The effect of different fungicides and bactericides on rooting of pelargonium cuttings

Abstract

Geranium (Pelargonium) is one of most widespread and popular flowers in Europe due to their ornamental value. It is mostly propagated by cuttings, but propagation from seeds is also gaining increasing interest. The advantage of cuttings is that one can produce a relatively large numbers of identical plants, relatively quickly. Its disadvantage, however, is that one can very easily transfer diseases from the mother plant. In our experiments, the main purpose was to assess the rooting effect of some bactericides and fungicides used during cuttings. Cuttings exposed to rooting hormone were also treated with five different pesticides: tribasic copper sulfate, kasugamycin, thiophanate-methyl + propamocarb, fluopyram, and cyprodinil + fludioxonil. In parallel, a control treatment was set up, where exclusively rooting hormone was applied (NAA). We tested 40 cuttings in a 10 x 4 repetition in each treatment, which equivalates to an overall number of 280 cuttings. Upon comparing the treated and control geranium cuttings, we did not find any significant negative effect in the rooting process.