Tue, 18 May 2004 01:32:29 GMT Chuck wrote:

It is an auxin specific to root growth and elongation and I forget the name.

Chuck


Well, yesterday was a rainy day and I usually reserve rainy days when I cannot
get out into the orchard or fields to do work, instead I go shopping.

And in my shopping yesterday I picked up two bottles of plant growth hormone.

Both have Indole-3-butyric-acid, but one has an added ingredient of
1-Naphthaleneacetic-acid.

I am wondering whether these are natural occurring substances in plant roots?
They must be if they are hormones. But if they are not hormones then they
probably work on the bases of making soil ph to a proper acid environment.

I have always wondered why all plants can germinate in peat moss environment
where it is acid from the peat moss, regardless of whether the plant likes an
alkaline soil for its growth.

Anyway, I will put these growth hormones to test experimentally on blue-spruce,

crimson-king-norway-maples and sunburst-honeylocust.

So far I am having some positive results without the hormone because my spruce,
maple and honeylocusts do not all appear dead. Only one honeylocust died and
that was because the stem of the cutting was not of a mature stock and so all
the leaves came off and the stem shriveled and turned brown. None of the maples
have shed their leaves which is a good sign. One of the blue spruce leaves have
started to turn brown. But of my 30 cuttings only 1 has clearly died.

But I need to get another batch of 30 cuttings and apply the hormone to see if
it fares substantially better.

By the way, I am very picky about the parent of these cuttings. As I want a
tree with a trunk that is straight and one trunk. Which is difficult to find in
a honeylocust and Norway maple. I realize that trunk straightness probably has
more to do with environmental setting of shade or nonshade than it has of
genetics. But to reduce the doubts to a minimum, when seeking cuttings of
honeylocust or Norway maples I want leaf color and then I want straightness of
trunk. I do not like multi trunks of twisted shapes.

Beauty is order and order is straight lines not twisted and gnarled.

Archimedes Plutonium
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www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
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