Every couple of weeks take the plant out and check if roots have developed, you can do this by giving the plant a gentle tug, if no resistance is encountered no roots are there, if there is a little resistance roots are forming, if there is significant resistance then you have a significant amount of roots.

13) After you are sure the plant has enough roots to survive (I found that I had enough by the time I hit 8-10 weeks), then you will want to start hardening the plant off to a lower humidity. I did this by opening the ziplock bag little by little over the course a week or so.

14) Monitor the plant, if it starts to look dehydrated within a few hours of being removed from the bag, it probably needs more time in the ziplock. If it looks healthy and starts to put on new growths for you, then you were succesful! Start caring for the plant as you would a mature plant.

Well, that's how I root Nepenthes cuttings. I hope you found it helpful. Feel free to ask questions, I have had nearly 100% success rate with this method. By the way, this is method is not proprietary to Nepenthes plants, I have also rooted cuttings of tomato plants, amongst others.

I used several different brand name products in this procedure, and I am not endorsing or implying that these are the only products that work, they are there for illustrative purposes only.

Justin

[1joyceh]

Excellent job Justin
Going to try my ventricosa soon, the new baby is doing well, so thought I would try cloning with mama....we'll see what develops!!

[pikkumyy]

now that you've tickled my taste buds with images of your amazing carnivores, any chance of getting you to post some photo's of your collection in the 'other plants' section?

[1joyceh]

Michael your collection has grown quite a bit, you should try a cutting or 2..

[pikkumyy]

Originally Posted by 1joyceh

Michael your collection has grown quite a bit, you should try a cutting or 2..

i'll give it a go when i grow mine a bit bigger, or i buy some more bigger ones

[jpyerry]

Originally Posted by pikkumyy

now that you've tickled my taste buds with images of your amazing carnivores, any chance of getting you to post some photo's of your collection in the 'other plants' section?

Here you go:
My Carnivorous Plant Collection As Of January 19, 2012
and
My Carnivorous Plant Collection As Of January 19, 2012 - Part Two

Enjoy!

Justin

[orchids4me]

Wow! Very awesome !!!
Thanks for the tutorial !!

[JungleMel]

Nice tutorial! I tried something similar to this on about 10 cuttings last summer, had a 100% success rate. It was so humid, I just left them outside and watered normally. I had no idea what to do with so many cuttings, didn't think it would be as easy as that. Too many tutorials, such as air layering methods, make it more complicated than I think it has to be. If I had any idea there were so many people here interested in Nepenthes, I would've offered them up here 1st. I totally will if I trim them again.

[pikkumyy]

Hey Justin,
i was just wondering, will the nepenthes branch out from where you take the cutting? or would that stem not continue to grow?

[jpyerry]

If the plant from which the cutting is taken is strong and healthy, then yes, typically but not always, the plant will start making stems that grow from just below where the cutting was taken (or from the leaf node proximal to the cutting site). Of course, since the growth point of the original stem has been removed the stem proper will never resume growing, but like I said, the plant will develop new side stems that can and will grow to be quite large.

Justin