Soil Vs Water Pothos Propagation Experiment ( Controversial Outcome ) 

yeap, im sure it works well but it requires a lot more effort!

@@TechplantChannel is it for all propagation?, i mean water propagation is better for all plants?

@@misterpiko I honestly wouldn't say that water prop is better for all plants, as when you go a bit deeper in it, it seems like the roots of water propagated plants are not the same as the roots in soil. So although some plants will root better, these roots will (I guess) be replaced with more efficient roots. I didn't really find experiments on that. However, it would also be a bit difficult to make these experiments as you always destroy a bit of the structure when you pull it out of the soil no matter how nicely you do it. :D

Great suggestion! I do have a root hormone one i filmed that i just need to edit. Also, I am in the middle of buying a home, if that goes according to plan i will have a ton of space and i can do better and bigger experiments. I wanna do like 10 diff things all at once!

@@TechplantChannel that's so exciting dude congrats, hope it all goes smoothly!

Great idea! I am also very interested in this topic. :-)

interesting, so far ive never done that, but it makes sense, I will deff try an experiment around that idea, thank you!!

how about water cuttings? usually, i immediately put _soft-stem cuttings_ into water, so that it wouldn't dehydrate (since it's ridiculously quick to wilt)

@@wiandryadiwasistio2062 For me it depends on the plant, if its a more sensitive plant then I stick it in water! If its something like pothos or philodendron/monstera then I let it callous over.

@@bariton3779 oh, so it's like that! apart from succulents, i often forgot to even think to let cuttings' wound callus over and 'straight to the water' them. thanks for the answer, now my anxiety can be alleviated a bit knowing sensitive, soft-stemmed plants should really get their water ASAP (and letting them callus over is just watching them dying)

I microwaved my soil to sterilize it and after 4-5 days my soil propagations are doing just as well as the water! (I also used rooting hormone, and based on the resistance from light tugs I think the soil props are rooting faster than the water :)

great tips! Thank you!

Awesome! Good luck with those i hope they grow well!

You bet! Thanks for watching, I have a rooting hormone one coming up soon

for pothos i like doing the water method as well. Sphagnum moss is also REALLY good, i have a lot of propagation videos and so far sphagnum moss has never failed me for every species ive tried it with

Wow very kind of you, ive been very busy but i got some stuff cooking that will greatly benefit this channel and the content so stay tuned

Thanks for sharing! I agree

ill be expanding my videos soon!

They love growing in the aquarium! the roots will get crazy. just make sure the leaves and what not are not in the water

Awesome, thank you!

Greetings from the north lol, im jealous of your mild winters!!

@@TechplantChannel Yes....it`s 80 degrees today with no humidity. Stay warm my friend !

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!

Absolutely, your videos really help me out. My plants thank you 😅

Fantastic suggestion! Thanks!

Thanks for watching!!

yup, just make sure you get the soil moist so it can transition smoothly

im actually doing that very thing too, i love a clear bin with like an inch of clay pellets and 2inches of sphag, works so well!

@@TechplantChannel That's what I was wondering because you did that with your other video with the Monstera? Anyways, I have stuck to using the clay pellets & even coconut fibre as that's what we get here abundantly in Malaysia.

ill have to give it a go

I have other videos that cover that, but you can just pot them up in some potting soil and be good to go, just make sure when you do you keep the soil damp for a bit then they can acclimate and be pretty hardy after that

ive used it but i havent seen really any results. HOWEVER my well water is super high in calcium and magnesium so maybe they have been getting nutrients from my water since its so hardd

Im using straight up chlorinated tap water for these

@@TechplantChannel thank you I usually have a hard time with these kinda plants

i tried the fertlizer one in another video and the results were pretty cool I will try the dark cup vs light cup and let the cuttings callous

