De-crowning African violets to force sucker production

[Kisal]

Has anyone here used this method of propagation? I have a chimera African violet I'm trying to propagate. I can't get a leaf to root.

I would also be interested in hearing about anyone's experience propagating African violets through the use of the flower stems.

I just learned of these techniques today, and I'm considering trying them on the chimera.

I'll probably wait until it blooms again, though, because then I'll be able to test both techniques at the same time. In the meantime, I'd like to learn as much as I can about these methods.

[applestar]

Have you tried shaving a bit of "heel" from the root trunk when removing the leaf?

I haven't tried these other methods. Sounds interesting. Keep us updated?

[Kisal]

The poor little thing is small to begin with. I'm not sure whether it's a miniature or not ... could be a semi-miniature. Still, at this point, I'm kind of hesitant to make off with any more of its leaves, for fear I'll kill the whole thing.

I will try taking a heel with the petiole helps, and let you know if it helps.

So far, I've tried planting the petiole in moist sand, dipping the petiole in rooting hormone and planting in moist sand, placing the petiole in plain water, quartering the end of the petiole with a razor blade and placing it in water, and taking a leaf with a very short portion of the petiole. I've tried old leaves, new leaves and middle-aged leaves.

This morning, I decided to search around online to see if there were any other propagation methods I hadn't heard of before. That's when I learned that the crown of a plant could be removed to force the formation of suckers, which can then be rooted. The crown can be re-rooted as well. Another method is to remove the open central blossom from a flower stem, leaving the closed buds and the sepals attached, and then rooting the stem.

I understand that chimeras can be difficult to propagate, and even if you do get one to start from a leaf, the flowers of the resultant plant often revert to one of the parent plants.

I'll keep trying.

[Ozark Lady]

I am having difficulty with propagating my African Violet too.

It has almost died over and over, and always recovers at the brink of disaster.

It bloomed like crazy, and immediately got into trouble, no matter what I did leaves were dying, I thought I would lose it for sure.

But, when I trimmed the dead ones off look what I found: A double crown

[img]https://i728.photobucket.com/albums/ww281/Ozark_Lady/100_2814_phixr.jpg[/img]

Oddly enough when I try to root leaf cuttings, they stay alive, they do fine, but they never develop a crown and grow more leaves.
I have never seen one do that, the leaves stay green and healthy, but do not grow small plants.

I am debating and need to look this up, but can I separate the two crowns?

Do I bury it deeper to root both? The stringy things are not roots, those are leaves that died.

[Kisal]

Yes, you can separate them. If you have 2 entirely separate plants in the pot, you can gently separate the roots by hand. If you have a single stem with two crowns, just use a sharp, thin-bladed knife to cut down between them, so that each section has an equal amount of roots. (Make sure to sterilize the blade beforehand.) Then plant up each part in its own pot. Use slightly smaller pots, however. An alternative method is just to cut off one of the crowns and its stem and pot it up separately. It will grow new roots. (You could probably even root the stem in a glass of water, although I haven't done that.)

Before repotting, it's a good idea to let the plant dry out a bit, just to the point where it wilts very slightly. That will reduce the chances of leaves breaking off while you're handling it.

Use the edge of the knife to gently scrape down all sides of the stalk. You need to remove as many of those dead leaf stems as you can, along with any scaly kind of stuff, or else new roots won't grow.

I prune the root ball when I repot a stalky violet. Just use the knife to cut off the bottom half of the root ball, so that it sits deeper in a pot. Then, fill in around the stalk with fresh potting mix. Be careful that the crown doesn't get buried, though!

Y'know, I've never had a leaf that rooted, but wouldn't turn into a plant. I honestly have no idea why that would happen. How long has it been since you planted the leaf?

[Ozark Lady]

I used to start new violets from leaves all the time.

So I started one, and it was looking good, and looking good, and looking good, and no babies. I gave it another month, nothing, but it looked healthy. Violets do not take months to root!

So, I decided to unbag the whole pot and maybe with fertilizer and airflow it could be induced to send up small plantlets... nope, it got too dry, and died.

I didn't dump it out to see if there were roots on it or not, but, surely the leaf would not have stayed green so long without roots?

It was in that bag over twice the usual amount of time... I don't know if I still have the note that I wrote to myself with the date on it, when it died I probably just deleted it.

[Kisal]

I didn't dump it out to see if there were roots on it or not, but, surely the leaf would not have stayed green so long without roots?

Meh! That's exactly how the leaves I've been trying to start have behaved ... two different plants, even different cultivars, over a period of a couple of years. The leaves stayed nice and firm and green for months, then the petiole turns to mush in matter of days. Heck if I know what's happening with them. It's frustrating!

[Ozark Lady]

I had just discovered an antisprouting agent used on store bought sweet potatoes.
And you know genes have been tinkered with.
Do you reckon they figured out a way to keep them from growing that way?

I wouldn't put it past them, I did notice on a few that I bought, it said that they were copyrighted. So, I figured okay, so I won't sell them, but if I want to grow them for myself, then not a violation.

[Kisal]

Hmmmm ... I just ran across an article that says an African violet leaf that is too old will root, but won't produce new plantlets. It says to choose a leaf that is about halfway between the new young leaves in the center and the oldest leaves on the edge. You might want to give that a try.

This same article says that bicolors can't be propagated from leaves. She uses the word "unstable" to describe them. Both of the plants I've been trying to propagate are bicolors. I guess I'll definitely have to try the flower-stem and de-crowning methods.