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How to take a basal cutting?

Thagirion

Budgies are best
Last year I bought an N. "ventricosa - black peristome". I've been looking through some older posts and have realized this is not the plant I have but probably a hybrid of N. spathulata x ventricosa. I've been wanting a ventricosa because I hear they are easy and can grow as house plants. So I was disapointed that my plant didn't do well at all. I thought I had lost it but then saw that three basals were coming up. I put it in a tank with lights and a humidifer. It's doing better and the leaves look healthy. I'd like to separate the basals but have no idea how to go about it and how to root them. Could someone give me a step by step please? Here's how the plant looks now.

IMG_1898.jpg
 
Sounds like you bought your ventricosa "Black Peristome" from the vendor I did. I also got spathulata X ventricosa instead. Mine is also shooting out basals like crazy. When cutting basals, I usually repot the plant in new media at the same time. Remove as much of the old media as you can from the root system and from around the basal growths. Cut the basals as close as possible to the parent stalk. I usually then cut the bottom of the cutting at a sharp angle in order to provide more exposed surface area for rooting. Dip the cut end into a rooting hormone and tap off all the excess powder. Stick the cutting into moist LFS and keep covered or bagged to maintain humidity while rooting. It also helps to cut all the leaves in half so the plant can concentrate on rooting rather than upward growth. The cuttings should root in 3 to 6 weeks.

Good luck.
 
I suggest you to wait for them to get roots. I have failed with basal cutting without roots with normal media, but with spaghnum around the plants base I have been succesful.
 
Thank you both.
Cthulhu138, I will try this method. I've got some LFS moss around I can use. I need to learn this technique. What about watering? I'm guessing the moist sphagnum will keep the water circulating in the bag?
 
I'd also suggest waiting before cutting them off. Scratch the stem to the cambium layer at the base of the basals with a razor. Then bury the plant to these points in live sphagnum, they will root without having to take a cutting. You shouldn't need any rooting powder, but the powder usually does have some anti-fungal in them so it won't hurt.
This way you can remove the rooted cutting from the parent plant with roots intact. Your success rate will be much better.
 
That sounds very good too. Thanks for the advice. I just don't have any live sphagnum.
 
In my own limited experiences I found that basals that were given rooting hormone never rooted until I washed it off months later, whereas those that were just put into LFS rooted within a few weeks.
 
Well I was experimental and tried two of the methods suggested here. I cut one at an angle, cut the leaves in half, put rooting powder on it and put it in sphagnum with a bag. It's in my tank with the others now. So hopefully in a month it will have roots. It's my first time doing so I hope I did it right. The other ones I left on but scrapped one at the base added rooting powder and then repotted it and it's also in the tank again but not bagged and I didn't cut any leaves. I used distilled water.

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Good luck!
 
  • #10
Good luck.
 
  • #11
Thanks.
 
  • #12
I remember reading on another forum that somebody used to cut out a wedge of the basal, then wrap it in LFS and wrap that in plastic wrap. Then they would wait until they saw roots (roots stop growing when they hit sunlight apparently) and then cut it off and pot it up. I'm wondering if anyone has done this? Sounds a lot like what some of you were talking about with cutting a mark into the basal and then repotting it so it would be in the media.

If anyone knows the link to this please link it, because I am most likely going to be doing this during the summer..

EDIT 2: Okay apparently it is called "Air Layering". http://www.cpukforum.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=8130 there is a guide with pictures.
 
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  • #13
that sounds like air layering witch works with vines should work with basals
good luck
 
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