Master gardeners find out how to handle plants

By MANDY SPIKES | Central Texas Edition

Advantages and disadvantages of plant propagation was the focus of Thomas Le Roy's presentation which took place on April 3 in Huntsville. -- Photo by Mandy Spikes

April 10, 2003 -- Master gardeners from all over Walker County received helpful information during the plant propagation workshop that took place April 3 in Huntsville. Thomas LeRoy, Extension horticulture agent, taught the participants the best methods of seed propagation.

"There are many advantages and disadvantages of seed propagation. The advantages include the fact that it's cheap and easy and most seeds store well. The disadvantages are your garden can lack uniformity and it may take a longer time until maturity."

He explained that as a person gets more involved in gardening, they will be buying and collecting more seed packages. "The most popular places that people store seed packages are the worst places for them to be at. You can kill seeds in a matter of hours with excessive heat, but most people leave seeds in their car. The best place to store seeds is in a refrigerator or someplace that can store the seeds at 45 to 32 degrees."

When transplanting seedlings to a bigger container, LeRoy said that he always handles the seedling by the leaf and not the stem. By handling the stem, it can bruise or hurt the stem.

"One thing to look at when growing and transplanting is to look at the type of seed it is and how fast it usually grows. Some plants are damaged severely when they are transplanted."

Leroy gave several things to consider when collecting seeds including:

• ripening and dissemination;
• seed processing;
• overcoming dormancies;
• seed storage; and
• environmental effects on germination.

"All things you are wanting to grow have different needs, so it's important to know what those different needs are."

He explained that it was really easy to start plants with just cuttings. "Propagating a plant by its cutting is relatively simple and not that hard to do. Cloning a plant is not that magical or mystical like some people think.

"The disadvantage to doing this is if a plant has a flaw, when you use that cutting then every plant from that cutting will have that flaw.

"This lack of genetic diversity will make the plant less likely to survive with some of the environment conditions that are out there. But, on the other hand, if you have a great plant then all of the cuttings will be great. It just depends on the type of cutting you get."