I Drill Hundreds of Cactus Pads to Bring Life Back to the Desert
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- In this episode, I explore a new method to propagate trees using cuttings, inspired by a brilliant suggestion from the Dustups community.
While gathering cuttings from Texas Buckeye and Willow trees, I share how these native species could help accelerate the development of the desert forest. But the real experiment begins when I attempt to root these cuttings inside prickly pear cacti, taking advantage of the water and microbial content stored within them.
As I reflect on the challenges of this new method, I realize there's no guarantee it will work, but the potential reward is worth the effort.
Hang out with me as I walk you through the process of collecting, cutting, and experimenting with this unique approach-all while dodging unexpected desert weather. Stay tuned for updates on the success of this experiment and leave your suggestions in the comments!
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The Unfiltered Status of My Desert Forest Project
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#desertforest #desertplanting #greeningthedesert
We're all rooting for you. =p
god damn it, I really wanted to say get that one in 😢
dad you're embarrassing us all
😂😂😂
😂
I can dig it…😂
Every time a storm is announced near the Gulf, I think of Shaun @ Dustups.
That's my first thought when click on it. "Did it finally rain... hard"
@_garebear dude everyday I check zoom earth I scroll over too Dustups on the of chance....
Lol. Im gonna pray for some water for you shaun. It`ll come mate......you should dig a massive hole that becomes a POND. line it with clay and bingo paradise
The amount of nerds on the Internet that watch this man reforest the desert is amazing, and I’m one of them.
I just want to see if work👍
This is the vibe
Not sure why you said probably when referring to yourself
@@michaelsmithers4900 me to!
I am following interested to see how this turns out.
I think you should try to stab some cutting directly into cactus clumps that haven’t been removed from the ground. Perhaps if you could shade the clump as well.
I agree, it's worth a shot. Pick a pad that is rooted and close to the ground to act as a host plant. See if it roots thru it and into the ground.
This!
I came to say this since the video clip you showed was of a rose clipping into a living potted prickly pear. You could probably remove a few spines to give you clearance. Also what do you think of taking and cleaning your cutting and doing an overnight rooting agent treatment, wipe it and then place it in the drilling
Especially over the winter to allow the rooting to establish, then in the spring, pull out your grafts with their cacti and plant that. Give the grafted plants an opportunity to grow in the spring with their new buddies.
Hadn't thought of rooting inside of a living cactus. I will be trying that next spring.
Stick the cutting into the top end and not the bottom of the cactus.
What Suerte said!!!
I stuck it in the bottom end once, I got slapped.
The same method is more common in humans as well
I'm more interested in if it works with the bottom, too.
@@kingpaddy9009I’m interested to see how it works with a dry desert cactus. The sample video showed a lush green cactus, it looked more like a greenhouse setting.
I think with these cuttings, you would really benefit dipping the stems in rooting hormone powder first. It's not expensive and it really helps with your kind of plants. You also want to cut where it is semi woody. If it has already become woody it's a lot harder to root
The cactus pad is your rooting hormone, it's not just the humidity
Agreed! Some IBA Hormodin 3 would have been ideal. Some plants can’t propagate through cuttings, some can. It will be a good experiment to see if this takes. If not, the next step is to buy a bag of potting soil and start cuttings with IBA. You could do hundreds of cuttings off of a couple bags of potting soil plus then you’re adding organic matter when you plant it on the terrace.
Rooting powder really works magic.
Within a day or two you can already see a few small roots sticking their heads out.
I agree. I also think they should be much shorter.
good idea you then just need follow up rain - about 50% above average annual for next 2-3 years and they should grow - the work of a master gardener
If I were doing this, I would take as many of those tree seeds home to where I could tend to them in a nursery situation and sprout them in my yard (assuming you don't have a HOA to prevent you) grow them to a foot or so high and then bring them all back on a future trip. Keeping the pots as small as possible (really tall and only two inches wide) so that they transport easily and can be easily planted by pounding a post in and inserting the roots in the post hole.
they will be less acclimated to the local situation
@@pdudy8261 You would end up with 90% growing compared to maybe 5% or less sprouting with just the seeds in a hostile environment. Get them going, bring a load of mulch when planting, put a bucket of mulch down on surface when planting to retain moisture and even if half died you would still be ahead. He doesn't live ALL THAT far away, so temps not so much an issue as to the water aspect. Tree nurseries operate around the country with lots of success, so much so that they offer growing guarantees. The hardest part for a plant is getting beyond the sprouting stage.
