Using Aloe Vera gel for rooting plants

I am happy to report that my experiments with use of Aloe Vera gel instead of rooting hormone powder have been successful in Arkansas Zone 7b. I tried it last year with lavender and rosemary, and this year with passionflowers. I get a very high rate of success (sorry, no stats... but failure rate is single digit, I'd say) and I'm excited about trying other plants for next growing season. Got the idea on YouTube a couple years ago. Here's a 5 min video that's permie-friendly and folks here may enjoy.

Fascinating, I have a few Aloe plants so this is right up my alley.

MiaSherwood Landau wrote:I am happy to report that my experiments with use of Aloe Vera gel instead of rooting hormone powder have been successful in Arkansas Zone 7b. I tried it last year with lavender and rosemary, and this year with passionflowers. I get a very high rate of success (sorry, no stats... but failure rate is single digit, I'd say) and I'm excited about trying other plants for next growing season. Got the idea on YouTube a couple years ago. Here's a 5 min video that's permie-friendly and folks here may enjoy.

Did you include any controls that had no hormone? I've had pretty high success rate with Passiflora and rosemary with no hormone. I generally think the various YouTube rooting "tricks" are nonsense.

Better than aloe is just to soak some willow twigs in water, and then either soak your cuttings in that or use it to water them. That actually contains rooting hormones! I don't think aloe contains any hormones for rooting, but the gel might help with callus formation and prevent desiccation or rot of the stem end, but for species that do not form roots on their own, I think you'll still need to add either hormone gel/powder or natural hormones from willow extract.

Hi Winn. I did not run a control group because for me this is not a science experiment. It is fun. And I did not make willow water because I do not have willows. I have Aloe Vera. I had a lot of fun and it worked. I will use Aloe Vera again because I have it, it’s fun, and it works. And in this world, that’s a lot!

Understood, but you might also have just as much success using nothing at all! If you did a few with no treatment and a few with aloe, it would help you learn if the aloe is actually beneficial or just an unnecessary extra step. Many plants do not require any treatment to root with a high rate of success!

Are you just sticking them in soil
or sand?

Hi Craig. Yes. The plants I propagated this year and last year were dipped in Aloe Vera gel and stuck into fresh potting soil outdoors in the summer in the shade. In previous years I have used silica sand (it’s coarse and clean) with rooting hormone powder, before I learned about using Aloe Vera.

@Winn Sawyer

Gibberellins and auxins are both present in aloe vera
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763764/

'According to the results of the study, Aloe vera leaf gel can be recommended as an alternative root inducing substance to induce rooting of semi hard wood cuttings of Citrus aurantifolia and air layering plants of Syzygium jambos. It is not essential to use root inducing substances to induce rooting of soft wood cuttings of Coleus spp. In the present study freshly harvested Aloe vera leaves were used to collect gel substances. However, best results could be obtained by using leaves of Aloe vera harvested 5-7 days before being used as root inducing material. Since, Aloe vera leaves produce more rooting hormones after separated from the plant as an anti-inflammatory actions.'
Full study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350994926_Effect_of_Aloe_vera_Gel_for_Inducing_Rooting_of_Stem_Cuttings_and_Air_layering_of_Plants

Benji Isho wrote:@Winn Sawyer

Gibberellins and auxins are both present in aloe vera
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763764/

'According to the results of the study, Aloe vera leaf gel can be recommended as an alternative root inducing substance to induce rooting of semi hard wood cuttings of Citrus aurantifolia and air layering plants of Syzygium jambos. It is not essential to use root inducing substances to induce rooting of soft wood cuttings of Coleus spp. In the present study freshly harvested Aloe vera leaves were used to collect gel substances. However, best results could be obtained by using leaves of Aloe vera harvested 5-7 days before being used as root inducing material. Since, Aloe vera leaves produce more rooting hormones after separated from the plant as an anti-inflammatory actions.'
Full study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350994926_Effect_of_Aloe_vera_Gel_for_Inducing_Rooting_of_Stem_Cuttings_and_Air_layering_of_Plants

That's good information! Take a look at the charts in that last one, though. While the abstract and conclusion say it CAN be used, it was only barely better than the control for two out of three species, and worse than the control for one of them.

