Plant Propagation

For some of you who have been reading, I haven't wrote in a while. But I am going to try to stay more on top of what I have going on in the world of horticulture.

Right now I am totally enthralled by my plant propagation class. Some of you might be familiar with propagation, others might not. So let's ask ourselves, what exactly is plant propagation?

Plant prop is the science of generating new plants from existing ones. This is mainly done via seed (sexual reproduction), cuttings (asexual reproduction), tissue culture and division. Right now in school we just did a prop lab where we took cuttings of Osmanthus x fortuneii and we are rooting them in a prop-deck. The deck is 9x7 with a break in the middle. So I had 4 rows of cuttings, a break, then another 4 rows of cuttings, totaling 56 new plants. The cuttings were placed in a 3B pine-bark compost mixture with perlite and before they were planted we dipped each row in a differnt solution of plant hormone. The plant hormones were:

-2500 ppm ABA
-2500 ppm NAA
-5000 ppm ABA
-5000 ppm NAA
-combined solution of 2500 ppm ABA and NAA
-combined solution of 5000 ppm ABA and NAA

The deck was then placed under a misting bed to initiate root development and further plant growth..Check back in to see what is going on with the plants in a few weeks..