Hey all,

I recently (about a month ago) took 30 cuttings from a cherry tree that had been knocked over in an ice storm, treated them with .55% IBA (the strongest I could find) and placed them in coir in a covered aquarium. I gave a few of them a light tug after a few weeks and found that they gave a fair amount of resistance, raising my hopes that they might actually be rooting! Also, some of the buds are showing green, one set of leaves grew, and a couple of them have flowered (though not extensively.)

I pulled a couple up today to check on their progress and found that, rather than roots, there seem to be some sort of hard, white, lumpy growths wherever the IBA came in contact with the cambium (where I removed the lower buds, at the base of the cutting, wherever I removed bark), and this was what was providing the resistance.

What's going on here? Is this some sort of fungus? Are these (crossing my fingers, though finding it doubtful) a prelude to actual roots? I haven't worked with auxin since high school bio, so I'd be happy to have any more experienced folks shed some light on what this is. I'll be keeping them around for a while to see what happens, but I'd like to know what to expect.

Thanks!