@@gonnagetya1433 I agree, my worst problem is gophers at my "ranch" when i transplant!
There are problems of transplant shock and acclimatization. It would be better to grow the saplings in situ.
I believe Shaun wants to see if they will grow in place with this method. Starting them at home then transporting them means you will then have less control of the experiment. If he is successful with this method, being performed in place, then he knows the method is sound and he can then progress to best implementation rather than initial study.
its saturday night, im in my 40's and im watching a man drill cacti... I love the internet
Oh yeah!
I know you get a lot of Suggestions. here is a "cheap" one to try.
to protect against heat, sun. Place a metal Tomato hoop upside down and put a burlap bag over it, wrap and tie it with twine. Tent stake it on three spots around. It will protect against extreme heat, sun, while allowing enough natural direct sunlight to pass through to support growth of seedlings. Once they are large enough, you can take the hoop off and move it onto the next.
with the amount of sunlight you get, the cuttings/seedlings will feel as though they are in the shade. the UV's will still get to them.
I am really enjoying the journey you are making in the desert.
Awesome experiment! Cuttings are hard when you’re learning, and you’re jumping to the most extreme form I’ve seen. I think it’s gonna be really hard, especially without any rooting hormone (super cheap powder). Also, 0 out of 20 is what I expect, I’ll be happily surprised of I’m wrong. This has potential, but I would practice doing normal cuttings into soil back at home in a nicer climate so you can see how difficult it is in the best of situations. ❤❤❤
My thoughts are; 1. its worth paying attention to how you take your cuttings so you give the parent plant an easy time healing. This usually means taking the material just above a node so the parent plant doesn’t have to waste energy dying back. Also, cutting flowers and seeds off the parent plant is only reducing the seed bank in the area. Try avoid taking flowers and seeds when you don’t have a lot of vegetation around.
2. I would bring a plastic bag with some wet rags in it to keep the cuttings as fresh as possible after cutting. It can take literal minutes for the plant to begin dying at the place it is cut.
3. I would be propagating into already rooted cacti. It’s likely that the cut cacti will be losing a lot of water until it heals, and still not gaining any water without any roots.
4. Are you peeling the bark off the base of the cuttings? I’ve never seen that, and I think it makes it way harder. I’ve seen people very slightly crush/bruise the base but never peel. I actually find I have better success without touching the bark on the base.
5. Cuttings with flowers are like cuttings with new growth, they are good quality. You do want to remove the flowers though as they consume a lot of energy.
Good luck with this experiment!
I TOTALLY AGREE
It’s always easiest to propagate cuttings in a controlled environment. Which means a greenhouse. Even with these being desert plants. They’ll need a high humidity environment to root effectively. I’m sure the summer is way to hot for a greenhouse in the desert but the cooler months would be the perfect time to propagate cuttings for planting during the next rainy season. 😊
Rooting hormone is your friend.
You have problem with your electric fence … should not hear anything from the charger or the fence!
Either the magnetic in the charger is poor or the fence has bad insulators or something is shorting the fence to ground!!
one problem with electric fencing in dry times is the earth - join earth to picket in ground and wet the ground around the picket
I've seen people run an extra wire instead of ground in very dry conditions @@Jack-w5k4p
Many youtubers have experienced the pulsing of the fence being audible on camera even though they can not hear it themselves.
Seems it would be better. If you erected a spot, that you could root them first in a control environment to ensure success.
You ever read up on KNF (Korean Natural Farming). Microbes are key......
Oh, and the smaller cuttings are WAY more likely to root than the big ones. Think about it. Smaller plants need less to get started than the long ones.
yes. fer sure. and no flowers to sap out the energy.
Agreed. More leaves to keep alive with no roots.
Yep, think those stems are too long
Yes❤
idk i mean so far i only worked with different willow kinds in europe but the larger cuttings usually do better. you can literally just leave a willow log on wet ground and it'll root and start growing within a few weeks. We watch that happen with logs that had been drying out for more than a month before we moved them onto grass. If you're worried about the leaves, just remove them. The younger shoots died off more frequently, as they're just a little fragile.
