Cloning my peach tree (growing, Fruit Trees, back yard, leaves)
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Trying to clone my Peach Tree. Cut a few trimmings off branches. Attached are images of the trimmings, a few weeks old now. Two of them have the leaves almost completely fallen off. Are they supposed to look like this?
Even the one with the leaves seem to be leaning over a bit.
I used some root hormone, and dipped the stem in it, then planted the trimmings in dirt from my back yard. I water it whenever the soil seems dry. I also have poked a drainage hole in the bottom of the cup.
Thoughts? Are they healthy? Will they bounce back?
Sorry to say, but they don't look good and I don't think they're going to bounce back. They have some kind of fungal infection, maybe also some other toxic contamination from the dirt too. The third one with leaves on it looks infected at the top as well so I wouldn't hold out much hope for it but try leaving it a little longer and see what happens.
Try taking fresh new cuttings again in an another couple of weeks and use clean sterile peat or else clean, well composted potting soil from the garden store to start them in to get healthy roots established.
Do NOT use the dirt from your yard, it does not look good for starting cuttings. It might be okay for other really well established, healthy plants that you already have growing in the dirt in your back yard but it's not "friendly" for new cuttings. It's too sandy and heavy, the organic material in it is not properly composted and has fungal spores on it. Under magnification I can see the dirt is contaminated with bits of rusting metal, plastic, paper, glass chips, styrofoam, charcoal and ashes from chemically treated wood and who knows what other kinds of garbage or bacteria is in there.
Sorry to say, but they don't look good and I don't think they're going to bounce back. They have some kind of fungal infection, maybe also some other toxic contamination from the dirt too. The third one with leaves on it looks infected at the top as well so I wouldn't hold out much hope for it but try leaving it a little longer and see what happens.
Try taking fresh new cuttings again in an another couple of weeks and use clean sterile peat or else clean, well composted potting soil from the garden store to start them in to get healthy roots established.
Do NOT use the dirt from your yard, it does not look good for starting cuttings. It might be okay for other really well established, healthy plants that you already have growing in the dirt in your back yard but it's not "friendly" for new cuttings. It's too sandy and heavy, the organic material in it is not properly composted and has fungal spores on it. Under magnification I can see the dirt is contaminated with bits of rusting metal, plastic, paper, glass chips, styrofoam, charcoal and ashes from chemically treated wood and who knows what other kinds of garbage or bacteria is in there.
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Very helpful. Thank you. I will get some good stuff from the store tomorrow
Agree totally with zoisite. New developing roots are so tender and fungi and bacteria from normal soil are eager to invade. But after the roots are maybe 6 inches long in the soilfree mix you can gently pick up that whole pot worth of soil and plant and add it to the center of a pot with a mix of the same medium plus the final soil. Then the fine roots will explore the new soil and start to adapt to it by being tougher. Plus some soil organisms can be beneficial. Good luck
Another thing to consider though is that your original tree might have been growing on resistant rootstock. In that case your new plants are just clones of the shoots and will not be as tough as the original plant. Most fruit trees are grafted.
Pick all but 2 small leaves, place in a ziploc bag (for humidity), place in partial sun, and cross your fingers....If it was easy to do, with a high success ratio, commercial nurseries would do this vs grafting.
Regards
Gemstone1
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Good luck!
