Cloning your plants...

[Vertigo]

I've been trying to propagate a few different things lately, and I got to wondering today...when you take a cutting or division or other wise clone your plant, does it remember what it's biological clock said? Or does it reset?

Basically, if you cloned something that needs a dormancy close to the time of year it would normally go into dormancy, would the clone still want to go dormant? Or would it still do alright if you skipped the first one?

I know how this works with seedlings...what about from cuttings?

 

[vft guy in SJ]

If you keep the photoperiod long like summertime you can probably fool the cutting into thinking its still summer. There was a good discussion on what triggers dormancy in plants in the VFT forum the other day. Basically shorter photoperiod triggers the onset of dormancy. Imo cuttings should not want to go dormant as long as they get enough light.

Good Luck
Steve

 

[jhaluska]

I would think you could trick it into at least postponing dormancy. A good rule of thumb, the smaller the CP the easier it is to trick into not having a dormancy.

Good luck!

 

[larry]

Do plants live indefinitely or do they die after a certain number of years? If their lifetime is limited, then when you clone a plant, does the clone know its got a certain number of years left before it kicks the bucket?

 

[jhaluska]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Do plants live indefinitely or do they die after a certain number of years?[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>

As far as I know, VFTs live indefinitely as long as they are properly cared for.  I know there are 23-50 year old VFTs.

Think of it this way, they are always growing new growth.

Another example of clones living forever...amoebas.