Willows contain natural rooting horomones so maybe starting with more willows is the move. If you place a willow cutting in a glass of water with cuttings of other trees, the willow can also help influence the other cuttings to root.
Maybe after this initial experiment you can add a willow branch to each pad along with your othwr cutting.
Soaking willow pieces in water then using that water to water other plants sometimes works.. I am not an expert either😊
These are desert willow which is not a true willow it only looks kind of like one.
@@Miningpastpresentfuture indeed, rather than being apart of Salicaceae along with true willows, it’s in the family Bignoniaceae in the subfamily catalpeae. These “desert willows, can hybridize with caplata I guess says the wiki 🤯
Willows usually grow along sign of creeks, because they take a lot of water.
This desert has a lot of problems. No water. That's the whole point of trying to grow foliage with about one inch of water a year.
I wish you hadn't given up on the Buckeye so easily. It's all experimental. Jab a couple sprigs into the cactus and let them decide for themselves if they want to root.
Thanks for the tip Catherine S. and awesome job Shaun!
Do you ever question your life choices and wonder WTF am I doing out here drilling holes into cactus 😂
I think he asked himself those questions a few years ago and it led to starting this project.
Growing anything gives me strong sense of purpose in life. It's what's most important if the grocery stores are gone.
😂😂😂 you obviously have never spent much time out in nature a farm isn't the same or as good as the bush/desert
yes - we are running out of youtube material so this should do the trick until next week
@@Jack-w5k4p at least this isn’t harming anybody
He did this before and I assume he just doesn't know what the problem is... Stop putting cuttings of any kind in your backpack or truck and let them sit there for hours without any care. They are absolutely dead afterwards
You should put 75% shade cloth over the main planting area. It would increase growth exponentially. Think of everything growing under the canopy of a mother desert forest.
If you don't think this will work, do this for 50% of main planting area, and decide then.
The Palo Verde will do that for me
Hey Shaun, I don't know if you know this already, but in Morocco, they grow those prickly pears into fences for cattle pens. It might be a technique you could use over the long term to keep those wild cattle out of certain defined and more sensitive areas of your ranch.
I love watching all the different ideas coming to life. Great channel! 😊
Thank you
You leveled up you machete skills man. I remember you with your reciprocating saw on the cactus while your ya boy was leaving you in a DUST UP with the machete. You look alot more comfortable using one.
Ok so I just went out and took cuttings from four plants and inserted them into my spineless prickly pear cactus. To see if they will root it looks silly but I should know by spring… can I buy a few ocotillo cuttings? I want one for my yard . If you send me plant cuttings I have 40 empty one gallon containers I can start for you. I could probably put three companion plants in each pot. Check out my bobcat shorts on this channel.
Need 'Not an Expert' shirts alongside "Not a Beaver'
I cant wait to be watching in 10 years and see the difference. Its one of those things where I think there will be a snowball effect after the first 5 years.
good - in ten years if the entire ranch of 320 acres is not fenced it will be same as it was last year - plus it may not rain much for 7 out of every 10 years - exasperated by lack of complete management over 320 acres - time will tell which is why these videos are so important - proof of the making of not much really
Gradually... then suddenly
Have you considered buying 1 suitable tree of a decent height (6-10 feet) to plant near camp as a parallel experiment? Plant in a deep hole, underfill with local soil mixed with bagged compost , some cactus pads (under the roots), water retention crystals (in the soil) and mulched well on top. With Brandon there and your water supply, a bucket of water or so per day and/or waste camp water shouldnt be an issue. Would be great lowish cost experiment and great to see it's progress over the years. A big tree close to camp would be a positive symbol. You've probably had this suggestion a million times one way or another in the comments and sorry if its repetitive. Keep up the good work!
if done on a hill dig a hole and put an olla there to keep it watered.
And plant something by the well. Every time you need water you can water that area
A good Alamo would work just fine I live in chihuahua we have the same type of desert anda alamos grow in the arroyos by them self just by planting one
Slow, but for experimental purposes very good. Looking forward how it woks out.
Maybe you should just walk around the ranch with an ice pick and shove clippings into any cactus you see.
