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22-07-2004, 06:18 PM

In message ,
writes
On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 09:25:41 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:

"Franz Heymann" wrote in message
...

[snip]

I have just received the latest issue of "Gardening Which". It
contains a fairly detailed report of a reasonably extensive test of
various rooting agents. My general impression is that they are not
really worth bothering with.

"Gardening Which" or rooting hormones? I'm inclined to say both.

The main feature of the rooting hormones in domestic use is actually the
fungicide component rather than the hormone. Some of the chemicals that
do work are not licensed for home use.

My latest thoughts run along the lines that rooting cuttings is
essentially a race between the speed with which the root forming
process takes place, and the demise of the cuting by fungal attack.

Or succumbing to dehydration.

My thoughts are strengthened by considering that the sterile
micropropagation process is able to induce growth from tiny pieces of
plant material, known to be impossible to root by other means, without
the use of rooting hormones.

This year, I will root some cuttings using only Benlate as a
fungicide, without using hormones.

It is worth trying with and without. I have known situations where with
rooting hormone has worked when untreated failed and vice versa.

I cancelled my Which? Subscription a year ago after subscribing for
about 30 years. Mainly because they doubled my subscription charge
paid by direct debit, without informing me first, but also because I
am not sure that their tests can be relied upon.

They are usually not bad in general consumer white goods, but the
specialist magazines tend to do better reviews of photo gear.

I bought a Nikon885
digital camera that Which? recommended. A couple of photos of flowers
demonstrated that the reds are too intense and blues are not intense
enough. The problem cannot be corrected using Photoshop.

You should be able to fix that to some extent using curves on RGB
separations.

This problem
was flagged by a magazine doing independent tests, but not by Which?

Flower colours can be extremely troublesome to photographers. The worst
colours to represent accurately are typically along the magenta to
purple axis. This happens to be where the errors incurred in getting
human flesh tones to look subjectively good tend to accumulate.

It isn't just a problem for digicams either. Most colour films have a
patch of the purple - magenta colour range that is badly rendered too.
If your flower happens to have a tricky colour there is not much you can
do about it.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown