Plant Propagation

Chapter 15 - Layering and Its Natural Modifications (Chapter 14 in the 7th and 8th editions of the textbook)

Many difficult-to-root species can take several months to a year or more to produce sufficient adventitious roots to survive on their own. This makes propagation by typical stem cuttings extremely difficult if not impossible.

There are other situations in which only a very few - but quite large cuttings (resulting in large plants in a shorter period of time than can be obtained by stem cuttings of a more typical size) - may be needed.

In both scenarios above - plus others described in the textbook - "layering" may be an appropriate propagation technique for obtaining clonal propagules.

The various layering techniques covered in this chapter all have one key characteristic in common - the propagule remains attached to the parent plant (and thus the parent plant's root system) until sufficient adventitious roots have formed for it to survive when detached from the parent. This is unique to this point in the course, as (almost) all of clonal propagation techniques we've discussed (excluding "approach" grafting) rely upon propagules that have been removed from the parent "stock" plant.

(Reminder - because of the shifting of chapters in the new, 9th edition of the text book, the introduction screens for each of the videos below will reference "Chapter 14" - not Chapter 15.)