LLG .............makes sense .........you don't have to even think about the cactus not rooting
that should take several years at about $50,000 pa expenditure cost per annum unless we us volunteers - can you help ??
Keep going, man.
I see a forest in your future.
Watching from Logan in Queensland, Australia.
My Galah and I love the channel. 🐔😊
Your technique with the desert willow was good for this experiment. For the Mexican Buckeye I would just plant the seeds. Maybe try planting the seeds into Cactus pads.
You can just take the cuttings and put the wood end in water. Just keep the water clean by changing every couple of days and they will root. You dont need to strip the bark or do anything special, and it doesn't need to be new growth. Just put cut end in water till it roots. Hope this helps!
Every Saturday I get stoked for your new video.. Super stoked to watch this..
I hope in the future you make an oasis with a nice pool. I have so much hopes for your desert forest :)
U think u dont have fog .. about how much changes humidity between day and night ?! u need a cold surface .. moist air doesn´t mean fog
no fog, dry as shit
@@jacksonwyse7524no it’s not. Fog is moist.
@@jacksonwyse7524 the air is never dry, there's always some moisture in it.
I saw a real simple system to get water from desert air it had an aluminium vessel that was buried underground and a pipe above ground with a vertical windmill on top.
The windmill turned a fan pushing the air into the vessel which was kept colder than the air by the ground soil temp, it forced the moisture to condensate in it.
The producer claimed it would make 3 gallons of water a day in desert conditions.
@@Mr_Jamin007 For moisture traps to work, there has to be enough water in the air for it to be worthwhile. It's easy to measure it with a cheap device, so before even attempting to do this, you should measure it daily over a few weeks. If it's very low on average, then it's not worth the effort.
A small solar powered electric dehumidifier could be set up as a test bench if the initial measurements are promising. Even with decent measurements, I doubt it's really worthwhile when you look at the cost of the equipment.
@@MrAntice the lower moisture levels in Texas are 70% in the morning and 40% in the afternoon.
They are higher on the east coast.
I love that you're trying many different techniques, I have the feeling you will have different levels of success with each idea in different areas.
Try one on a pad that has already rooted? Maybe? Just an idea.
Might be helpful to look into rooting agents and grafting.
I live northern hudspeth co. Willow and mesquite seem to be the best 2 trees out here for grafting. But i could be wrong maybe the creosote or acacias will perform better. Lots of different opinions on subjects, in the comment section. Don't put too much stock in what people say. Just look further into the topic yourself. Basically what you're already doing lol. You're doing great!
you give us hope for a better world ! greetz from the netherlands, europe
Take a bucket with a lid with a quart of water to keep cuttings hydrated to increase propagation success. And fewer leaves mean less water loss through transpiration while rooting.
Making a fresh cut underwater so it does not get vapor locked so to speak, air embolism that shuts off water movement can help with some hard to root plants.
curious why you did not fill the hole with 5 gallons of water to get a jump start............isn't the goal to establish the graft???? then transplant and see if they make it on their own
There are many ideas to try
Just another thought....the rose stem video you shared they stuck them in planted growing cactuses, not in cut pads....
Also those videos are known to be staged
@@alm_alb You could be right
I really hope this is successful and I love the idea but if the rates are not good or it doesn't work at all the first try then try again in the spring when the plants hormones are more in the vegetative state and it has a lot of fresh growth hormones. Also with any of the more branchy shrubs and trees that have a barky layer that can be removed with a knife or razor, to reveal the underlying cambium etc, look into recycling water and pop bottles to use for air propagating cuttings from spring branches that stay connected to the mother tree until they make roots in your bottle.. that is a great way to make clones of trees and shrubs in the Spring.
Shaun consider making your willow cuttings much shorter, leave 4 or 5 nodes above the cactus.
Then strip the leaves by running it through your fingers top to bottom.
They will put their leaves back on when they are ready to go.
Just my 2 cents, but I have done maybe 600 this way with 90%+ success rate
Rules for cuttings.
1. Green soft growth is preferable for the final stem cut
2. Use rooting hormone, just a jar of powder you dip the cut into
3. No direct sun or high dry wind
4. Cleanliness matters, your final cut should be a thin sharp edge that's clean, not shears
5. You should totally be caring for these offsite, say a garage shelf with a rack of lights above, plastic sheet siding to jack humidity. In your desert environment cuttings likely almost never happen naturally, so don't do it there.