@@TechplantChannel I know! :D This is why I started adding fertilizer in my propagations. I tried it with 10% and 20% solution of liquid fertilizer (NPK 4-4-7, no trace elements). Works like a charm! THANK YOU! And I can't wait to try your version of Terraplanter. Would also be cool to do longer experiment with some kind of semi-hydro (to be able to control the nutrients; something inorganic) and treat one with NPK with no trace elements, and other with NPK with trace elements. And then keep them alive for a longer time and see the difference. But if you do, I recommend using 2-pot way instead of making holes in one pot so you can flush the substrate every once in a while (1/month at least). Oh, another one could be also doing semi-hydro with tap water + nutrients and distilled water + nutrients. Also, then one where you adjust Ph to different settings. Oooooor doing some experiments with plants you can use as food. Like basil or whatever. Ah... I am full of ideas! Hope you don't mind. If I had more plants, I would surely do every single one of them :')

I never let my cuttings callous over so i just instantly put them in

Have you ever tried vermiculite for propagation? I recently read that it was good, but I have never tried it.

i havent tried vermiculite yet, i should!

probably because they wouldnt dry out as fst

interesting thanks!! Ill have to give it a try

Right, I usually propagate in soil and using a dome makes a world of difference because the enclosed space is saturated with humidity which prevents the plant from sweating so much. Otherwise, your plant will lose more water than it can uptake since it barely has any roots. Also, I sometimes don't even have to water my cuttings at all until they're ready to acclimate to room humidity. As others have mentioned, allowing the plant to develop a callus is good practice too. Burying a freshly cut stem is almost guaranteed to rot, so even though I don't let it develop a callus, I usually lay my cutting horizontally on soil and have great results that way.

Great suggestion! im upgrading my plant space so once that happens i can do much bigger and more robust experiments!

Cuttings? Like scions to graft onto a root base? I think that will be hard to find

i prefer sphagnum moss for most things that i propagate. Soil is tricky because there is bacteria and organic material that leads to rotting a lot easier than other inert propagation mediums. but you idea might be worth giving a try

@@TechplantChannel Same here with the moss (i put a layer of leca at the bottom too to prevent it from being too soggy), i'm much more of a semihydro person than soil.

i potted them in the same pot and its been about a month and i dont see any real difference in growth between the two samples. i bet it would make a big difference if they were outside where wind and weather made the root strength more important, but since they just sit in doors it might not have a big effect. i dont really know tho

If the "experiment" was actually done properly the resulting plant would be healthier 🙄

@@TechplantChannel Maybe an idea for a follow up video? 👀

I was wondering this too. I've had loads of successful water propagations fail when they went to soil. I guess the good thing with a soil prop is that it's already there.

try sphagnum moss in the future it works well too

could work, or maybe like pebbles

me too

i hear a lot of people are having this issue as well, i have not run into that issue and i wonder if its the water. city water or well water its different in every place. What kind of water are you using?

@@TechplantChannel rainwater !

yeah i think that would help, i will do further more accurate experimentation soon

makes sense!

I have a video about how you can chop it up and they will root and grow new vines from each piece!

@@TechplantChannel mine just rotted away 🤣

@@TechplantChannel Hey Techplant! Just wanted to know what you think of moss poles, different types of moss poles and whether wooden poles or cardboard poles work roughly the same to train up a pothos and make leaves bigger. Would you be able to do a video on that? 😄

i usually fail to actually make a solid video and leave key elements out. but yes after water rooting i move all mine to soil and they do very well. once they have a decent root system they can pull water out of the soil at a good rate so its easy to get the plant on a good water schedule and they become more drought tolerant once you get a good root base going.

same

i have spider mites but those were some random different kind of mostly harmless mite

K

kinda, just keep it clean and make sure the water can get good oxygen, a narrow neck container is bad

I actually did one with an airstone to see how that changes things, I did not see any results great enough to justify the cost, but you can find that vid on my channel if you are curious

Thanks, new to your channel 👍👍 i will check it out😁

Brasil propagate like crazy in filtered water. I prop mine all the time & have made numerous plants.

I have brazil I can do one with them if you would like

@@TechplantChannel That's okay, you don't need to waste to do that. I just got neon & brazil cuttings, will try. BTW where did you get that Korean written t-shirt? 👍

One more question, if the cutting has multiple nodes but it has a root from water prop then is it okay if I don't cut and separate into each node and put all nodes into soil? It's hard to say but, make a circle like a crown and put them into the soil. Is it a okay idea?

