Cloning Trees?

Dick

I have never heard of a "cloning" hormone.  There are examples of truly cloned trees in the U.S., many for historical reasons.  I can't imagine it would be cheap enough for the home gardener if it even existed.


Therefore, I think what you are looking for is rooting hormones and as I see on this website http://www.homeharvest.com/cutstrtrootagents.htm they actually have a brand called Clonex.


Similar kinds of stuff are available at most lawn and garden stores.  We have others in the past for different things and it seems to work.

Allen, thank you, much appreciated. Will check it out.

Picked some up at menards last month it worked great!  The product is called Schultz Rooting Hormone.

thorson, did you try the product on tree cuttings? I think I'm too late this year but wanted to experment with burr oak and hazel nut bushes. There are massive oakes along the Sheyenne that appear to have an advantage over others next to them. Part of that might be age or something else, but it would be interesting to try.

Twenty years ago a hunter from MN gave me a bucket of hazel nuts in the husk. I germinated them and planted the viable ones in pots and then transplanted those. However the rabbits nuked them and I only had 4 that lived. Of those, one produces nuts twice the size of the others. Since they cross pollinate I was hoping I could grow out cuttings of this bush instead.

Roses mostly, but I did try it on two black walnut cuttings with the same results.  Ps the hazelnut and oak  trees like iron in the soil if I remember correctly.

Hardwood plants are harder to clone than softwood. Im not sure cloning an oak would work well at all, especially with the short growing season we have here. You might need to start the clones mid summer and grow them indoors under lights until the following spring. One thing you need to do is keep the humidity of the environment very high until the clones have roots, or they will dry out and die.

lycan,

I didn't take you as a cloner! 

Interesting thread. 

Dick, you may want to contact ron smith at the NDSU extension service. I believe he teaches their master gardener course. At any rate, he has been a valuable resource for me when it comes to gardening questions. He could probably give you some tips or evaluate the probability of propogating your tree.

ronald.smith@ndsu.edu

OJ, I'll check that out. A few years ago NDSU was asking folks for the location of their best juneberry bushes, as the horticulture department is-was going to develop a commercial variety for ND orchards.They wanted disease resistance, sweetness, large berry size, etc. I wondered how they would do the grow out and maybe this was the method as they were going to take cuttings. 

Ive toyed around with gardening in the past. Nothing extensive but when I have an interest in something I tend to do a lot of online research. I cloned some wild grape vines a buddy of mine has in his yard last year for kicks.