Cutting (plant) in the context of "Grafting"

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⭐ Core Definition: Cutting (plant)

A plant cutting is a piece of a plant that is used in horticulture for vegetative (asexual) propagation. A piece of the stem or root of the source plant is placed in a suitable medium such as moist soil. If the conditions are suitable, the plant piece will begin to grow as a new plant independent of the parent, a process known as striking. A stem cutting produces new roots, and a root cutting produces new stems. Some plants can be grown from leaf pieces, called leaf cuttings, which produce both stems and roots. The scions used in grafting are also called cuttings.

Propagating plants from cuttings is an ancient form of cloning. There are several advantages of cuttings, mainly that the produced offspring are practically clones of their parent plants. If a plant has favorable traits, it can continue to pass down its advantageous genetic information to its offspring. This is especially economically advantageous as it allows commercial growers to clone a certain plant to ensure consistency throughout their crops.

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Cutting (plant) in the context of Cultivar

A cultivar is a kind of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and which retains those traits when propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, or carefully controlled seed production. Most cultivars arise from deliberate human manipulation, but some originate from wild plants that have distinctive characteristics. Cultivar names are chosen according to rules of the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP), and not all cultivated plants qualify as cultivars. Horticulturists generally believe the word cultivar was coined as a term meaning "cultivated variety".

Popular ornamental plants like roses, camellias, daffodils, rhododendrons, and azaleas are commonly cultivars produced by breeding and selection or as sports, for floral colour or size, plant form, or other desirable characteristics. Similarly, the world's agricultural food crops are almost exclusively cultivars that have been selected for characters such as improved yield, flavour, and resistance to disease. Since the advent of genetic engineering in the 1970s and the rise of its application in crop breeding in the 1980s, very few wild plants are used as commercial food sources. Trees used in forestry are also special selections grown for their enhanced quality and yield of timber, for example American timber company Weyerhaeuser is the leading grower of genetically modified Douglas-fir trees, one of the most commonly harvested trees.

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Cutting (plant) in the context of Plant propagation

Plant propagation is the process by which new plants grow from various sources, including seeds, cuttings, and other plant parts. Plant propagation can refer to both man-made and natural processes.

Propagation typically occurs as a step in the overall cycle of plant growth. For seeds, it happens after ripening and dispersal; for vegetative parts, it happens after detachment or pruning; for asexually-reproducing plants, such as strawberry, it happens as the new plant develops from existing parts.

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Cutting (plant) in the context of Vegetative reproduction

Vegetative reproduction (also known as vegetative propagation, vegetative multiplication or cloning) is a form of asexual reproduction occurring in plants in which a new plant grows from a fragment or cutting of the parent plant or specialized reproductive structures, which are sometimes called vegetative propagules.

Many plants naturally reproduce this way, but it can also be induced artificially. Horticulturists have developed asexual propagation techniques that use vegetative propagules to replicate plants. Success rates and difficulty of propagation vary greatly. Monocotyledons typically lack a vascular cambium, making them more challenging to propagate.

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Cutting (plant) in the context of Mother plant

A mother plant is a plant grown for the purpose of taking cuttings or offsets in order to grow more quantity of the same plant.

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Cutting (plant) in the context of Crassula

Crassula is a genus of succulent plants containing about 200 accepted species, including the popular jade plant (Crassula ovata). They are members of the stonecrop family (Crassulaceae) and are native to many parts of the globe, but cultivated varieties originate almost exclusively from species from the Eastern Cape of South Africa.

Crassulas are usually propagated by stem or leaf cuttings. Most cultivated forms will tolerate some small degree of frost, but extremes of cold or heat will cause them to lose foliage and die.

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Cutting (plant) in the context of African blue basil

African blue basil (Ocimum kilimandscharicum × basilicum 'Dark Opal') is a hybrid basil variety, a cross between camphor basil and dark opal basil. It is one of a few types of basil that are perennial. African blue basil plants are sterile, unable to produce seeds of their own, and can only be propagated by cuttings.

This particular breed of basil has a strong camphor scent, inherited from Ocimum kilimandscharicum (camphor basil), its East African parent. It is included into the Lamiaceae (mint) family. The concentration of camphor is 22% (compared with 61% for O. kilimandscharicum). The concentration of the other major aroma compounds, linalool (55%), and 1,8-cineole (15%) is comparable to many basil cultivars.

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