6. Use a medium other than the other plants you are trying to cultivate. It's a great idea and I've seen it done before, but perlite, gravel, rockwool or literally anything else would be so much easier to deal with.
Butterflies are a blessing to have on your property. I think you should put a ripper blade on the dozer and pull the ripper down hill, this would allow the dirt/rock to wash down the hill and fill up the ravines and slow the water down. (Dams should catch it) Then sell the dozer and get a 4wd compact tractor with a front end loader…
Too bad I don't live closer. I have 2 big prickly pears in pots I could give you. They don't have big spikes on them either. I would buy several $20 large pots from Home Depot and several bags of Earth Grow Steer Manure and compost ($2.50 per bag) and grow stuff in pots. Once your trees and plants have been established in pots for a year, then transfer them to the ground. I grew crops in the ground and in pots and the ones in large pots or raised beds do much better than the ones in the ground.
when the red's worn off the tip of the felco's handles you're officially an expert in something
Why dont you transplant onto a cactus already growing well even if its in the wrong place ,
So isolated even the rain won’t go.
Another week of no rain ...cant wait for the rain...
just looked at rainfall records - not unknown to go 6 years there with not much rain
When I root cuttings that aren't dormant, I use fully lignified wood (no green) with no leaves as the leaves will result in loss of moisture and energy going to the roots. Sealing the exposed end of the cuttings with grafting wax or tape is also key to moisture retention. Roots usually form within two weeks and new buds will push within 2-3 weeks. I think you left way too much leaf material. You need to expose the cambium as this is where the root will form. Air-layering is much different in that the main root source is still feeding all of the plant tissues and you are just getting new roots to grow mid-stem. You want all of the leaves until you cut the newly rooted section off as a new plant. At that point you have to match the amount of leafy material to the new root ball. I always minimize the leafy structure until the roots are strong enough to feed new growth.
If you pursue this further in the future, it's crucial to keep the cut end of cuttings moist. If they're allowed to dry out, then rooting becomes significantly more difficult. Also advisable is removing all/most leaves from your cutting to lessen water loss via transpiration during establishment.
Have you thought about the use of GrowBoxx from Groasis???
Impressed that you are growing learning and experimenting.
You'd be better off inserting 2 or 3 clippings per cactus, because you will increase your odds of success. Because if it's going to work, there is enough moisture and nutrients for several clippings to begin rooting.
I'm not sure if it matters, but I wonder if you try this with trimmings that are roughly the diameter of your fingers would work better. I used to work on a research farm and we would graft trees (i know, not the same thing) and we always used root stock and cuttings that were at least the diameter of a finger.
David picking up a stone to see if will work in his slingshot. You will find the exact stone, and bam dreams come true. Love this channel.
Cuttings need damp condition directly. Minute exposed in that dry air and your % to survive decrease. I put in water or damp toilet paper. And when i find the final place to put them in i do a fresh new 45degree "rose" cut with sharp knife.
I agree with this. It is critically important to keep any cutting without roots from drying out. Recut about an inch or more above the cut used to part the cutting from the original plant, preferably underwater while cutting and at an angle to expose as much of the appropriate upward flowing layer as possible. How many tricks you should apply is mostly dependent on how difficult the species is to root, and the environment it is in early on. Dustups is almost worst case scenario for rooting cuttings. I think to not be a total wasted effort, it will almost have to be inside a tent that will hold humidity, 70-90% and provide some shade for at least the first month. I doesnt have to be big or expensive setup, maybe even inside under artificial, blue dominant light and 75 degreesF or so.
Hey Sean how about digging a bathtub a foot down filling it with mulch some horse manure some seeds in covering it with 6 in of sand with extensive watering for a week or two maybe screen the sun with a shade till it takes off
I feel like he’s sort of already doing that
@@alm_alb lack of water and shade. All steps together will have better faster outcome. Been watching long time
My first year of beekeeping, I made so many mistakes. Just so I didn’t repeat them I started a journal of “what not to do”. During the process of writing and even reading past writings I’d have a clear understanding of what to do because I could see how to do it better. You might want to write a journal
his journal is youtube videos that he can view anytime
Growasis is working on my farm in Mojave desert. I planted shady trees and they are making like a little ecosystem
He has a few of them
They aren't cheap though and they're hard to locate.
