Like many of the tea growers on the island, i’ve attempting to start my own tea from cuttings, with not much luck. So far i’ve tried 13 batches of cuttings, from 10 different sources. So far, only one batch (from Eliah’s plants) had a decent success rate. All of them from random (non-cultivar) sources have done very poorly. I keep a spreadsheet and do an inventory each month.  Out of around 1000 cuttings, i have had to cull around 600 so far. This is a lot of work.

I’ve noticed one thing, though, about the cuttings that don’t make it. Some die quickly, others die slowly, and some take a very long time, holding onto their green leaves for weeks or months until finally giving up. When i pull these out of their pots, many of them have what appear to be “root balls” on them. Some pictures to illustrate:

It looks like these branches really tried to make roots, but each time it just made a short root and stopped, resulting in these “balls”. What could cause such a thing – plant disease? lack of nutrients? nematodes? too much or not enough water? It doesn’t seem to be systemic – some plants, right next to a failure, with the same potting mix, did great with lots of healthy roots, so it’s probably not the soil composition.

Anyone have any idea? Email me.