I'm interested in doing air-layering on a japanese maple on my property. I'm looking to purchase rooting hormone for the air-layering process. I've done some research, and it's recommended that I need "Indole-3-butyric acid ingredient: 0.8% IBA" for the tree. But it's proving quite difficult to find this locally. However, wherever I go to purchase rooting hormone, I only see "Indole-3-butyric acid ingredient: 0.1% IBA" on the bottles that are available. I don't see the 0.5% IBA kind either.
Would I be okay with purchasing 0.1% IBA? If not, where is a good place to purchase 0.8% IBA over the Internet?
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Nature's Grasp
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- Joined: Sat Jul 02, 2011 6:32 pm
- Location: Toledo, Ohio 5B
If you are not cutting off branch to forse in a terrerium, but are merely trying an airlayer, why seek a product that is not regularly avaiable to you?
Airlayering is the act of stripping away the inner and outer bark to girdle a branch, and adding a wire tournaquette just below the wound to encourage new roots to callus, in a protected and moist soil you have strapped over the wound.
If it will make you feel better add some rooting hormone to cut edge of bark.
Timing, by that I mean how much leaves have erupted when wound is made have at least as much benefit as the strength of rooting hormone applied.
I've only needed to take a few airlayers of Japan maples, meaning the to-be-removed branch was big enough to be worth trying to propagate as its own tree of my bonsai.
I had my best luck as leaves were first erupting in spring.
FWIW I expect even the most experienced hand at airlayering does not have a 100% success rate.
Airlayering is the act of stripping away the inner and outer bark to girdle a branch, and adding a wire tournaquette just below the wound to encourage new roots to callus, in a protected and moist soil you have strapped over the wound.
If it will make you feel better add some rooting hormone to cut edge of bark.
Timing, by that I mean how much leaves have erupted when wound is made have at least as much benefit as the strength of rooting hormone applied.
I've only needed to take a few airlayers of Japan maples, meaning the to-be-removed branch was big enough to be worth trying to propagate as its own tree of my bonsai.
I had my best luck as leaves were first erupting in spring.
FWIW I expect even the most experienced hand at airlayering does not have a 100% success rate.
I haven't tried air layering maples but I have tried rooting them in soil and sand. Growing the scion in water for a week or two (like a cut flower) seems to help with the transition to a rooting medium. I have had no better luck WITH rooting hormone than WITHOUT. The rooting hormone should be fresh and the concentration is critical and I may have erred in these areas but rooting hormone has never worked for me so I do without. I have recently discovered "willow water" and I can't claim yet from personal experience that it works but it is easy to obtain and costs nothing. Google "willow water" for details. Any Salix is a natural source of IBA.