- 3 months ago
Category
🦄
CreativityTranscript
00:00Hey guys, welcome back to Grafting Dragon Fruit. It's Richard and in this video today I'm going
00:04to be showing you guys how I root dragon fruit cuttings in bulk. So for someone like me who has
00:10so many different types of dragon fruit, this is probably an ideal way to start rooting your
00:16dragon fruit. It costs a lot of money when you have this many dragon fruit cuttings to plant
00:21with soil. And don't get me wrong, if you prefer to plant in the soil you can go ahead and do that.
00:26There's nothing wrong with that, but I just feel like this is a more cost and a very good efficient
00:32way to root multiple dragon fruit cuttings. So what I did here was, or let me tell you guys why I even
00:39have this many cuttings to begin with to start rooting. So if you guys have been following my
00:43journey, you know most of my pots have four different varieties per container. So when I was growing
00:49dragon fruit and in the process of collecting other and new varieties, I wanted to make sure I liked the
00:55variety first before I committed into four cuttings per container. So what I did was I planted one
01:01variety in each of the pots and I had four different varieties in one container. So that is really cool
01:09to do because once you have them mature and they start to flower and fruit, you get four different
01:15varieties in a container. So you can try four different dragon fruit varieties once they all start
01:21to bloom. But the only issue with that is once they become established and become mother plants like
01:27this, you can see that they start to climb all over each other, branches start to overlap, and then
01:33some even look so similar that you can easily get confused of what variety they are. So like when I
01:40would go out and people would ask me for cuttings and they were in a mixed pot, I had to follow the trunk
01:46to find which one the variety was true to the variety to make sure I wasn't cutting accidentally a different
01:52variety and give it to two people. So fast forward to today, I wanted to plant four of the same varieties
02:00in one container. And I'm also even changing my type of soil to Gary's best topsoil. And this soil is
02:09supposed to help with the winter rot because it's so good with draining the water. The problem with
02:16Fox Farm Ocean Forest was over time, the roots would grow and then the soil would actually compress down
02:24and then they would be very tight in there. So water was, you know, building up and wasn't draining as
02:30well. With Gary's best topsoil, its majority of the mixture is charcoal, sand, and pumice. And that's what
02:38they use and it just drains so well because of that sand. With Fox Farm Ocean Forest, it's a lot of
02:44debris, wood chips, you know, matter that you can find on the forest floor. They blend that up, put some
02:52compost in there like earthworm and bat guano, and they call it a organic soil. And that's why organic
02:59is good, but for long term and you're growing containers, it could be a problem because roots
03:04gets compressed down and all of those organic matter will decompose over time and your roots
03:09gets really compressed. So the whole deal with me doing this is so that I can start getting
03:15new pots with new soil and four of the same varieties in one container. So that's why you see
03:22all of these cuttings here being rooted in bulk. Okay, so let me dive into how I got them to root so well
03:31in water without getting them all rotted up. And the secret weapon here was this
03:38rooting hormone here. This is called Hormex rooting hormone powder. And it's the specific one that I
03:45use is number eight. And this one specifically is for moderate to difficult to root woody plants. And if
03:54you guys know dragon fruit, the cambium core is very woody. So this was a very, very good way to root
04:02them. A lot of people use this to clone other types of plants. I saw Lucky from Oceanside Dragon
04:08Fruit use this method and I thought it was such a great idea. And he even put it into buckets like
04:13this and put it into a greenhouse with this rooting powder and the roots grew out so, so nice. Bigger
04:20roots. They look beautiful. And when I was rooting these, I left it in my shed where it didn't get any
04:27sunlight in there. There's a window where it gets some diffuse light, but because I kept it in a shed
04:32away from the environment, mosquitoes wasn't, you know, laying their eggs in the water. It wasn't getting
04:37any fungus or mildew growing in the water or algae. So I didn't have to change the water as much. But if
04:43you guys are planning to do this and leave it outside, I recommend you guys change the water almost
04:48every three to four days. If it's looking a little murky in there or cloudy, I would recommend to
04:53change the water and add a little bit more of the rooting hormone. And you guys will probably ask me
04:58how much do I add of that rooting hormone? There's no precise measurement that I use. I kind of just
05:04sprinkle it in there until I see it gets a little cloudy and I mix it all and I stick it in there.
