Rose Propagation

a)This document outlines the normal procedures of Rose Propagation by using Cuttings as well as some useful and practical hints for Rose producers.

b) Background

In general, Cutting Propagation is the easiest way to propagate Roses comparing to other methods such as Budding or Seeding which need skills and take up special possibilities. Rooting cuttings is simple and for a commercial purpose it requires the least amount of money and workers, so for the beginners it is the most suitable way to propagate different cultivars of Rose with an average 75% of success depending on the way of treatment and supervision, also the variables of disease, pest and environment.

c) Personal Workplace Activity

The area I worked in had a continental climate with harsh winters - a minimum temperature of -12 Celsius - so in early November I built a simple wooden frame and plastic covered greenhouse (12m x 5m, and 2m high) in order to place and protect 3000 rose cuttings.

Because the roses were meant to be planted in civil landscapes such as parks and recreational centres, I decided to choose the mother-plants from those areas where the most popular varieties are different hybrids of Tea Rose, White Rose and Red Rose. So in the mid November that is a good time to take cuttings, I went to several parks nearby to obtain the cuttings by pruning the roses from their gardens. I tried to take cuttings in the morning and choose healthy plants with no trace of pest or disease on them.

After transporting the stems to workplace I started to make the cuttings with precision. I used a pruning shear to make a nice 45 dergree cut, 1cm just above the top bud (the higher point is above the bud) and a flat cut for the base of cutting right below the node (the node has a better rooting). Each cutting was 12-17cm long with at least 3 buds and one set of leaflets (preferably five leaflets) on it to produce food through "Photosynthesis" during the process of rooting. I made two types of cuttings; the Softwood cuttings from the stems grown in the early spring the same year with soft and green Periderm, comparing to Hardwood cuttings from the older stems with hard and woody bark. I tried to make a narrow vertical slit at the base of Hardwoods as wounding the cuttings helps increase the rooting success.

After trimming the cuttings I dipped about 2 inches of the bases into rooting hormone (Synthetic Auxin) for 5 seconds, then stuck them in a well-drained rooting medium - a mixture of 80% river sand and 20% area's soil which has a loam-clay texture - inside the planting bags (10cm in diameter, 15cm deep), made of dark polyethylene with drainage hole underneath, as I had prepared them before.

Each cutting was then removed to the greenhouse and placed on top of wooden pallets in order to create better airing and drainage. The cuttings were divided into 10 groups of 300 (30 x 10) as dividing them into groups had many advantages such as;

o an easy way to control and monitor the rooting process or growth
o a more organized environment to allow labelling the plants or recording the events
o a more convenient irrigation and fertilization
o a better condition to prevent or strike possible pests or diseases

By the end of November all the cuttings were laid in their position inside the greenhouse where the temperature differed from 5 C at night to 25 C in the mid day. I tried to pay attention to the temperature and humidity at all times; not too cold to let the units frost, and not too hot and humid to allow the occurrence of disease especially Fungus, however to obviate the outburst of any potential pest or disease I sprayed the units with a solution of Mancozeb (ratio 2/1000) inside the greenhouse and frequently disinfected the tools and gloves.

I irrigated the cuttings 2-3 times a week in average, or as soon as the surface of the soil dried out, however there is no regular timing for irrigation as it totally depends on different variables such as temperature, humidity and the phase of growth. Also I did not feel the requirement of using fertilizers.

In 3-5 weeks I noticed that the cuttings are starting to root and after 3 months by the end of February they started to sprout and create new stems. At that time I removed the plastic cover of greenhouse whenever there was a medium daylight and moderate temperature. It was a crucial moment as they need more water and a better care like cutting off old yellow leaves and dispose of all the non rooted units to prevent the growth of Fungus.

By the early spring I removed the plastic cover of greenhouse from the sides but the top was left to make a shadow environment for the cuttings as the rose cuttings are sensitive to strong sunlight until they are cultivated in their permanent location.

As for a case of experiment I decided to plant 200 of softwoods and 200 of hardwoods in the medium without dipping them into the rooting hormone. The interesting result is that it did not have any significant influence on softwoods, but for the hardwoods they had half the rooting percentage than the dipped ones.

In the end of March the cuttings had passed their vulnerable stage and were ready to be delivered to the gardeners as they were to sit in their nurseries til the end of summer to produce a stronger rooting system and finally be cultivated in the landscape in the autumn.

Totally 80% of cuttings had successfully rooted and grown to the ideal stage, but basically comparing the 90% of softwoods to the 70% of hardwoods completing the rooting period and sprout, shows no matter how well you treat the rose cuttings, the softwoods always bring about a better outcome.

I used some tags and labels in order to record the rooting progress and growth rate and to keep the track of any unwanted incident.

Apart from the quality of cuttings, good treatment and irrigation, one of the other factors that really helped the cuttings to generate this positive result is; the total absence of pests and disease during the rooting period which I believe it was secured by the act of prevention.