I'm glad you did the experiment. It's useful in so many ways.
I have some cuttings rooting in water at the moment, and I moved them closer to light first thing. Fortunately there are some willows growing nearby. I've been rooting these things in so many different set-ups during the last few months.
Now I can only think of buying a juicer, or maybe I want H. wibergiae even more. I think I need to process now... Danke schön!

Sorry about the alphabet soup I've been posting lately, I really should proofread my writings more carefully.

If you're referring to the "Danke schön" that's not your fault. I've noticed that when you put some characters in the message form here, it will show up correct during the preview stage, and then come out all garbled once it's posted. I'm not sure why that is!

(Note: I copy-pasted your Danke schÃÂön and now I'm previewing my post and ... es geht! The umlaut is there as it should be. Crazy! Of course once I push submit, it will all be wrong again)

I'm sure there are some willows nearby here, since they grow everywhere in Iowa, but I have to go out looking for them. I'd like to avoid depending on my parents to supply me because it seems I'm going to need a bundle every few months. ^_~

LOL The decision between juicer and Hoyas was a hard one for me to make too. I love that thing, though. People never believe me, but if you drink a bunch of fresh pressed juice it's a high like you wouldn't believe. It makes coffee seem so puny in comparison.

Great experiment GG...thanks for sharing your results...

GG this has been very interesting and it explains why sometimes cuttings begin to root while in the shipping box. The cuttings in the dark turned out how I thought they would because without sunlight they would starve quite quickly, perhaps the first day or so after potting up it would be beneficial to keep cuttings out of the light.
The willow water looks like it's well worth the trouble. I always root in potting mix and I am glad to see that this produced the most extensive root system. I may have to try willow water with the very few species they I water root or just for rooting in general.

Are those Petrocosmeas behind the cuttings in the photo up top? I have learned one thing and that is that I am a Petrocosmea killer unless I completely ignore them. I do have a cute little Pet. barbata in bloom but I have killed three others since the weather got hot because I should have moved them to a low shelf where it's cooler.

Mike

I was trying to figure out a strategy for how to benefit from an initial dark boost so I'm glad you're knocking this one around in your head, too.

Yes, I thought even though the conclusions of the study were somewhat unsurprising, there were some interesting details that were observable just from comparing and contrasting the photos along the way. I can't wait to do a follow-up story on the willow water, because I think that will be very helpful for me.

YES those are Petrocosmeas in the back. Pets are my favorite Gesneriads and I have about a dozen varieties, although I still lose one now and then. So, I haven't quite mastered them, but I'm making good progress on working out the kinks. For me, the most important thing has been to keep them under a dome until they are very well established. Once they have been around for about a year, you can put them out in open air and forget to water them and do whatever you want and they are quite hardy, but in the beginning it seems like it takes almost nothing for them to start dropping outer rings of leaves until they're down to their core. I've been experimenting with keeping a layer of something between the leaves and the soil, because I have a lot of trouble with their leaves getting too damp, lying flat as they do. But I'm not sure I'm loving it the way I thought I would.

The good thing about them is that their reputation for being good little multipliers is true. Despite the size of their tiny leaves, it is about 10x easier to propagate a bunch of pets than a bunch of violets. Isn't that weird?

Hi folks,

Interesting experiment. I haven't tried the light & dark yet, but I do a lot of water rooting, both Hoyas & some other plants as well (Pothos, Syngonium, Aglaonema, etc.)

I have heard/read that water rooted cuttings release a particular hormone which is either similar to or acts in a similar fashion as the willow water.

Having heard this, I make a point never to discard or change the water from my rooting cuttings. I just add to it, also adding a few chips of aquarium grade charcoal to prevent the water from developing algae or getting at all yucky.

Perhaps you folks might try using some of that water as well.

I don't know where there's any willows near me, tho' I do recall we had one in my parents' yard in the first home we bought here after returning from Brazil. I guess I'll have to look in local parks for some willows, hum.

I do the same thing as you, PG, and keep a few bottles for rooting cuttings where the water never gets changed. I'm sure the hormones degrade at some point, but it seems like there's always something in there rooting, so hopefully it helps. Great idea on adding the charcoal.

I'd read somewhere that Coleus (and maybe Begonias) are also high in these rooting hormones and that it helps to stick a sprig of them in with rooting cuttings. So, I've started some Coleus so I can always have a pot of that around (although I hate the hassle of constantly nipping off its blooms). I am the grim reaper of Begonias, so no chance in any of them volunteering extra leaves anytime soon, except maybe Shamus, which seems not to hate me.

Maybe after I do my willow water follow-up experiment, I can do an experiment comparing these various types of "hormone enhanced water." I'd be interested to know if there are significant differences between them, or if the results are just as good using what is handy around the house as from going through the trouble of making willow tea.

It was smart of you to extend the duration of the experiment.
I think starving was an appropriate word to choose, Mike. Now I just wonder why all the leaves or developing roots didn't starve uniformly. Also, does the willow water mostly just provide beneficial glucose or alcohol for the cutting, or does the effect we saw come from "root booster" (salicin)?
Well, never mind... In any case it does indeed seem that a very short dark period may boost root production somehow, and then light, good potting medium and willow water are the way to go. Good to know!
(An umlaut experiment: ö ä ü, so far everything ok!)

I think the willow water difference comes from the salicylic acid but I too wondered if there were other things it was providing as well.

Now I kind of want to see if potting up a cutting and keeping it in the dark for a few days would yield noticeably better results. Maybe if I used cuttings from bella or serpens, I could just devise a little hood to put over the pot for differing numbers of days lol. Although it was a relief for me to know that soil was the strongest performer, it's handy that willow water produced pretty similar results because now I can run trials in this medium and observe the root development easily.

Here is a link that might be useful: Willow Water History/Explanation

Well, if you develop a headache doing everything you intend, you can always take a sip of your willow water. Or you can read again the soothing sentence "This may be the most important research of the century".