@@ColonelKlink100 yea I agree with that i was just giving ideas
@@GuiBeesHoney I wish more people knew about and bought them so the prices would go down because they seem to be a great way to establish trees in drought-prone areas. I'm glad to hear that they are working out for you.
@@ColonelKlink100 yes I’m thinking about making videos to show people how great they are
Anyone: what other organisms besides the cactus are endophytic? I've seen people in other countries use something like bananas to root plants on RUclips. Thanks for the great info! Been following you for quite a while now.
Potatoes also work as a 'host' for any kind of cutting. And you might also get potatoes growing as well which would be a cheap soil improver too.
Save ALL your kitchen scraps and cart them out to your property too Sean.
Hi again. The tree shoots in nopales looks like a super idea. I also like your idea of putting them in grass filled holes. I'll bet it's gonna work. I've also seen it work in potatoes, the guy dipped the treeshoots in aloe vera goop before inserting them into the potatoes.My friend taught me a funny trick. When using a p.p. nopal, call it an ocotillo. Lot's of folks will comment and correct you. You know what more comments leads to. In a different episode, walk by an ocotillo and say, "wow, that's a really nice Prickly Pear, look at those tiny succulent style leaves". The comments will abound. Maybe only one "mistake" per every other video? ...compare the number of comments? Yeah, I send you spontaneously strange monetisation ideas. I'm just trying to help your GIANT CRAZY UNDERTAKING have even more success than we've already seen over the past year. Kudos to you and your creative determination hombre.
Cheers,
K.A. Horton
It doesn't matter. The point is to try to bring life. Good job. Keep trying. Whatever works, cool. Whatever doesn't work? No problem. Keep trying. Find something else that will work.
Those clouds are so taunting
And daunting!
It will be interesting to see where all of the mulch ends up after a heavy rain.
It would be interesting to see it actually rain.
He has no soil and no water,he's essentially dry mulching gravel
@@skerriesrockart the mulch will eventually become the soil but it'll take a long time because as you say it's dry for most of the year.
@@Mr_Jamin007 without water there won't be any bacteria and fungus to break it down
Shaun, when taking cuttings, i would put them in a clear plastic bag immediately, especially in your climate.
It generally helps to remove the leaf's on the cutting to just a pair to reduce moisture loss.
Hi Shaun. What about some mulch around existing, living plants, and some adding some seeds to that mulch? That gives them a better chance of taking root in a slightly nutritious, slightly more shaded area? And if some survive, it will take years before they are competition to the original plant. You can wrap the seeds in a clay ball under the mulch
Loving it it man! I don't know if you will see this. You should reach out to the AG Commissioner's Office. I watched the last episode and there is some overlap between what you are doing and the water conservation efforts that he is spearheading. Those little beaver dams need to be larger structures designed to catch organic matter creating a boundary that traps as much silt as is possible. Which in turn will result in water retention. If there was a chance that something you design (or some contractor or engineer who was willing to volunteer a little bit of time) would help retain water from washing out to the gulf, he might be able to help you get permission to build something a little larger, that might move your project ahead, and benefit the state for decades to come.
Soak the seeds in water. If they sink, they are viable. Leave them soaking for 2 hours. Take into account the way the plants in your area evolved in the environment. This will help identify and create a successful germination technique.
I can't believe you pulled that root mass out of the ground when digging and shook it then tossed it aside. 😂 That's a good organic sponge which was already in place!
Glad you tuned in to collecting local seeds. The best place to plant those harvested seeds is in a Zuni bowl. Your probability of success would go way up if you were attempting to start seedlings under a shade structure and prevailing windbreak.
There's a lot of tricks to improving the chances of getting a cutting to root. For instance, you dont want the stems that are trying to flower, scraping through the bark layer to expose the juicy layer beneath, rooting hormone, to include using a tea made from willow, reducing the amount of light and heat while incraasing humidity over the cutting without baking it, reducing leaf area to just the first few leaves at the tip to reduce transpiriation, etc. It's more of an art than science cause of so many variables. You dont want to waste time and effort doing more than necessary to get a reasonable percentage to work out. I would say with the conditions you are up against, if you get more than 20% success rate you are doing good. Mix it up on your first attempt like you are doing and keep notes on what you did on each one to get an idea where the happy medium is.
