Willow Water Experiment #1: Day 14 FINAL REPORT

Willow Water wins!!

See the tips of the black roots.  There is visible white root breaking through the black sheath. 

But...  see for yourself and let me know if you agree.  Here is a picture off all three.

Then, make your own assessment of the spider plants and record your observations in the comments section below.

There are many more experiements to do.  Does a slurry of twigs in a blender with water make for better Willow Tea than the method used in this experiement?  Does watering a plant with Willow Water make for a stronger root system than a plant watered with regular tap water?  Please give me other ideas in the comments section for the next experiment.....

(Find more information about this experiment, the background, how it was set up and the incremental reports at the blog, Extend the Season . )

Willow Water Experiment #1: Day 7

Willow Water Experiment #1:  Day 7

Results to report on both the Spider Plants and the Pathos. 

The Spider Plant in Group #2 with the Willow Sprig is again lagging well behind.  The Group #3 with Willow Water Spider Plants seem slightly more prolific and longer than Group #1 which is tap water only.

See if you agree with the findings:

The Pathos in Group #2 with the Willow Sprig appears to have more developed roots than either group #1 with tap water only and group #3 which was soaked in Willow Water.  I have placed orange circles around the roots in the group with the Willow sprig that I am looking at.  Look at the same place on all of the other Pothos and you will see little white nubs, but they are all smaller than the ones with the circles.  Do you agree?  Here are the results:

Willow Water Experiment #1: Day 3

Now I know why the scientific community teaches us to build redundancy into our science experiments.  Cats.

One of the Spider Plants in the second grouping (With Willow Sprig) was lost when the house cat used this experiment as a salad bar.  The tray has been moved to a room with a southern window behind a door impenetrable by the cat.

No worries - Kitty got his fiber and we had redundancy built into the experiment so let's look at the results.

Willow Water Experiment #1:  Day 3

Pothos - No root changes or new root growth on any of the 6 Pothos plants.  No report.

Spider Plants - Roots!!!  Wow!!!

There does not seem to be a substantive difference between the three groupings.  It appears that larger Spider Plants babies sprout roots at a rate faster and more prolifically than small Spider Plant babies.  This is good to know and will influence when we pick and grow Spider Plant babies but is an incidental finding to the Willow Water Experiment.

See if you agree with me.  Here are close ups of the roots. (I need to invest in a new camera with image stablilization, sorry these are a little blurred).

Group 1:  Control in Tap Water.  Larger Spider Plant baby has lots of roots, smaller Spider Plant baby is starting to root.

Group 2: With Willow Spring.  Larger Spider Plant baby eaten by monster cat.  Smaller Spider Plant baby is starting to root.  This one almost seems to have less root production than either the control (Group #1) or the Willow Water (Group #3).

Group 3: Soaked in Willow Water.  Larger Spider Plant baby has many roots.  Smaller Spider Plant has roots that are longer than either of the other two small Spider Plant babies.

Dude who ate the larger Spider Plant in Group #2, with Willow Sprig:

Good thing he is so cute....

Willow Water Experiment #1: Tap water vs. sprig of Willow vs. Willow Water

I love science projects and it is time to embrace or debunk the Willow Water myth.  This is the first experiment, the results of this willow water experiment may lead to more in the future.


•Title: Willow Water Experiment #1
 Plants will be placed in plain tap water, water with a sprig of Willow* and plain tap water after having been soaked for 3 hours in Willow Tea (Willow Water). 

•Hypothesis:  Willow Water will have a significant influence on speed of root production and increased amount of root production.

•Background: See previous post on the rationale for Willow Water and how to make Willow Water, otherwise known as Willow Tea.

•Materials:
Criteria for materials selection. Available and known to root easily.

-Pathos (common names: Golden Pothos, Devils Ivy. Botanical name: Epipremnum aureum).

-Spider Plant (Common names: Airplane Plant. Botanical name: Chlorophytum comosum).

-Willow - Salix integra 'Hakuro Nishiki.

-Willow Water or Willow Tea
-Tap Water
-Bottoms of used water bottles.
•Procedure:

Two of each plant varieties were prepared for each of the three groups (tap, tap with willow sprig, soaking in willow water before putting into tap water). 

Six Pothos were prepared by cutting a single Pothos vine and clipping the vine approx 1/4 to 1/2 inch on each side of the leaf node and root bud. Two were placed in the control tap water.  Two were placed in tap water with a willow sprig. The two to soak in Willow Water were placed immediately in the room temperature mixture and allowed to sit for 3 hours before transferring to tap water.

