eggs & tea blog

Out of 424 tea cuttings started back in September 2008, only 43 are still going today.  That’s only 10%, but of the oasis cube/dip-n-grow cuttings, it’s closer to 20%.  The results of the test are clear:

• oasis cubes worked better overall (15%) than potting soil (9%) or soil/manure (0%)
• dip-n-grow worked better overall (7%) than peroxide (4%).

Next time, i’ll do them all with cube/dip.  Other findings:

• Some cuttings take a really long time to start producing roots.  I culled some in potting soil which appeared to be failures (no sign of roots) after 2 months, putting them off to the side.  Lo and behold, after more than 3 months, some of those have sign of roots.  The lesson seems to be: as long as there is still a green leaf attached to the cuttings, let it keep going.
• The shade tent i built based on the CTAHR Mealani paper didn’t seem to help any, even though it did clearly elevate moisture levels.  Next time, i’ll just set them in a nice shady spot like under a tree.

Related posts:

1. Latest tea cuttings – at 3 months You may recall from my previous posts big new batch,...
2. Cuttings in shade structure, after 1 month Here is the results after one month, the percentage of...
3. Big new batch of experimental tea cuttings Last time i wrote about cuttings, i concluded that there...
4. Tea cuttings not making roots Like many of the tea growers on the island, i’ve...
5. Propagating tea cuttings Today i did some major updates to my online notes...

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