Went ahead and cut it back, and since I am stressing it with this rooting stuff, I went ahead and dug out a small grow light to go with it as well. While gathering up the clippings, a thought struck me.
That mini hydroponics kit I have some of the spare reaper seeds in, I bet that thing would make an excellent cloner!
So I picked the branch with the most interesting structure, trimmed it into a proper cutting, gave it a quick dusting of rooting hormone, and traded places with one of the reaper seeds (which is now in sterilized coir to finish sprouting).
I have never had any luck getting superhots to clone successfully. If this thing can get that peter pepper clipping to root, it'll be worth every penny I paid for it. Never had any intention of using it for more than getting seedlings up, but if it proves to be an effective cloner, its going to see a lot of use!
For starters, the most successful grafting technique for peppers is an approach graft.
Reason it works so well is because the scion (the piece you are grafting onto the main plant) has it's own root structure to support it while the two plants fuse. Once fused, you just cut the bottom off the scion and its now entirely dependent on the stock plant.
Problem is, you normally need a fairly large scion for that to work with, which means sacrificing a full plant. Not ideal. But if I can use trimmings from the same plant, root them, and then use that rooted clone for the approach graft, I'm not wasting entire plants just to get a branch in a more visually appealing place than what nature decided.
Not to mention I've got this big 4 year old bhut jolokia that I've used for pod production which is currently overwintering that I could graft reaper branches onto...
Oh yes, if this thing works well as a cloner, I'm going to wear it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment