eggs & tea

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. Tea cuttings not making roots Like many of the tea growers on the island, i’ve...
3. Cuttings in shade structure, after 1 month Here is the results after one month, the percentage of...
4. Big new batch of experimental tea cuttings Last time i wrote about cuttings, i concluded that there...
5. First successful cuttings! Here they are. I know it may not look like...

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