PlantTents .co.ukThe easy plant propagator

Plant propagation, a term gardeners use when describing everything from producing new plants, to specifically using a plant propagator to help new plants along. But what does it actually mean?

Plant propagation is the process of artificially or naturally distributing plants. This doesn’t necessarily mean you use a ‘propagator’ despite most people using the term to infer they will. There are two ways this can happen, sexual propagation and asexual propagation:

Sexual propagation is the process of an organism reproducing using another organism.

Seeds and spores can be used for reproduction (e.g. sowing the seeds). Seeds are typically produced from sexual reproduction within a species, since because genetic recombination has occurred plants grown from seed may have different characteristics to its parents. Some species produce seed that require special conditions to germinate, such as cold treatment.

Asexual propagation is the process of a single organism producing a new organism alone, that is identical to itself.

Plants have a number of mechanisms for asexual or vegetative reproduction. Some of these have been taken advantage of by horticulturists and gardeners to multiply or clone plants rapidly. People also use methods that plants do not use, such as tissue culture and grafting. Plants are produced using material from a single parent and as such there is no exchange of genetic material, therefore vegetative propagation methods almost always produce plants that are identical to the parent. Vegetative reproduction uses vegetative plants parts or roots, stems and leaves. Therefore, propagation via asexual seeds or apomixis is asexual reproduction but not vegetative propagation.

Techniques for vegetative propagation include:

• Air or ground layering
• Division
• Grafting and bud grafting, widely used in fruit tree propagation
• Micropropagation
• Stolons or runners
• Storage organs such as bulbs, corms, tubers and rhizomes
• Striking or cuttings
• Twin-scaling

We will discuss the different methods in a future blog post.

Some information courtesy of Wikipedia.