Rooting a passion vine cutting . . . .

[TheWaterbug]

My Mom has the Passion Vine That Ate New York. About 3 years ago it went bananas and took over the entire side yard. She gets hundreds of really awesome fruit every year.

So I took a cutting from it 5 days ago and put in a jar while I looked for the rooting compound I bought in August of 2011:

[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3552590/PassionVineCutting1.jpg[/img]

[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3552590/PassionVineCutting2.jpg[/img]

I looked carefully this morning, and there's a little thingy sticking out the bottom of the cut end:

[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3552590/PassionVineCutEnd.jpg[/img]

See the tiny little tube-like piece in the middle, sticking out about 1/16 of an inch?

Is that just a piece of xylem? Or could it possibly be a root?

Or do roots come out the side of the stem?

Does rooting compound keep for a year?

Any other tips for propagating a passion vine?

My Mom lives only 20 minutes away, so I can always get more cuttings.

The cutting seems to be doing fine in the water. The stuff at the top of the cutting has grown a little bit in the last 5 days.

[TheWaterbug]

I found my Rootech compound, so I dipped my cut end in it and put that in a little pot with potting soil and lots of water.

It's now wilted and looking very sad

So I was at my Mom's house over the weekend anyway, and I took 5 new cuttings. 3 were nearly whole shoots growing out of one of the main vines, e.g. I looked for side shoots that were only 4-5 inches long, and then cut those off right where they exited the main vine.

The other 2 I cut from the ends of longer vines, e.g. I found some healthy looking, rapidly growing vines and just cut off the 4-5 inches from the end.

These were all a bit soft/wilty, because it'd been a hot day and my Mom doesn't water this vine at all.

But I put all the cuttings in a jar of water, and they perked right up. They all have good turgor now:

[img]https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3552590/5PassionCuttings.jpg[/img]

So what should I do with these? Will passion cuttings root in water? Or do they really need to be in some sort of medium? Will rooting gel "stick" in water, or will it just dissolve away? What's a good mix of soil/sand/??? for rooting a cutting?

Help!!!

[OROZCONLECHE]

I Tried to root pepper cuttings and tomato cuttings I noticed that they do better in some soil/sand with rooting hormone than just water, I put them inside a bag with a bit of water and keep the bag warm the moisture helps the plant from lossing all its water and the roots stay warm and damp, the roots grow slow but the plant does fine, maybe try doing a Jar of water and some soil and see and compare results =]

[TheWaterbug]

Well, I neglected all those for a few days, and they all died. Buy my Mom's vine is doing fantastically, again, this year:



so I just took a few more cuttings. They're in water right now; I haven't figured out how I want to try rooting them.

[ReptileAddiction]

I have never grown passion fruit but it sounds to me like they didnt have enough humidity. Take about a six inch cutting and strip all but a cluster of leaves at the top. Dip it in rooting hormone and put it in sterile soil. Cover it with a ziploc bag to hold in humidity. If it starts to wilt spray the leaves with tepid water.

[CharlieBear]

Generally it is best to root using sterile potting soil after dipping in the rooting compound. Water tend to wash it off or dilute it too much.
Generallized instructions. Cut about 8 in cutting from the vine in a section that is about a thick as a pencil and place in water until you get home. Fill a growing container with moist planting mix. Insert you finger up to 2nd knuckle to make hole for plant.
Strip the bottom leaves off the cutting. Dip in hormone and place in soil, firming it up around the cutting. Cover the container with a plastic bag in a bright location. Open inspect, water and ventilate for a couple of hours a day, then reseal bag. After 8 weeks, if they have rooted pot them up in gallon size pots and leave them there until they are strong enough to plant out.
Note that this will probably work best in the spring or early summer, but you could try it now if you like.

[TheWaterbug]

Cover it with a ziploc bag to hold in humidity. If it starts to wilt spray the leaves with tepid water.

Thanks for the advice; this is the part that I wasn't doing, so that's why they dried and died. I'm going to try this again.

The three cuttings that I've had in water for the past 11 weeks are still green and alive, but they haven't put out any roots yet. I don't know if they ever will. But I did inspect the ends the other day, and they've all got this going on:



It's kinda hard to make out the detail, but on the right side of the central tube there some yellowish callous-y looking stuff. It bumpy, like cauliflower, and it's bulging enough to split the green part of the stem.

Is that the start of root tissue? Or do roots come out from the sides instead of the bottom?

Or is it a sign of their impending demise?

[applestar]

I somehow missed this thread entirely until now.
I'm really not sure, but when I first saw the photo, before going back to read the whole thread, my thought was that it was getting ready to root.

Most plants have cells that are easiest to convert to root forming cells at the leaf nodes. Woody plants also convert to root forming cells just below the inner bark.

Most of the time, older stems that are stiffer but haven't grown the hard "bark" make the hardiest cuttings. Sometimes referred to as "semi-hardwood".

Leaves transpire moisture out of the cutting, causing it to dry out.

So most of the time when I take cuttings, I cut sections with two leaf nodes to root/bury and one or two leaf nodes to grow. When available, I also make hammer-shaped cuttings -- a side branch with the main stem cut above and below. Sometimes, I shave the bark from the hammerhead on the side away from the branch to expose more inner bark.

I strip/pull off the leaves from leaf nodes to root, but at the leaf nodes to grow, I cut larger leaves in half but not strip off so as not to damage the outer stem layer/bark. Halving the leaves reduces the surface but keeps part of the leaf for photosynthesis to feed the new shoot. Sometimes, they still dry up and fall off though.

Often you can get several prepped 4-leaf node cutting pieces from each sprig/shoot/branch you may have cut from the mother plant.

Ventilated humidity cover -- plastic bag with corners cut off, cut off soda bottle with cap off, frequent misting, and bottom heat for hard to root cuttings.

I usually try to root 4-6 cuttings with expectation of one surviving.. Generally, I end up with two plants. Sometimes, they can surprise you though.

Watering with willow water -- willow branch and leaves chopped up and steeped in the water -- helps.

[TheWaterbug]

I somehow missed this thread entirely until now.
I'm really not sure, but when I first saw the photo, before going back to read the whole thread, my thought was that it was getting ready to root.

They heard you.

I hadn't looked at my cuttings since my last post, and then two days ago I took a look, and all 4 are rooting!



Two are rooting quite vigorously, and the two on the left are just starting, but they all began rooting within a few days of each other.

Either there's some common chemical signal that triggered all of them, or else they are communicating with each other.

I did cut these all off just below a leaf node, and coincidentally one of them was a "hammerhead" cutting as you've described.

The roots do not appear to be coming from that yellow cauliflower-ish tissue, but they did seem to appear at approximately the same time.

How much root should I have on a piece before I attempt to put it in soil?

[applestar]

I would plant the two long rooted one's in soil. It's harder to pot up when water roots get extra long -- often you end up planting them coiled up, which is NOT what you want. Keep humidity cover on for a while yet and keep in bright spot out of direct sun until new leaf growths start to emerge, then wean them off the humidity cover and acclimate them gradually to sunlight.

[laylaTnT]

Hi there Bug,
How did those cuttings of the passion flower finally do ? Did you build a vigorous root system? It is now October and in my area roses bloom until December many years. I want to propagate many vines to grow next spring. any suggestions? I am limited on space and I will take any and all suggestions
Thank you so much
LaylaTnT

[imafan26]

Passion fruit vines are easy to root, but we usually grow them from seeds. The vines we pull out, because they usually try to climb the trees.