Propagation Class-Solano Comm. College

Well, I've just completed Sandra Diehl's 8 week class at SCC on Propagation. This class hasn't been offered in over a decade so we were the “guinea pig” class. There were 24 classes 2 1/2 hours each. It was very fast paced, meeting Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 2 til 4:30. But truth be told we “A” types lined up at the door 1:30 to get our soils prepared and check on the progress of seed germination, etc. It was such fun to see our plants emerge from the the rich soil. Timing is everything,  right!! Unfortunately we experienced record breaking heat late August just after we planted our seeds and cuttings in September. But mother nature does what she does, we tried to compensate the best we could with extra misting and strategic placement within the Propagation Room. It was a challenge, but lesson learned, you need to react to adversity, maybe replant, increase humidity, whatever to help the seedlings and cuttings survive and grow, it took me up to 3 times to restart some cuttings.

 

Our textbook, Plant Propagation, published by the American Horticultural Society guided us throughout our journey as we learned much about seed germination and propagation with cuttings. 

 

Sandy arranged for a grafting expert and a cymbidium expert  to give classroom demonstrations, we then had a hands-on lab with the experts to practice those techniques. Rose Lovell at Morningsun Herb Farm graciously gave us an insiders tour of her propagation set-up with much discussion about propagation room control systems and how she imports many cuttings into her nursery for stepping up. 

 

Lesson learned: Propagation is a meticulous business and art that can be enormously fulfilling but there are many aspects to be controlled. Success rates are not 100% even for the experts, but it sure is fun to give it a try. 

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