Hi Everyone and welcome to the channel! In this video we'll be looking to see what the best way
to cut stems is, when we're trying to propagate roots as fast as possible.
In a recent video, we took a look at tomato plants. I had a variety of cuttings,
which I cut the stems of in a variety of methods, and we looked to see if a 45 degree angle cut
was actually the best way to propagate our plants. Surprisingly, it wasn't! The split technique,
where we cut down the center of the stem and open up the bottom, outperformed the 45
degree angled cut three to zero. Strong results from the split cut. We got a lot of feedback on
that video and people wanted to see if that same technique was applicable to other plants as well.
That's exactly what we'll be exploring here today, so let's get started. The first plant we'll be
looking at is sage. The branches on a sage plant can get quite woody and hard, and unlike tomatoes,
sage grows with new branches coming out at each node. As the main stem continues to grow upward,
each new node will have two branches emerging from it. I cut down the branches of this plant
and prepared them for propagation by removing the lower level leaves. For the ends of our stems,
I've given our first plant a 45 degree angled cut and our second plant a 90 degree angled cut, which
I have then sliced into using an exacto knife. I try to keep my blade in the center of the stem
and cut a centimeter and a half deep. We rejoin these plants to see our results,
starting with our smallest cuttings. You can see that the 45 degree angled cut
barely has any roots on it. There's some very small roots beginning to develop here,
but nothing in comparison to the split stem, which has multiple roots growing in all directions.
In our second comparison both plants have grown roots, but the split stem has grown considerably
more. Our last trial, however, was a win for the 45 degree angle cut, as it produced considerably
more roots than our split stem. All in all, when it comes to sage, we've got the split stem
outperforming the 45 degree angled cut two to one. The next plant that I tried this with was peppers.
I've got a number of young pepper plants here, which I've grown from seed. I'm cutting the main
stems, removing lower leaves and preparing them for propagation. I've got three jars set up with
two plants each- each of them having a split cut and 45 degree cut on their stems. By day eight
we had solid rooting on all of these plants. Our first trial was a win for the 45 degree angle cut,
our second trial a win for the split cut, and our third trial a tie. A real mixed bag here
with no clear favorite emerging in this small sample size. The last plant I ran this test with
was basil. Basil grows similarly to sage and peppers with that node pattern of branching,
as opposed to tomatoes. Once again we have a 45 degree angled cut,
a split cut, and they've all been placed in jars for propagation. After eight days of propagating
we've got roots on all of our plants. You can see here the split stem has outperformed the 45
degree angled stem in our first trial. Those roots extend up along the stem of the plant.
Our second trial was a win for the 45 degree angled cut. You can see more roots appearing
on that plant and they are working their way up the stem. Our third basil trial
came out as a tie- the roots on these plants are similar in both number and length. With basil,
we've once again got a mixed bag of results. Not enough sample size to really find a victor
In summary, there's all kinds of ways to cut the stems of your plants
when you're trying to propagate them. On the internet and on YouTube,
all we see is people recommending the 45 degree angled cut, stating that this is
the best method. However, when we actually get into testing, I don't really see those results.
Over all the races I've held between plants with the 45 degree and split cuts, the split cut has
won seven of those races the 45 degree angled cut three of those races and there have been two ties.
I definitely don't think a 45 degree angle cut is the be-all end-all- I think there are better ways
to do it and I'm really interested to hear in the comments what you guys think of this split method
and how you propagate your own plants. Thanks as always for watching and happy harvesting!