recently did some reading on aloe vera and using it as a rooting hormone wondering what the prep for this is? i plan on getting a few aloe plants this week for fresh material to play with do i mix it with water and soak the cutting? or dip it in straight aloe gel? been recently playing with some cloning methods and want a more organic approach thank normal rooting hormone
thevines2 i have also read a couple things and will relay it over in case you haven't heard aloe vera are best harvested when the leaf is over 2 years old... some aloe strains are more rich in medicinal compounds than others. the main benefit of aloe would be to the plant once its first root forms. soaking your root cubes in aloe can be useful once the cuts form the first root if you are doing cuttings. Also, you can drench your mother plants with 1/4 cup aloe vera juice per gallon before cloning and see if that makes a difference. I am sure there are other benefits but those are just a couple, and was enough of a reason for me to garden aloe's although it's like zone denial at times
You may (or may not) find the answers you are looking for here - http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/965372-organic-cloning.html http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/705662-how-clone-organically-fast.html http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/617635-organic-cloning.html Might help... These days I just run a very light mix of perlite with just a tiny tad of castings mixed in into a cup with tinfoil over the top. I wet it with water, poke a sharp pencil thru the foil into the perlite/castings and drop the clone in. This stays in a high dome under a fluorescent setup for 10-14 days, walk away, dont even look at them and the clones just root up - it is just really inevitable that they do; 99% of them do, anyhow. The foil keeps it perfectly moist and humid in the cup so I don't have to do anything else once they're in the cups under the clear humidity dome. Using aloe and kelp water for the initial wetting can only help. J