05:08But a ratio I would use would be a teaspoon per gallon of water. So there's, you can't overuse this
05:16rooting hormone. The only thing that's going to happen if you use too much of it is the roots
05:20are going to just grow exponentially, like very, very fast, like vigorous, vigorous roots.
05:25So let me show you guys some of those roots that's been rooting in here. So I just have
05:31random buckets here. I have two gallon bucket, five gallon bucket. I don't know what, how many gallons
05:35this is, but that's the amount of water that I put in here. If you guys can see, it's only enough
05:40to cover about half an inch of the cutting. And you guys can see all of that root already growing.
05:49It's kind of crazy, but it's really, really healthy roots going down there. And let me just pull one
05:54out so you guys can see the nice roots that's been growing in here. All right. I'm going to choose
06:01this wild berry skittles because the root system on this just looks absolutely insane. And I really
06:06want to show you guys the growth of this root system. And it's all thanks to the Hormex.
06:14All right, guys. So this variety here is wild berry skittles. I wanted to grow its own pot because I
06:21really, really like this variety and I want to have extra cutting so that way I can start sharing it
06:25with you guys. But just check out this root system that's already being grown here. Usually when you
06:31root in water, they don't get this vigorous where you even see fish bones growing out of them.
06:36And so, you know, the root is very, very healthy. There's no rot whatsoever. The roots look very
06:42clean. You see no oxidizing and the roots are nice, white, and just beautiful. And just look at that.
06:49Once I put this in soil, they are going to blow up. So I do think that the Hormex rooting hormone does
06:56help a lot. I've actually used root cuttings in water, but without rooting hormone. And the roots
07:04would grow, but I'll get only like three or four roots and they won't even like fish bone out like
07:08this. But when I started using the Hormex rooting hormone with the water, oh my gosh, there is such
07:14a big difference. The roots look amazing. Let's check out some more. Here we have Asunta 6.
07:22And yeah, check that out. More amazing roots from Asunta 6. So I think this is a really great way to
07:34save money. And even when you plant new cuttings like this into soil, there's no root system yet.
07:41So all of that nutrient that's in there is just getting washed away. And sometimes roots don't even
07:46come out until after two or three weeks, sometimes even a month later. So by that month coming,
07:51all of that nutrients that's been in that soil has been washed away and it's getting the tail end of
07:56all of the nutrients. So let's go ahead and talk about all this crazy growth that you guys are seeing
08:04here. So the reason why the growth is nice and skinny or not nice, but thin and skinny like this is
08:11because it was in my greenhouse this whole time. And not a lot of sun actually hits this. So you will
08:17get this long skinny growth until it actually gets direct sun. And once it gets direct sun, it will
08:24just blow up and get really thick. So once they're in the rooting phase like this, I like to cut them
08:29off because it's just continuing to take energy out of the main cut. And this growth will eventually get
08:36bigger and thicker, but I'd rather have it start a new growth where it can progressively get thicker so I
08:41don't have a main stalk that's so skinny. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take these off
08:46and yeah, you can actually use these as cuttings. All these aerial roots here can be used as roots
08:54systems. Once you put them in and you cover in soil, they'll become roots. And then these here
08:59will actually become cuttings. And once you leave in the sun, they'll just start to blow up. So once you
09:04see skinny cuttings like this, I kind of just remove them because it's just kind of taking energy from the
09:08cutting, I'd rather have new growth from them going on. Okay. Okay. So next question I usually get is
09:16when the root starts to appear, when do I transfer it into soil or when do I up pot it into a trellis
09:25or when do I just plant it into soil? So you can plant these into soil as soon as you guys see roots.
09:32I've just been so busy that I didn't get a chance to get these into soil yet. But the minute I see
09:38roots popping out like this, they're ready to go. You can go ahead and put them into soil and those
09:44just start to grow very quick. And because they've been in the greenhouse for probably two to three
09:49weeks now, you want to slowly acclimate this back into the sun. If you put this into the direct sun
09:55right now, you're going to get some sun scorching and the color is going to start to fade a little bit
09:59and become a little yellow or a little bit brown depending how hot it is outside. But keep them
10:04in the shade area for two weeks and slowly bring them out to sun after you guys start acclimating
10:10them. Okay. So that's when I would put them into soil. Or if you guys have a trellis already built
10:14and you know where to put them, go ahead and take these. Once they're rooted, plant them right into
10:19your trellis, four per pot, and you're ready to go for the season. But because I don't have any of my
10:23trellis ready, these have already rooted. They don't need to sit in this water anymore. I'm going to go ahead
10:28now and just start taking some out and planting them into some soil. So I have some one gallon
10:35pots here. And I love using one gallon pots to start off my cuttings because it builds a very nice
10:42root ball. And once they have an established root ball and you put it into your trellis,
10:46they grow super, super fast. The growth will just start growing so fast. Versus if you just put a new
10:52cutting in there, it's going to take time to root before it can start shooting out any new growth.