What do you mean?

Its just easier to regulate

@@TechplantChannel I mean that I think it's not possible to over water if putting it in plain water all the time is fine too. Sorry I'm a beginner and might not understand plants yet.

Then they are BOTH submerged. I'll stop trying to explain myself now. Love your channel. Best channel to learn from for me. Thanks.

I just acquired that monstera. Which technique has worked well for you?

Ive got some adansonii videos aswell if you wanna watch them

Soil worked well for my two Monstera adansoni cuttings. They got good sized roots now, and one of them have grown a new leaf.

I used soil mixed with compost but don't bury the cutting too deep.

its ok, i understand where they are comming from. The results of the video don't really solve the question from a mediums perspective and it shifts over to a new perspective being about the fault tolerance of the different methods. WHICH makes me really want to start doing additional experiments putting up different methods against difficult situations like extreme over watering or long periods without adding water to see which one can handle those extremes better

Right which is why my conclusion was only that water is superior in fault tolerance, but cant conclude water or soil being better for rooting.

thanks for the tip!

yeah i gotta redo this one

i plant them all in soil after i root them

lol

Thanks for watching!

right on time!

@@TechplantChannel :)

its like a pringles can, once you prop, you just cant stop

@@TechplantChannel but mine doesn't grow 😂😂it is in my east facing window and it gat bright indirect sunlight

What is miss leading about "The controversial aspect of this video is not about the mediums themselves but about the grower" "the soil method is less forgiving when you make mistakes or forget to water it" This video is pointing out that certain methods are far more forgiving to human error. IF you want to know the greatest method for propagating, it requires a laminar flow hood, an autoclave, agar, sterile tools and a lot of other expensive things to perform tissue culture. These videos are made for houseplant growers so i think forgivability to mistake is a huge and important factor when choosing a method.

@@TechplantChannel and how intense are your grow lights? Are you using a heating pad? Is it on a windowsill? Depending on conditions you can leave cuttings for weeks before the soil dries out, since there isn't much of a plant or roots to pull moisture out of the soil. At the end of the day, you're way more likely to rot out new plants from overwatering than under. You're just giving bad advice, dude.

So what advice did i give that was bad? Ill waste my time repeating this one more time. but in the video i say "I cannot say which medium is better at rooting, however I can conclude that water is far more forgiving and tolerant to mistakes made when propagating." I don't know what part of that you find miss leading

I see what you are saying which is why i tried to mention in the beginning that these results werent going to make everyone happy. but this channel is for just ordinary people who have plants sitting in the house. In my opinion, the most forgiving methods usually are good to recommend. Ill make videos about TC soon, which will provide the best results however like 1% of houseplant growers would even have access or the funds to do it. Ill take your advice tho, and ill make a much bigger experiment with all methods at once and scheduled once i have some better dedicated space

@@TechplantChannel The comment is maybe a bit harsher than intended, so I apologize if it is, but; it's not really that it "doesn't make everyone happy", I just think it's a really unfair comparison if you forgot to water and still used it, you know? Same for using pothos and generalizing for other plants (which I'm not sure you're trying to do or not). Forgetting is absolutely relevant and I can't say I'm not guilty of it myself, so it's a good point to bring up, I just think it was really late into the video. Of course it's not a science project - it's just not a good way to show off the positives and negatives for general population. I never had any problems with soil propagation myself, and on the other hand, succulents have a hard time transitioning to regular soil if water propagated first. I just think it could be done better. But - certainly a good thing to show off to people (what the options are and why some are better) and I hope it helps you create even better content :)

@@pokestep I agree, ill try and step up my comparisons. I do have many other videos where i compare multiple mediums per species. I released this one to really emphasize the idea that accident tolerance is important when picking a method to use. I didnt take any offense to your comments because it is valid and ill take it into consideration when i produce future vids. I appreciate you taking the time to explain and ultimately help the channel out because many of your statements can and will improve future vids. So thanks and have a good thanksgiving!

@@TechplantChannel Glad to hear that, you look like a cool guy and I liked the video otherwise. Thank you and Ivhope you have nice Thanksgiving too!