Six Spider Plant were prepared by pulling them off the mother plant.  Three smaller and Three larger 'babies' were selected.  Two were placed in the control tap water.  Two were placed in tap water with a willow sprig. The two to soak in Willow Water had a couple of the air roots trimmed (as per directions on the need to 'wound' the stem before soaking) and then were placed immediately in the room temperature mixture and allowed to sit for 3 hours before transferring to tap water.

Four Willow sprigs were prepared by stripping the lower leaves.

View of assembled experiment.   

•Results/Data: TBD (Look for upcoming posts!)

•Conclusion: TBD (Look for upcoming posts!)

*Willow water devotees are thinking, 'Huh? I have never heard of this?'  Well I have developed a lazy habit of just clipping a spring and putting it in the water when I root plants.  Have you ever noticed that when you have a jar of Pothos with mature roots and you put in a new sprig it seems to root much quicker than if you are rooting anew?  The Willow sprig roots right along with the Pothos and I hope it releases whatever rooting MoJo it might have.  I hope this option wins because it is the easiest and would validate the lazy habit I currently have.  Here is a view of Pothos with a few Willow sprigs that I started a couple months ago.  The small, fine roots are the Willow roots.

Making Willow Water - An Illustrated Guide

This recipe is courtesy of this site:  http://clippings.gardenweb.com/clippings/vlmastra 
I would like to thank the original poster to the gardenweb.com forum for providing the step by step instructions that are the best on the web and used almost word for word below.  My commentary to the steps are in italics.

1. Collect stems of nearly any species of willow (Salix spp.).


I have a salix hakuro nishiki which is trained as a standard.  Of course it wants to be a shrub, its natural state, so every spring I need to trim the base.  This picture is spring growth on the base.  The website I referenced suggests early growth - so this is perfect.  Just think of all those years it went straight into curbside recycling!
(No, the picture isn't tilted, it is the Willow's growth pattern.  We have it in the northern part of the garden and she is just a sun goddess.  If anyone is interested I can post a picture of the full tree.  We have worked with it to shape it over an arbor so it almost looks intentional.  Note the rocks shoved up under the southern edge did no good.  She is just going to be the sun goddess she is intended to be!)

2. Strip off and discard all the leaves. All you want are the twigs. Cut the twigs into 1" lengths.

3. Heat the mixture almost (but not quite) to the boil, and brew it like tea, letting it soak until thoroughly cool, and for several hours more, when the liquid develops a greenish-yellowish-brown color, rather like weak tea, You filter off the solids, keeping the liquid. It will keep in the fridge for several weeks, or may be used immediately.

4. When ready to root your cuttings, make a fresh cut at the base of the cutting, and place it in the willow water, like flowers in a vase. Leave it there several hours, so it has time to take up a significant amount of the willow water. At the end of the soak time,

Willow Water Experiment - Background Information

As an organic gardener I am very attracted to the idea of being able to create a rooting hormone at home with ingredients that are already growing in my yard.  Rooting Hormone's active ingredient comes from Willow trees.  Any plant in the Willow (Salix) family produces the chemical compounds that create Willow Water or Willow Tea. 

Great!  This is all good news!  The instructions on the web are variable and there is no science to back up any of the claims. Techniques on the web range from the use of boiling water vs never using boiling water, hammering the willow twigs vs stripping the willow twigs. 

After a few dedicated hours of searching I found the most fact based informative post by a researcher from Florida Southern.  The full post can be found at this site: http://clippings.gardenweb.com/clippings/vlmastra


The directions for making Willow Water below are copied directly from the link above. 



For any who want to try willow water for yourself, here is the "standard" method:


1. Collect stems of nearly any species of willow (Salix spp.). Weeping willow (S. babylonica) is probably most popular, but we use S. caroliniana with good success.
You want young first-year twigs, with green or yellow bark; not old enough to develop brown or gray bark.

2. Strip off and discard all the leaves. All you want are the twigs. Cut the twigs into 1" lengths. Now you have what looks like a pile of small matchsticks.

3. Add enough water to barely cover your twigs. At this point, methods vary among workers. You can either heat the mixture almost (but not quite) to the boil, and brew it like tea, letting it soak until thoroughly cool, and for several hours more, OR you can not heat it, and just let it soak, like "sun tea" for several days, in the room-temperature water. In either case, when the liquid develops a greenish-yellowish-brown color, rather like weak tea, You filter off the solids, keeping the liquid. It will keep in the fridge for several weeks, or may be used immediately.

4. When ready to root your cuttings, make a fresh cut at the base of the cutting, and place it in the willow water, like flowers in a vase. Leave it there several hours, so it has time to take up a significant amount of the willow water. At the end of the soak time, you can rewound the base and apply an auxin-based hormone, or not, depending on the type of cutting.