10:56So this way, you know the root system is good. You don't have to worry if your root has, or if your
11:02cutting has rooted yet. And you can go ahead and just jump right into planting them into your trellis.
11:06Because now they all have roots, I want them to be in soil so they can start getting used to their
11:11new conditions. And then once they, I see a new shoot come up, that's when I'll take them out and put
11:16them into a trellis and have them just start growing and train that main branch to go all the way to
11:20the top of the canopy. So today I'm going to be using Happy Frog from Fox Farm. And I like to use Happy
11:28Frog for cutting. It's because they have Microsa. I don't know, I'm probably butchering that, but this
11:35is a bacteria that helps with rooting. And it makes it grow very vigorous. So after I use some of this,
11:43and once I start seeing new growth, I'll take this up, shake off most of the soil, and I'll change it
11:49to my new potting soil, which would be Gary's best topsoil. But for now, this is what I'm using. So
11:54that way they have nutrients so they can grow and they have food for them to feed off of. So that way
12:01I don't have to worry about fertilizing for the next two weeks, or even a month. And we're all set
12:06and ready to go because all of the organic compost and fertilizer is ready in this mix. So let's go ahead
12:14and plant these as soon to six. I should have four as soon to six. I'll plant this one right here. Wow.
12:24Okay, guys, you know, I always have to have bamboo stick here, garden tape. These are your essentials to
12:34start potting up new cuttings. Once they're heavy, and they're this long, they can topple over very
12:41easily until the root system starts to grow into the soil and establish this stuff in there and anchor
12:46it in there. And you won't have to worry about falling down. But for now, since the roots is so
12:50new, we're going to want something to help hold it right up. And once it's established, then you're set.
12:56So here we go. Just going to make a little hole here. I just want to put it in just like this.
13:05And what I like to do is I'll do this little shake just to get them in. And then I'll top it off with
13:11some more soil after I get the stick in. So I like to put the stick back here, lean in like that.
13:18So I know it's standing up. Now the rest to do is tie them up. Nice.
13:27So here we go. Root system is already rooted all of them in bulk. I didn't even have to use any of
13:40these soil here. And I can actually see the roots once they start to grow. So that's another bonus
13:45of rooting them in water like this. And I think the the big help here was the rooting hormone
13:50where it helped help the roots get grow so vigorous, so healthy that once I put them in soil, I know
13:57they won't have a problem surviving. There won't be any shock. They're just going to love that they're
14:02finally in soil and they're going to grow rapidly. So I'm going to top it off with a little bit more soil
14:10like this. And I'm going to compress this soil down. And I know it's ready. Last thing to do is just
14:32water this. Let me grab the hose, put some water in. We're just going to lightly water this.
14:40Just like that.
14:54Okay. I know there's enough water when you start seeing it leak out like this.
15:00So you're going to let all that water drain out. So you know you have enough water in there. It's
15:05soaked. Your cutting is happy. But I still have so much more cuttings to do here. I'm going to be
15:13planting all these into soil. And I hope I hope I have enough pots to do all of this. But yeah,
15:18that's how you root cuttings in bulk, you guys. So I hope this was helpful. And if you guys ever
15:26have too many cuttings, now you know what to do. So yeah, if you guys enjoyed this video, you guys
15:30thought that was helpful. Please hit that like button for me. If you guys have any comments or
15:34any other content or questions you guys want to ask me, leave it in the comments below. And I'll
15:38answer to you guys as quick as I can. And if you guys haven't already subscribed to the channel,
15:43hit that subscribe button. So that way you'll miss a single thing. I'll see you guys on the next
15:47episode of Grafton Drag Race. Peace, guys.
Be the first to comment