Valid "home brewed" root horomone alternatives?
 

:hello

So this has come from me looking around the internet at what bloggers, orchid growers and other amateur horticulturists say they do with their plants. (The word "say" I think have some weight depending on where you look.) Given I would say there's quite a few of you here who aren't amateur, I'd thought I'd ask.

When repotting an orchid, or really almost any plant, are the following valid alternatives to purchasing a rooting horomone?

• Cinnamon
• Aloe Vera pulp/juice
• Crushed up aspirin

And, if all are valid, when repotting an orchid, which of those three are you choosing to use?

As a note, the only thing I've ever done with any plant is set the roots of a Cephalotus and a Nepenthes in a small glass of diluted SuperThrive while I got their new pots ready for them. After they're repotted, I bagged them to artificially raise the humidity around them to help recovery from the stress of their roots being messed with.

Cinnamon doesn't have rooting hormones.

Aloe gel isn't a rooting hormone.

Aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid. Salicylic acid is a rooting promoter. The problems are finding the proper concentration for orchid rooting, and dissolving the aspirin in water - it doesn't dissolve well.

There exist well-known preparations for rooting orchids, like Kelpak. I don't see any reason to use something of questionable benefit.

Yea, I had a gut feeling.

Is there any particular reason one might think any of those "home made" solutions would be viable, besides word of mouth without any real evidence?

Cinnamon on roots is likely to kill them. Far from promoting root growth, if you put cinnamon on roots you'll damage them and set your plant back seriously. Don't do it.

Kelpak promotes root growth. Ray here on OB sells it, or get from Amazon, etc. Kelpak Superior Biostimulant I use it once a month when watering all plants and a soak when repotting.

Aloe is very soothing for sunburn on humans; wouldn't waste my time on it for a plant.

Cinnamon acts like a desiccant and some effect on some fungus. Many here use it to treat a cut made to a leaf, stem or rhizome; don't use it on roots. If you need a fungicide there are more effective products for plants.

Aspirin... meh... there are much better products on the market than trying to crush aspirin. Using for a rooting hormone? Never heard of that, but I don't read or listen to a LOT of stuff out on the www regarding orchids or other plants. I don't even use it for a headache. :biggrin:

Willow tea is an effective rooting hormone. I use it quite often. Google "willow tea."

And before you start using peroxide on anything (it's commonly mentioned among DIYers), read this: SaraJean asked a question about peroxide...

I don't think so. Plant hormones are fairly well understood. The ones we know about are unstable under the best of circumstances, particularly when dried. Upper, vegetative parts of plants (cinnamon tree bark, Aloe leaves) contain no or almost no rooting hormones, because that's not where plants form roots.

I'm not a rooting hormone salesman, but the various preparations I've seen either contain synthetic indoles, or are extracts of seaweed. If there were hormones more easily isolated and packaged than these, we would have them. Ray here sells Kelpak, previously sold as KelpMax. If you search on those terms plus his username you will find his explanation of how Kelpak is made. It might also be on his First Rays Web site.

I've about given up on Amazon, and currently have all my inventory there set to zero.

They take too much money, charge tax and shipping, so it ends up costing the customer a good 25%-35% more than buying the same product directly from me.

Then on top of that, another vendor started carrying Quantum at a higher price than I listed it for, but still uses my images and states it's a First Rays' product. Because they are a "premium seller" though, their price is offered first.

Yea, so it's basically an old wives tale kind of thing. Weird. Now I'm kind of interested to know where it all started.

---------- Post added at 05:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:33 PM ----------

I've seen that quite a bit with other products on Amazon the past few years, Ray.

Also, I will commend you for the "Optimal Growth" Package double entendre/innuendo. Very comical. Unless that wasn't your intention. :lol:

---------- Post added at 05:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:36 PM ----------

You know, WaterWitchin, you might've helped me find what's been bugging one of my nepenthes!

Long story short, I was worrying too much this one hybrid nepenthes was experiencing some fungul issues or disease and I squirted it with H2O2 to try and treat a probably that wasn't acutally there to begin with. Now I think I have a pretty good idea as to why it hasn't been growing any pitchers!

I just started using kelpak from Ray, and so far I’m impressed. Saw root growth/branching starting on just about every plant that got it within a week.

The only solution outside of that I saw mentioned here that may give some results is willow tea, although in the winter, you may not get the results you are hoping for, as the compounds in willow bark that provide the potential benefit are perhaps not present in usable quantities in a dormant plant.

I cut my last go-round of willow in fall right before the leaves fall. The tea lasts around two months in the fridge. Mostly the orchids get Kelpak, everything else gets willow tea, and occasionally the orchids get the tea when I'm making up a big batch during the spring and summer for outside veggie garden and flower beds.

Aloe in my experience is a very good biostimulant that promotes rooting and plant resilience. It's not as good at rooting compared to kelpak in my experience but it offers other benefits like helping to stave off rots. You can find dried aloe flakes for very cheap from a number of organic fertilizer suppliers or horticultural aloe (freeze dried whole plant). Aloe has been used widely in cannabis horticulture and many people use it to root cuttings.

Aside from plant extracts there are a number of products with strains of Azospirillum brasilense which is a nitrogen fixing bacteria that also produces loads of plant hormones. I used the product 'Nero SC' from Impello biosciences to root some old plumeria cuttings I had forgotten to get to for over 6 months. They started to root and regain turgor after only 10 days. I have had fresh cuttings take up to a month to get going. Another company Imio makes a Azospirillum brasilense based rooting gel. Do not over apply these microbes as some strains will over produce hormones and cause a deleterious effect.

Why do you not use Kelpak on other plants?

Sorry Ray, just saw this. Kelpak is not free. I'm retired and on a fixed income. If I could afford to use Kelpak on everything, I would.

I have a LOT of other plants, both inside and outside. Willow tea is free. Compost is free. Manure from horses is free. Well, horses are expensive to feed but there's no charge for the end result. :biggrin:

I didn't try it myself, but I read on Reddit that people use Epipremnum (pothos) cuttings to promote root growth on other plants' cuttings with water propagation, because Epipremnum is naturally high on rooting hormones (that's why it propagates so easily).

I didn't double-check this, but it's a cheap plant and I think in the worst case it just won't work

The only DIY rooting supplement I've heard of is coconut water.