This is accredited as a first degree level course in the UK.
Learn to effectively propagate plants from cuttings.
Many garden plants are commonly grown by cuttings. Some strike roots fast and easily; but others are either slow, or can give very low success rates unless everything is done "just right". Even nurserymen who proipagate every day may well learn from this course. This course is based on a great deal of experience and research by our team of horticulture professionals from both Australia and the UK.
Study this course to develop a well rounded understanding of what affects the success of cutting propagation, and how to improve your results, whatever level or scope of operation you are working at.
Lesson Structure
There are 8 lessons in this course:
-
Introduction
-
The principles of propagating plants by cuttings.:Importance of cuttings
-
Phenotype vs genotype
-
Why choose cutting propagation
-
Where to get cuttings from
-
Basic cutting technique.
-
Stem cuttings
-
Ease with which tissue forms roots
-
Types of stem cuttings (softwood, hardwood, semi hardwood, herbaceous, tip, heel, nodal, cane etc)
-
Treatments (eg. basal heat, mist, tent, etc)
-
Testing rooting, etc.
-
Non-stem cuttings
-
Leaf cuttings
-
Root cuttings (natural suckering with or without division, Induced suckering, In situ whole root cuttings; ex situ detached root cuttings)
-
Bulb cuttings, scaling and twin scaling, sectioning, basal cuttage.
-
Materials and Equipment
-
Stock plant Quality
-
Criteria for Selecting Plant Material
-
Planting Out Stock Plants
-
Care of Stock Plants
-
Stock Plants for Root Cuttings
-
Disinfecting cutting material
-
Sources of Hypochorite
-
Plant Containers
-
Tools and Equipment
-
Growing Media
-
Propagation media
-
Biological, chemical and physical characteristics of propagation and potting media
-
Testing for toxins
-
Air filled porosity
-
Nutrition Management
-
Potting up cuttings
-
Soil-less mixes, rockwool, etc.
-
Factors affecting Rooting
-
Juvenility
-
Cutting Treatments
-
Hormones & their application; auxins, cytokinins, gibberelins
-
Applying Hormone
-
Anti transparents, acid/base treatments, disinfectants etc
-
Callusing
-
Mycorrhizae
-
Carbon Dioxide Enrichment, etc.
-
Setting up a Propagation Area
-
Creating and managing an appropriate cutting environment in terms of: Water; Disease; Temperature; Light and Air Quality.
-
Greenhouses and other structures, cloches, cold frames, greenhouses, etc
-
Watering methods (mist, fog, capillary etc)
-
Heating, etc.
-
The Nursery Site
-
Management of Cutting Crops
-
Estimating cost of production
-
Efficiencies in Cutting Propagation
-
Keeping records
-
Management
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
Aims
-
Discuss the principles of propagating plants by cuttings
-
Explain how to propagate plants from stem cuttings
-
Describe how to propagate plants from non-stem cuttings
-
Describe the materials and equipment used for propagating plants from stems
-
Explain the principles of growing media in relation to cutting propagation
-
Discuss how and why cuttings form roots.
-
Manipulate the formation of roots on cuttings
-
Establish successful plant propagation areas
-
Demonstrate nursery crop scheduling
What You Will Do
-
Establish an area near where you live that can be used for the raising of cuttings. It doesn’t need to be a greenhouse, just a sheltered place where you can raise the cuttings you will be asked to grow for this course.
-
Select ten different plants that can be grown by stem cuttings. Practice preparing different types of cuttings until you feel you can do this well.
-
Place samples of your cuttings in a propagating mix and place in the propagation area. Keep the mix moist and observe the behaviour of the cuttings. (eg. does it put on new leaves? Do changes in temperature effect growth? Do any cuttings die? etc. ) Make notes of your observations. You will be asked questions about your results later in the course.
-
Prepare leaf cuttings for five different plant species. Practice doing this until you feel you can do this well.
-
Prepare root cuttings for five different plant species. Practice doing this until you feel you can do this well.
-
Prepare bulb cuttings for five different plant species. Practice doing this until you feel you can do this well.
-
Place samples of cuttings in a propagating mix.
-
Visit three plant propagation nurseries and see if you can find out where they obtain their propagation material.
-
Test soil samples and name them.
-
Go to your local nursery and/or garden supply and find out what rooting hormones they sell. See if you can discover what chemicals the products contain.
-
Visit three different commercial greenhouses.
-
Prepare a pot of cuttings and estimate the cost of production for each cutting produced.
Where Can You Get Your Cuttings From?
You may take cuttings from plants growing in gardens, pots, parks or in the wild; and you may successfully produce new plants from cuttings taken from any source; however, you will always get much better results if you carefully choose your source of cuttings.
- If you know the cultivar name of the plant, you can be more certain of how to propagate it, and be confident of the characteristics that will be demonstrated by the new plants.
- If you take cuttings from healthy plants; they are more likely to develop roots faster, and produce healthier plants quicker.
Genotype versus Phenotype
Genotype is the genetic makeup or 'blue print' of an organism. When a plant is propagated by asexual means the genotype of the newly propagated plants, or progeny, will be identical to that of the parent plant. The phenotype of a plant is it's actual appearance and behaviour. The phenotype of a plant arises from the interaction between the genotype of the plant and the environment in which the plant is growing. Factors such as soil conditions, exposure to light, moisture levels, pollutants, pests and diseases, and nutrition will all have an impact on how a particular plant will grow. This means that a batch of cuttings, propagated from the same parent will have an identical genetic makeup, but once planted out there may be some differences between them in outward appearance and performance, such as foliage colour or height, as a result of environmental conditions.
