Propagate Honeyberry / Haskap cuttings? Follow along

Drew,

I sure can use another variety for cross pollination. This one sounds good.

Tony

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OK, PM to remind me, I wrote it down too, OK so offer closed! Thanks for playing.

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Anyone have further updates on their propagation efforts?
My weakly rooted self-layered starts mostly croaked, I must have exposed them to too much sun or heat, I was also away for a week and was not able to attend to them during that time. Maybe if I had positioned them in full shade or had a humidity dome,on top they would have made it.
Semi lignified summer cuttings are doing okay, perhaps 30% have put out some roots 1-2" long and need to be potted from the container they are stuck into in bulk.
Seeds have germinated and should be eready to get pricked out in a couple weeks, just the cotyled on leaves showing now. I am a bit concerned about overwintering such small and delicate plantlets outside, so I may continue growing these inside under lights once the weather turns.

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Babies!

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Nice seedlings! If your cutting look bad when put outside, don’t despair. They might grow still next year. Some of mine last year looked dead towards fall and came back this spring. I’ll snap a pic when i get home. Some look good and are growing a bit. Some are doing nothing and others look dead…

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What variety are those seeds from?
Here is one of my grow boxes full of cuttings. As you can see beauty are putting on growth, but aurora, taken at the same time are alive but doing nothing, must be genetic…


Close up of Aurora alive but doing nothing…

Honey Bee in the ground, ones at top of pic were rooted and planted earlier this summer and some are starting to grow again, ones below were just moved outside a couple weeks ago and arent doing much, hopefully roots are developing tho…

Tundra cuttings taken earlier this year, same time as some aurora that are growing again, none of these are growing, but they were fairly well rooted when planted and are hanging in there…

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Hello Derek,

in your grow boxes the medium is some kind of bark mix, maybe 511? Are you happy with that mix for rooting cuttings? I am still experimenting and start to think there are more simple mixes with even success rates. Pure sharp sand or sharp sand mixed with perlite seems to be at least as good as my bark mixes. Bark mixes I prefer for growing in containers but my cuttings are doing fine in sharp sand, which is the much cheaper solution.

I don’t want to derail from the topic too much but would like to hear your or others opinion. I know, its a sensitive subject to some. In theory I also believe those bark mixes should do fine in almost every application regarding container growing. But with cuttings I had some setbacks caused by the bark mix I think.

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I didnt root them in the mix I transplanted them after they rooted. I think thats a hodgepodge of pine bark, perlite and Pro-mix BX. For rooting I have been using coarse sand or perlite mixed with coir mostly, sometimes I use some verm also. I dont really have a set mix. I dont mist frequently or I would use a coarser medium. I spray them usually once or twice a week, depending how the substrate feels. I know a guy that uses perlite and vermiculite half and half that has pretty good luck, but he mists his daily via a timer. I typically pasteurize my medium in hot/boiling rain water, inside a synthetic pillow case. Take it out and let it cool. Dump a gallon of cloning mix water over the substrate and then let it set/dry till its about where I want it, moisture wise. Cloning solution water I use is https://www.kelp4less.com/shop/cloning-powder/, I havent done a side by side comparison to see if it helps a lot or not, but it doesnt seem to hurt anything. I still use hormone on my cuttings when I use the cloning water in the substrate. When I mist my cuttings I just use distilled water, switching to rain water once they start to callus pretty good.

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Does he feel pure perlite is not water retentive enough? I try to avoid vermiculite since it is a almost depleted ressource and quite hard to find these days.

Thank you for your description. Maybe pasteurizing would do the trick.

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Aurora, Hokkaido Blue are the seed parents.

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Uncovered the ‘layered’ Aurora bush (pictured above somewhere with a white half pot around it filled with soil) yesterday to see if any roots formed. It wasnt quite dormant yet, but I was bored so I did it anyway… Used a hose to blast the soil away from the above ground area and expose the roots. Didnt root as much as I had hoped it would, but there were enough to break it into 3 separate bushes, the original was left in the ground and 2 rooted branches were put in a pot for now.


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Great job with all the trials man!. I was really lost on how I was going to go about propagating but thanks to your thread I feel all set now!

I’ve ordered some air layer pots just because I don’t want to have to look at a pop bottle covered in plastic XD

Those seedlings are exciting too! I’ve ordered more honeyberries and i can’t wait to get them all arranged into a little orchard and cross pollinating so I’ll have some interesting seeds to start!

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Those roots look great. Can only imagine what they’d look like if you’d gotten the roots you were expecting.

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Yeah they arent too bad, a lot of the top growth on those was removed for cuttings which I rooted already. Not as easy to propagate as Beauty imo, maybe a little easier than Blizzard tho. Ive got way too many Honey Bee right now, not a bad problem to have I guess. Ill probably let them grow a year and transplant somewhere for wildlife near my house. I had some problems with my Blue Moose and Blue Banana this year (1st year plants from BU), put them into soil that was too hot and they didnt do much at all. Transplanted them into less fertile soil in a large pot about a month ago so hopefully they make it through the winter. Strange cuz I have a Blue Jewel in the same area and it grew great this year, put on over 2 ft of growth on some branches. I guess some can handle the excess nutes and some cant…

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Couple clones I’m gonna try growing inside this winter, for a while at least…

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Took some honeyberry cuttings yesterday, trying a different approach than I did last year to the hardwood cuttings. Keeping them in my cold (37F) garage with bottom heat in coir and used rooting liquid diluted 30:1. Also stuck some carmine jewel and Juliet cuttings at the same time to see how they do (not hoping for much). I sealed the top tips of the cuts with coconut oil to help prevent dehydration.

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Any updated pictures of these? How did you separate the seeds and germinate them? Did you do selective crosses? I was thinking about trying to cross Aurora and Beauty this summer but not sure how to isolate the berries etc to prevent pollen contamination.

I just mashed up the fruit and swirled water around, the seeds sank, and I poured off the water and pulp. Planted them right away, very shallowly. Still teeny tiny, not doing much under a florescent in the cold cellar, but hanging on and hopefully getting some dormancy requirement met to grow grow grow in spring when I will plant them out.

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Honeyberry and cherries callused now. Not sure how much longer to keep on bottom heat. Thinking another week at least. Don’t want to promote to much growth until closer to spring. HB have buds starting to swell near heated area. I rubbed most of them off. Hb i think will root like this but cherries seem to like some nutes(at least semi-hardwood cuttings did last summer), esp cj, before roots form, after callused. Juliet has been easier to root from my experience. I was concerned that I might not have used enough hormone initially for hardwood cuttings so I did open the bags last weekend and redipped both the honeyberry and CJ cuttings in fresh Woods hormone diluted 30:1 again. I figured opening the bags to let in some fresh air would be good for the cuttings also. Not sure how well the plastic bags Im using allow gasses to pass through…
Honeyberry


Cj

Juliet

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Feeling bored today so i stuck some callused cuttings into coir charged with light nutes. Gonna keep them inside to see what happens. 4 haskap and 4 cj.

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