From time to time, it is necessary to restart an African violet through stem tip cuttings. One may have a rosette plant that has grown too long a neck and needs to be started over, or one may wish to take a cutting off a trailer. In either event, it is necessary to get the stem tip cutting to grow new roots. There are a number of different ideas on rooting the cuttings. Conventional wisdom says one should scrape away the outer tissues or bark on the stem in order to stimulate root development. Another method suggests using a rooting powder containing plant hormones to simulate root growth. But which method is best? Or would a combination of scraping and rooting powder together be even better? The purpose of this article is to report on the results of an experiment to test the affects of scraping and rooting powder on root development of African violet stem tip cuttings.
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