If a plant is propagated due to its appearance and growth habit in a particular district, the resultant plants may not be identical to the parent when it is grown in a different locality. For example, a plant that grows to 2m in one locality is propagated and promoted with those attributes, but may grow up to 4m in a different locality due to factors such as different climate and soil type.
This highlights the importance of selecting plant material with desired traits for use in a specific locality only, or that the progeny is grown (tested) in a variety of environmental conditions (i.e. soil types, climates) before its attributes are described in promotional materials.
FREQUENT QUESTIONS
Why Choose This Course
- Unique course materials (developed by our staff) and more current than some colleges (many reviewed annually); as a result, ACS graduates can be more up to date.
- We work hard to help you understand and remember it, develop an ability to apply it in the real world, and build networks with others who work in this field (It’s more than just serving up a collection of information –if all you want is information, buy a book; but if you want an education, that takes learning to a whole new level).
- Start whenever you want, study at your own pace, study anywhere
- Don’t waste time and money traveling classes
- We provide more choices–courses are written to allow you more options to focus on parts of the subject that are of more interest to you; a huge range of elective subjects are offered that don’t exist elsewhere.
- Tutors are accessible (more than elsewhere) – academics work in both the UK and Australia, 5 days a week, 16 hours a day. Answering emails and phone calls from students are top priority.
- We treat students as individuals –don’t get lost in a crowd. Our tutors communicate with you one to one.
- Extra help at no extra cost if needed. When you find something you cannot do, we help you through it or will provide another option.
- Support after you finish a course –We can advise about getting work, starting business, writing a CV, etc. We can promote students and their businesses through our extensive profile on the internet. Graduates who ask will be helped.
- Support from a team of a dozen professional horticulturists, living in different parts of the UK, and in both temperate and tropical climate zones of Australia.
About ACS
ACS was started in 1979 by John Mason, who at the time was a gardening author, horticultural consultant and lecturer in horticulture at several colleges across Melbourne (in Australia). Over the summer that year John discovered that there were thousands of applicants going to be turned away from horticulture courses at Burnley Horticultural College (now Melbourne University). There were simply too few courses being offered for the number of people wanting to study horticulture in Australia. This situation prompted a move to establish a correspondence course at Burnley; but after months of unsuccessful lobbying for support from government; John wrote a course, and with help from a colleague at Council of Adult Education, marketed it.
Standards were originally set in line with what were seen to be the standards of Australia's top horticultural college; and over the years, those standards have never been reduced. This makes our courses longer and more demanding than some other colleges; but it has also led to us building a credibility that stands tall in the horticulture industry across the world.
In the early 1990's John started visiting the UK and becoming involved with the horticulture industry there. Around the mid 1990's ACS began offering RHS courses, and in 2003, John was formally recognised for his contribution to British Horticulture by being made a fellow of the Institute of Horticulture. ACS, as a school, established an office and staff in the UK in 2001, and has expanded considerably since then. Today it is formally affiliated with five other colleges in the UK (including Warwickshire College); all of who license and deliver ACS courses.
A team of leading horticulturists work for the school's horticulture department, including 12 faculty members in both the UK and Australia
How You Study
- As soon as you enroll, we send an email to explain it all.
- We direct you to a short orientation video (downloadable over the internet) to watch, where our principal introduces you to how the course works, and how you can access all sorts of support services
- You are either given a code to access your course online, or sent out a CD or course materials through the mail (or by courier).
- Work through lessons one by one, each lesson typically having four parts:
- An aim -which tells you what you should be achieving in the lesson
- Reading -notes written and regularly revised by our academic staff
- Set Task(s) -These are practicals, research or other experiential learning tasks that strengthen and add to what you have been reading
- Assignment -By answering questions, submitting them to a tutor, then getting feedback from the tutor, you confirm that you are on the right track, but more than that, you are guided to consider what you have been studying in different ways, broadening your perspective and reinforcing what you are learning about
- Other - Your work in a course rarely stops at just the above four parts. Different courses and different students will need further learning experiences. Your set task or assignment may lead to other things, interacting with tutors or people in industry, reviewing additional reference materials or something else. We treat every student as an individual and supplement their learning needs as the occasion requires.
- We provide access to and encourage you to use a range of supplementary services including an online student room, including online library; student bookshop, newsletters, social media etc.
- We provide a "student manual", that is a quick solution to most problems that might occur
Recognition
- ACS has a highly respected international profile: by employers and academics alike. People are more aware of us than many other distance education schools –just do a search for “horticulture distance education courses” and see what comes up on the internet; or search for ACS Distance education on Facebook or Linked in, and see how many connections we have compared to other colleges.
- Recognised by International Accreditation and Recognition Council
- ACS has been educating people around the world since 1979
- Over 100,000 have now studied ACS courses, across more than 150 countries
- Formal affiliations with colleges in five countries
- A faculty of over 40 internationally renowned academics –books written by our staff used by universities and colleges around the world.
Extra Books or Reference Materials
- The course provides you with everything that you need to complete it successfully.
- Assignments may ask you to look for extra information (eg. by contacting nurseries, visiting gardens or searching the internet), but our school's resources and tutors are always available as a back up. If you hit a "roadblock", we can quickly send you additional information or provide expert advice over the phone or email; to keep you moving in your studies.
- Some students choose to buy additional references, to take their learning beyond what is essential for the course. If a student wants to buy books, we operate an online bookshop offering ebooks written by staff at the school. Student discounts are available if you are studying with us. The range of e books available is being expanded rapidly, with at least one new ebook being written and published by our staff every month.
- See www.acsebook.com for ebooks (available in pounds stirling). We also sell books through our Australian bookshop (selling in Australian dollars) at www.acsbookshop.com