Another important variable for cuttings is how many leaves to keep on the cutting. The plants loose water through the leaves, so with no functioning roots yet it could be worth either reducing the number of leaves or cover the plants with a clear container to increase the humidity to keep them from drying out
If that desert willow is in the Salix family then you have free rooting hormone, just take new branches cut into smaller pieces and leave to soak in water for a day or two then you can just dip your cuttings in that water.
This dude is not only nuts but the biggest problem in his plan!
Ive done some cuttings , a tree called spanish ceder...after at least 200 attempts one went...lol hope U have better luck..
i think the next goal should be drilling holes for cutting in living cacti, rather than cut cacti. the ones in the ground have water they can tap. they have more water to them than anything you would cut off of them. so, shoving your cutting into an established cacti, and all of its water, would have more value than just the cuttings from the cacti
Planting those prickly pear tree cuttings into such dreadful looking, rocky soil. Soil?
What if you build a green house just for clippings and to get the plants a huge head start before planting. It would trap in the moisture , i'm not sure if it would get too hot. But that way instead of growing them in bad soil slowly you can plant a dirt ball with roots and get that to establish in the ground.
This has so much potential with such a tiny bit of luck.
Yay he finally did cuttings! But no rooting hormones? You should take some cuttings home and do it with rooting hormones...or try grafting with a strong established tree
Willow has rooting hormones
@@marvinobird3264 I didn't know...but the other plants might not...either way rooting hormones can't hurt
instead of using just the tips your chances are beter using the bottom part and as much as possible just bore the cutting deeper untill what remains ontop is optimal so nothing goes to waste plus more potential for roots and bonus stability from the start so a little insurance. all cuttings need to be trimmed after transplant and they say ~30% of total mass
The comments section is as much fun as the video itself 👊🏻🌻👊🏻
Want a REALLY wild idea to grow trees? Plant em in some dirt and give em some shade from direct sunlight and water.... They need indirect sunlight until they really get established to keep the tops from burning off from the sun and killing the tree...
have to agree, the method might be good, but you won't know if you leave them in the sun and wind as cuttings, they're gonna dry up regardless before having a chance to root.
Hence the cactus, buried it wont dry out very fast.
What about the water???
@@publicdomain3378 the cactus provides some water, yes. And then reduce evaporation by 75% and the waters lasts longer to give the clippings more time to grow. So it's both useful.
Like any living organism. Grab a drink, but also sit in the shade of a tree to stay hydrated in stead of getting cooked.
@@irrichman ideally yeah he should have a place to propagate hundreds of those plugs in a controlled enviroment. But we will see by his ultamite success rate if this "Experiment" yeilded positive results
The willow will likely do well, it's one of the easier plants to propagate . You can make rooting hormone with willow water. Cut willow branches into small pieces, boil it a few hours, then let it sit a week or two. dip all your cuttings (other than willow) in to it, and it will improve your chances.
Root them in a pot of water then transfer into a small pot of soil then put them in the ground and water the heck out of them for a week or two .😎🤠
Plenty of room at the Hotel Dustup. Any time of year, you can find it here.
I think you did everything possible to make this fail.
You probably don’t need it but you could add rooting hormone to your process.
How difficult would it be to slow down/divert flash flood water for storage?
Watching a guy haplessly trying to reinvent the wheel, tragic.
Keep in mind Willow is a wetland plant and may not be as hearty on upland areas.
Have you thought about using “rooting hormones?” It seems like you’re doing an awful lot of work to NOT be using every advantage available
It didn't arrive on time. It's now on site
Willows contain rooting hormone, if your desert willow is the same, you can root it by sticking it in water or damp sand. Maybe there’s a way to add a cactus pad in there…
You can also make a rooting hormone tea from willow.
The experts always cut off nearly all of the leaves from a cutting because they need too much water, and they shrivel and die. Also, roots in typical cuttings come from nodes along the stem, nodes can be bumps where leaves have been attached.
I would have done the whole process indoors out of the sun and wind, and kept the cactus pads inside until the roots strike. Cuttings need to be babied.
