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| About 10 years ago I stared to do cuttings of my kept over first year seedling, as a way of growing more plants of each variety. I asked around and learned from the best that Vancouver Island had to offer. The cooker was my idea and I have used it since it's conception. I start my clumps in February, potting them up and placing them in a box I built. The box has a pond liner in it over top of Styrofoam insulation. I put in 2 inches of sand and then install 4 water bed heaters .On top of the heaters I place a thin sheet of aluminum and 2 more inches of sand. The water bed heaters are cheap and they allow me to control the temperature of the clumps. |
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| When the clumps are ready for taking cuttings I use a mirror to cut on. I use Stim root #2. The boxes that the cuttings go into are old chicken containers that are water proof. My cuttings are placed in Pro mix PGX.. They are sprayed with super stress 2000 and a glass top is placed on it. |
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| The containers go into the bottom of my cooker. The lights are about 6 inches away from the glass. I have found thru testing that the best temperature to root cuttings at is 6o to 65 degrees F. Any thing above 70 F and they will take forever or not at all. It takes about 9 days for the cuttings to root. I then move them up to the next shelf, and from that point on they rotate across and up until the reach the top off the cooker. At that point they have been in the cooker about 3 to 4 weeks and are ready to be place in bigger pots in the green house. |
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I use day light and cool white florescent light bulbs in the cooker. It has a fan that is tied to a thermostat to keep it at the proper temperature and a humidistat is hooked to a second fan as well. I have built a number of these boxes in different sizes and shapes for other growers, they work quite well if you do a lot or little when it comes to growing cuttings. Hope you enjoy growing dahlias.
Jack Vandament |
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