Nursery Plant Propagation.

After turning eighty I began to think of how I could occupy my remaining years productively. I really would like to be a molecular biologist and thought seriously of starting a laboratory but with little experience and no backing for the half billion dollars needed I decided to look in a different direction and what better place to look than here at the Pines. Everything is set up already. The nursery is already a fact. It just needs some changes to be made to make it run properly again. Some tweaking. We are going to do everything better. In the beginning I was a little skinflint because we were not sure of ourselves, but now with nearly twenty years experience in propagating plants we can start again and fix the things that were wrong.We actually know how to do things right.

The mist bed is the important part. It was running at too lower temperature because of the high electricity costs in New Zealand compared with South Africa. In1997 that was. So instead of running it at 25oC I was running it at about 18oC. The mister had ceased to work properly because I was unable to get a new part as the supplier in South Africa had disappeared. I have managed to purchase a whole new and different system. The old system was based on a timer which could be set to mist for a short period of say five seconds every ten minutes. This had to be changed every time the weather changed which was a nuisance. It also had to have a day/ night switch. My new system is a balance arm which changes the amount of mist depending on the temperature and goes day and night. It is like an artificial leaf. When the water evaporates from a stainless gauze pad the balance swings and a mercury switch operates a solenoid valve and mist is sprayed . The weight of the water on the pad then switches it off until it evaporates again and it swings back like a see saw. The first mist bed was 'invented' only in 1953 and cuttings were misted continuously. Our first mistbed was at Glentworth in about 1987 where we were able to root Prof. Allen's Honey Gold paw paw cuttings.

Before we got all this going I had looked at the propagation tunnel and just wished we could start again. The mist bed was falling down and I thought it would collapse all together. Elaine appealed to four Mormon boys to help us. In two hours they removed all the sand from the table scraping the dirty sand from the surface and separating it from the clean sand, then together we heaved it back into position. I was then able to concrete the legs in place. The clean sand was replaced and the heating cable realigned. We then covered the bed with weed matting to prevent the potting mix getting mixed up with the clean sand.

The next thing to get right was the rooting medium. We have always used potting mix, but this is not the best because it contains fertilizer which inhibits root initiation. I have located a good rooting medium so hope for an improvement there.

All the old badly shaped plants have been removed from the growing tunnel so we can start again with new plants and try to keep pruning them to have a good shape when they are ready to sell and lastly I am learning to take the cuttings to help Elaine out.

After just four weeks new cuttings are rooting and I have already started potting them. Once potted they are placed on the mist bed but on a section that is not heated, just to help them on their way. All we need now are customers.

I think I will put my day/night timer back for safety sake so no water will be sprayed at night