^ Excellent advice.
I think yout plants need more shade to keep the little moisture.
A farmer would likely dig a well adjacent to the planting area. Limiting your strategies to growing only based on minuscule rain or having to tote water could take decades to develop successful growing methods. By then you could have more climate change further disrupting the process. These very small scale limited experiments are not going to create a “forest” any time soon. The scale of the work is just too small. I wish it wasn’t so but fear that drastic circumstances without drastic measures will bear little fruit. Sorry but I think your optimism may be misplaced and is distracting you from your biggest need, water. If you pour water on the desert things magically grow as if they were in the ground already waiting for the moment the water will arrive, it’s even hard to recognize the ground that was previously so seemingly barren before the water arrived. Why did you bother to have the people come out and survey for good water potential if you didn’t intend to follow through. A lot of starting and stopping, starting and stopping. With half the money you have spent on various projects and materials, you could have had your own well by now. Again I hope I’m wrong but, I just don’t expect the miracle of things magically beginning to grow without water. Are all your eggs in one dry basket?
Wells take from ground water without giving back. More wells is a short term fix that creates a long term problem. Any use of wells in a sustainable project is lying to yourself, like taking a private jet to a CO2 conference.
The only way to be a net positive in the ground water stakes is to stop rain water leaving your land, not take it from elsewhere.
There could be 1000 years supply of water right under his feet and its not being utilised. He needs to use it in order to irrigate the soil its not like he's pumping water out to use in industry. He can't stop rain leaving the land.there isnt any.
@Argrouk
@@skerriesrockart It is being utilised, just not by him directly. If you think aquifers are just free water sitting there doing nothing, you don't understand the situation.
Cuttings dry out very easily when they have no roots, so ideally they need shade and also a semi enclosed environment to keep it in humidity, like a clear 2 litre soft drink bottle made into a dome. We mostly keep our cuttings indoors until they have enough roots. So don't be discouraged if these fail, I think this will work if it starts out in a controlled environment. The last cuttings i did of a new plant, I have some that are outdoors, some of them indoors, to see how they go in each situation
My father in law used to put a plastic bag over a pot of cuttings to keep the humidity up. Rooting hormone and small/short cuttings, Home made willow chopped up and soaked make good rooting hormone.
Shaun, I think with every of these experiments, you should try more diverse ways of doing it and keep track of results. Now you are putting all your eggs in the basket of 1 experimental way. Instead, make different experiments. Long stems, short stems, big branches? In living cacti or in cut off cacti? In the bottom of the cacti or in the top? With or without growing powder? With mulch on top or without? And so on. Try a few plants for every variations and maybe label them. This way you’ll have a lot more info on what works best and you’ll even be able to combine multiple of the best ideas. If a big branch into a living cactus survives, then there’s no need to continue burying small stems, leading to a lot more efficiency.
However, if any of these stems in cacti do survive and thrive, that will be an insanely efficient way to start plants on your lot. Loving your videos, keep it up!
Hai Shaun I just found your awesome channel!!
I'm not sure if you will see this but I'm South African and we too have very "cheap" plots or land in our desert areas and this it's also my 5 year plan to get my income from working remotely and setting up a sort of similar setup like yours.
I have thought about the desert and reforestation for almost a decade now and one issue for me that we need to solve or could solve to help us with projects like this is water capturing...
What I mean by this is that the air especially during the winter months is semi-humid so there is water in the air but not in the soil. One solution to this is actually distilling or cooling air enough for it to become a liquid and have that water be stored below ground in a sort of underground dam system. It is much easier to do this during winters as it doesn't take too much energy to cool down the water gas to liquid form. Solar stills is an easy to build system that only uses the suns heat as the method of capturing the water but you can implement novel or expensive solution to stil the water.
But in the US and other colder winter areas you actually get snow so you can devise a way to capture and store the snow and store it as well as capture as much rain on your land as possible when it does rain once or twice in the year same for morning dew that could be captured with dew nets. With stored water a lot of tasks like farming or reforestation can be done much easier because you can build a greenery and use the water to create a humid and moisture rich greenery to grow plants much quicker and efficiently.
Hope you see this and that it could help you somehow to find some water for yourself.
Algorithm bump. Great content!