Hydroponic rooting with maifan stone in a holeless jar: fast rooting without black rot

First, let me make it clear that this article is not a sales pitch for maifan stone, you can search for it yourselves, there are plenty on Taobao.

Maifan stone actually has no true or fake distinction, it is all maifan stone, it is just that one type is hard and one type is soft.

The hard one is actually deep-layer ore, with a dense and compact structure, more suitable for purifying water quality, very good for use as a bottom layer. For mixing into soil and top dressing, you should use the soft type, that is, a very crumbly kind that can be broken apart by hand. This kind is almost waste material in industry, yet it is extremely suitable for growing flowers, especially for plants that like well-draining sandy soil. Maifan stone is also suitable for growing orchids!

That is all I will say about that,Whatever texture of maifan stone you buy, it can be used for hydroponic rooting. The rooting effect of hard pure maifan stone is almost no different from that of the soft type!

Back to the point, now almost all the succulents I buy online, I first use this method to root them, and once roots appear I transplant them, or I can even just grow them directly in pure maifan stone.

The reason for using a holeless jar is that the stone absorbs water quickly, transpiration is obvious, and evaporation is fast. If it has holes, the all-granular medium dries out very quickly, and it cannot achieve the effect of a continuous supply of transpired water vapor (transpiration is the main trigger for rooting).

The transparent glass holeless jar I use lets you see the water level inside, so you can top up in time, but you will not blindly add too much water. From my experience, glass really is very convenient.

This method roots very quickly, and is especially suitable for the dry environment of the north. And there is absolutely no black rot or turning to mush,Growing it in a jar also means you do not need to top up often, just check that the stone is moist.

The method is, use pure maifan stone granules, any size, first soak them in potassium permanganate solution for 1-2 hours, adjust the solution to a deep purple color. This way your maifan stone is disinfected and very clean, your plants will not get sick afterwards, and the residual potassium element can also strengthen the roots.

(Here I should mention, do not stir the potassium permanganate solution directly with your hands, because it is a strong oxidizer and will make your skin rough. Also, after two hours the reaction is complete, potassium permanganate is harmless to the human body, with no residue. Besides disinfection and sterilization, when surviving in the wild it can also be used to purify water quality, and you can directly drink muddy water after the potassium permanganate reaction is complete)

I use this kind of potassium permanganate tablet bought from a pharmacy, for a small pot like this, one tablet at a time is enough.

Then rinse clean with clear water, washing away the purple solution and the maifan stone powder,Do not make it too clean either, it is enough to wash away most of the powder.

Find a holeless bottle, for example I use an IKEA spice jar, and a cupping jar.. haha

Fill the bottle with maifan stone, plant your rootless succulent that needs rooting into it, and add a little water to the bottle.

Place it by the windowsill, and in about two or three days it starts to root, and soon it settles into the pot. After it has mostly settled in, if you want to transplant it, you need to use tweezers to pick up the maifan stone one piece at a time, being careful not to damage the roots.

This method roots especially fast, so it is also suitable for growing directly in pure maifan stone, but there is one problem, moss will grow. If it does, just keep it fully out of light in a drawer for three days, and the moss will all die.

Y(^_^)Y

Additional notes:[Pure hydroponics VS small pebble hydroponics]

The advantages of the latter are:Small pebbles (maifan stone) after early disinfection are basically sterile, and the accumulated water in the jar is not much, it relies on water vapor transpiration to help roots emerge quickly.

The role of the small pebbles is to increase the surface area of the water vapor undergoing transpiration at the same time. Just imagine, if it were only a water surface, even if the area were 10 square cm, if the same volume contains more small pebbles, the water-bearing area will increase several times over, getting twice the result with half the effort, and after roots emerge it gives the fibrous roots something to grab onto well, training a sturdy physique from a young age.

Mixing in some volcanic rock works just as well, and is most suitable for those with long stems. Volcanic rock is rough and can support the stem better.

For varieties that easily produce fibrous roots/aerial roots, after using the maifan stone hydroponic method they quickly grew beards.. Below there is a small flower that fell off from who knows what, and it actually rooted firmly and grabbed hold, now you simply cannot get it out.

Snow Mountain Fairy Cup, a soft seedling that was nearly dead, has now unfurled and started to grow. This is pure maifan stone hydroponics, using a jar with holes, watering whenever you see the stone is dry, you can almost water it freely.

Brandy, so fairy-like, has already settled in.

The bare-stemmed commander Pi Shi, after being put in for just a few days, has already grown roots and sprouts. Let me pull it out to show you, from this angle you can see the white roots it grew are very thick and strong. It had all its leaves dry up after being frozen, I pulled off the leaves, leaving just one stem, put it into maifan stone hydroponics, and it lived.

The pot below, Jade Cup Dongyun SP, has already settled into the pot for several months, but for some reason it has always been skinny, unable to grow plump, and the bottom keeps consuming leaves, and recently I even found one leaf turned to mush..

Actually this is the problem many people encounter: it clearly settled into the pot, settled very solidly, is also being grown outdoors, and the soil used is also granular, so why won't it grow bigger! Why did it ultimately die! Why! (Howling at the sky..)

Why? Still asking why? Such an obvious problem, all because of, the roots! Are! No! Good!! ~ applause

(That classmate who says they never trim roots, yes, you, do not leave, bring out your little roots for us to see~!)

No more joking, first, let us look at what this Dongyun's roots are like now.

You can see the root system has already grown very long, almost reaching the bottom of the pot, but because it was planted directly without root trimming, most of the inside of the roots has rotted, and only a pitiful few white roots are barely alive, truly too strong!

Lift it up to look, the rot is almost broken through..

Without hesitation, cut! At this point there is no need to consider which white root to keep, you cannot keep them! Remove them all.

The original poster's motto: anything you cannot eat, you cannot keep! Use whether it can be eaten as the standard to judge whether to keep it.

After cutting off the fibrous roots, you will find the bottom of the old stem is like a winter bamboo shoot root, black and heavily lignified. At this time, a handy tool is especially important!

The original poster also makes silver jewelry, and is basically an artist, so I have lots and lots of tools. The picture below is a small part of my clipping and cutting tools, curious people can follow my Weibo @Xianzhi Handmade.

Changing the subject, let us continue talking about the clippers.

This is a pointed-tip scissors, used to trim the lignified outer skin of old stems, can be picked away bit by bit, harming the flesh less, very good.

Then, let me introduce two kinds of tweezers, one is pointed-tip, one is long-handled blunt-tip. The pointed-tip one is used to reach into crevices, the blunt-tip one has more strength, for picking up larger things, such as leaves that have turned to mush and so on.

Like this, after a careful round of trimming, all the rot at the roots is removed, clean and easy.

Look at it after trimming. This way, after it dries, the exposed flesh will shrink and form a protective film, making it easy for new roots to drill out