Misting system for propagation

[chickadoodle]

Do any of you have experience of using a misting system for the propagation of seeds and cuttings. 

I have access to mains water in the greenhouse.  How many times should they be misted a day (cost of wet leaf system makes it a no-no!).  Do I also need a heat mat or cables.  All thoughts gratefully received.

[chickadoodle]

[Tee Gee]

 

I have access to mains water in the greenhouse. 

Thats fine but do you have access to electricity?

So far as I know misting systems are electrically operated.

How many times should they be misted a day (cost of wet leaf system makes it a no-no!). 

??? This sounds like you are now talking about a 'drip/seeping' system which is a totally different thing.

Do I also need a heat mat or cables. 

Again do you have electricity?

If you have then I would recommend either a mat or cables, I use a cable on my hot bed and my propagator is effectively a mat.

So if you have electricity a misting system is more common when taking cuttings as opposed to sowing/germinating seed. So a drip feed system would suffice particularly if you want to use capillary matting.

If I mist I generally just use a hand pump spray. The number of times I use it per day depends a lot upon the weather & temperature.

What you want to avoid is overdoing the spraying, this can make matters worse i.e. botrytis comes to mind.

Sorry I can't be more helpful than that.

[chickadoodle]

Hello Tee Gee thanks for your reply.  Yes I do have electricity to the greenhouse.  I already use a couple of electric propagators but I am now taking so many cuttings that I soon run out of space.  I have used the good old plastic bag method over the top but find weening them off a bit of a pain to do each night.  To keep up the humidity I thought of having a whole area for them with a misting system to keep in the moisture and a shaded cover over the top of the lot.

The wet leaf is a sensor that dries and then sets the misting going, when it is wet it turns off the misting and although the leaf is cheap enough, the control box is over £100.  I thought that perhaps some sort of timer could set it going but wasn't sure of how long or how often.  I suppose as you say it depends on the weather ::)

[kenkew]

I had moderate success with drip watering (hoses) but the system was fed from a rain-water butt and I was constantly de-gunging the holes. Tap water doesn't have that problem)

[Ceratonia]

Google for "intermittent misting" - you'll find stacks of links for pages with instructions on home-made systems using timers rather than a sensor, although naturally most of them will refer you to "home depot" for parts which isn't always so helpful.

If you want to take large numbers of cuttings and get them to root quickly with minimum of work, a mist system is definitely the way to go - much better results in terms of succes rate and less work and space needed compared to plastic bags.

[chickadoodle]

Thanks for that.  I certainly got better results by adding intermittent to my search.  I've got more of an idea on how to go about it now.  It's always so exciting to get a new plant from just a little cutting.