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D. multifida cuttings: Laying on soil vs. Floating in water

Zath

Enthusiastic Enthusiast
So, I have a D. multifida 'extrema' plant that has never flowered for me. It's already survived one winter under lights, but I'm getting nervous only having one, so I want to start at least one cutting in a terrarium as a backup.

I'm curious as to the best way to do this. I know a few people have had great success with floating them in water. What are the specifics of this? Does the water need to be changed periodically, or just topped off as it evaporates. Once you see strikes, do you just lay the leaf on suitable media?

What about just laying the entire leaf or pieces thereof on media to begin with? Do you include the leaf blades, or just the petiole? Do older leaves that are beginning to lose their dew work as well as freshly unfurled leaves?

Sorry for asking so many questions that are probably common knowledge, but all of my experience with plant cuttings so far have been strictly with fresh flower stalks, laid on damp media with the ends lightly covered.
 
What I do is I float them in water for ~3 weeks and then when I start seeing buds I transplant them to flooded milled LFS. Have a few dozen D. dichotoma "Giant" from Kevin going now from using this method. ;)

While floating in water I just top off until algae starts to pop up, then I do a complete water change.

You can float leaves, petioles, and flower stalks. But plantlets from the actual leaves tend to be more robust while those from the petioles/flower stalks tend to be more numerous.

From Kevin's plant I took new and old, browning leaves off. Some of the older leaves will die off but you could still see strikes. Will grab a photo when I get home.
 
I prefer striking my cuttings in water, for some reason they are subject to rot very easily in my media. I usually chop the leaf blades into 1'' to 2'' segments; I've tried with the petioles before, but they seem to have a significantly lower success rates, so I don't bother with them anymore. I know that some people leave the leaf blades whole, but in the end you should usually get the same number of plants regardless if you sized the leaves down or not. I just find it more convenient when it's time to plant.

Strong, robust leaves that are still covered in dew are ideal. Older leaves have much lower success rates, and while I haven't tried with freshly unfurled leaves yet, I doubt they will prove better than healthy leaves in their prime.

Use only pure water (RO, Distilled, etc.) for striking cuttings, rainwater tends to develop unpleasant things over time. I change the water if algae or something similar starts developing, or if a cutting rots. I keep everything in a closed container under indirect light, so evaporation isn't an issue. Once the new growth points have developed around 2-3 leaves, I bury the cuttings in adult media with the new growth just sticking above the soil, and start to acclimate them to lower humidity and direct sun. You can get a mature plant very quickly this way; some of my D. binata cuttings flowered in only around 6 months, roughly half the time it takes to grow from seed. Root cuttings are usually faster, but leaf cuttings (in moderation) won't stress the plant as much.
 
Thanks to both of you. I feel confident enough now to go deprive my plant of a healthy leaf.

With it being multifida 'extrema', I think a single leaf will provide me with an abundance of strikes. ;)
 
I don't grow that specific form of D. binata, but D. binata var. dichotoma rots whenever I try to strike in media. For the water floating method I just stick leaves or flower stalk pieces in jars of distilled water next to lights. They usually strike after a few weeks. If the water is too cold it seems to slow them down a lot though (but conversely, they don't seem to rot as quickly).

Leaves tend to form an absolutely enormous amount of plantlets, so I'm sure you'll be flooded with more than you'll know what to do with soon.
 
I make a container of LFS add water, then the cuttings. just chop up a plant, roots, leaves etc., and cover for a few week. then slowly acclimatize to get ready to plant as they get larger. all water has advantages, but having some substrate like LFS seems to make it easier to transplant
 
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