Take note of the part below each table that tells you which are statistically significant. For example, for the S. jambos (table attached here), aloe gel was statistically no better than using nothing (red arrow point at the letter "b" signifying they are statistically indistinguishable), while the actual rooting hormone was 7 times more effective than aloe for root length, almost 15 times more effective in terms of number of roots, and a whopping 53 times more effective in terms of root vigor.

For the Coleus experiment, they found that neither aloe nor rooting hormone were better than doing nothing. Which shows that for some species, especially for softwood cuttings, using nothing is best! You might be making things worse by dipping them in aloe.

For the citrus, both the aloe and the actual hormone were basically identical to the control in most metrics at 2 months, and only the hormone was really much better by 3 months, the aloe and control were basically identical in number of roots and statistically the same in root vigor. Average root length at 3 months was basically the only metric where the aloe was almost as good as the actual hormone (i.e. statistically better than the control), but even still the hormone averaged roots 1.5cm longer than the aloe.

Winn Sawyer wrote:

Benji Isho wrote:@Winn Sawyer

Gibberellins and auxins are both present in aloe vera
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2763764/

'According to the results of the study, Aloe vera leaf gel can be recommended as an alternative root inducing substance to induce rooting of semi hard wood cuttings of Citrus aurantifolia and air layering plants of Syzygium jambos. It is not essential to use root inducing substances to induce rooting of soft wood cuttings of Coleus spp. In the present study freshly harvested Aloe vera leaves were used to collect gel substances. However, best results could be obtained by using leaves of Aloe vera harvested 5-7 days before being used as root inducing material. Since, Aloe vera leaves produce more rooting hormones after separated from the plant as an anti-inflammatory actions.'
Full study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350994926_Effect_of_Aloe_vera_Gel_for_Inducing_Rooting_of_Stem_Cuttings_and_Air_layering_of_Plants

That's good information! Take a look at the charts in that last one, though. While the abstract and conclusion say it CAN be used, it was only barely better than the control for two out of three species, and worse than the control for one of them.

Take note of the part below each table that tells you which are statistically significant. For example, for the S. jambos (table attached here), aloe gel was statistically no better than using nothing (red arrow point at the letter "b" signifying they are statistically indistinguishable), while the actual rooting hormone was 7 times more effective than aloe for root length, almost 15 times more effective in terms of number of roots, and a whopping 53 times more effective in terms of root vigor.

For the Coleus experiment, they found that neither aloe nor rooting hormone were better than doing nothing. Which shows that for some species, using nothing is best!

For the citrus, both the aloe and the actual hormone were basically identical to the control in most metrics at 2 months, and only the hormone was really much better by 3 months, the aloe and control were basically identical in number of roots and statistically the same in root vigor. Average root length at 3 months was basically the only metric where the aloe was almost as good as the actual hormone (i.e. statistically better than the control), but even still the hormone averaged roots 1.5cm longer than the aloe.

I'm glad you read the study because that was my main goal here. No one is arguing aloe vera is a better alternative to commercial PGR. But it's still a natural PGR, something you were dubious about, and the presence of PGR has been proven to be beneficial for your plants.

The study didn't really make me any less dubious, since it was statistically the same as the control in almost every aspect they measured. The fact that it contains some trace amount of growth hormones does not mean it's actually good for your plants, and their study even showed it's worse for your plants in some cases (green cuttings).

Well then maybe you went from dismissive to dubious because 'trace amounts of growth hormones' is definitely not 'I don't think it has hormones'

If anything I think this has opened up a fascinating world of study that I'm very keen to expand upon in my own backyard.