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On Friday 27 March 2009, Volunteers and staff at VINC started an experiment to compare 2 different strengths of Propagating Gel, Honey, and no treatment.

200 Hop Goodenia (Goodenia Ovata) cuttings were made, 50 were treated with Red 'Clonex' Gel, 50 with Purple 'Clonex' Gel, 50 with Honey, and 50 were untreated.

Red 'Clonex' Gel is made for hardwood cuttings at 8g/L Indole Butyric Acid
Purple 'Clonex' Gel is made for softwood cuttings at 3g/L Indole Butyric Acid
The Honey used was purchased at a market but the type was unknown.

Cuttings after planting.

On Thursday 9 April 2009, the cuttings were taken out of the hothouse and sorted into sub-groups of :
'ready for potting up',
'some roots but not ready',
and
'no roots'.

cuttings treated with Red Clonex Gel	cuttings treated with Purple Clonex Gel
cuttings treated with Honey	untreated cuttings

The results were...

TREATMENT	ROOTED	½ ROOTED	NO ROOTS
RED GEL 8g/L	23	12	15
PURPLE GEL 3g/L	26	8	16
HONEY	20	3	27
NO TREATMENT	0	0	50

These results indicate that with Goodenia cuttings, the type of gel made no significant difference but using a Gel is better than using Honey. Using either Propagating gel or Honey greatly improved the speed and quality of the roots compared to not using either gel or honey. The untreated group (control) did not produce any visible roots within the 2 week period.

Stanley Barker
Volunteer
Victorian Indigenous Nurseries Cooperative

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