willow water

The way I make my willow water is aquiring a few branches and crushing some cut up pieces and most of the pieces are cut down to between 3 to 6 inches. I throw those into a 5 gallon bucket of hot water and let them soak for a week.
*** the question**
is it safe to water regularly with the willow water? Does it encourage heavier/and healthier rotting sinces its a rooting hormone?

Last summer, I took three rock elm cuttings with leaves on them. 2 were soaked in this solution for one day, the remaining cutting was just stuck into a turface fines mix. The other two(willowed) cuttings were stuck into the same mix as the un willowed cutting. The willowed cuttings didn't even blick or sag. They kept growing and the one that didn't receive willow treatment died pretty quicky. I planted them into the ground the last week and the roots are very fiberous and vigorous.

*** the question**
is it safe to water regularly with the willow water? Does it encourage heavier/and healthier rotting sinces its a rooting hormone?

ROTTING=ROOTING

Hi Mitch

There are a couple things going on chemically and horticulturally when we use willow water solutions.

Willow root tips produce fairly high amounts of IBA which is not a hormone that induces rooting but is a plant hormone that accelerates cell division. Therefore growing root tips, already growing, grow faster. 4-Indol-3 butyric acid (IBA) does not dissolve in water so that auxin wouldn't be found in our willow water anyway.

But what is produced and infused into willow water is salicylic acid and this is primarily the chemical that helps with rooting. What it does is reduces/eliminate the plants normal hormonal reactions to being wounded. When we take cuttings we injure the plant tissue at the cut end. Plants normally "wall off" damaged tissue in order to begin to repair and regrow the vascular tissues. The Salicylic acid helps keep the tissues of the cutting open and helps them retain and take up water. In short they stay fresher longer. But there is more to it.

Salicylic acid is also highly anti-viral, fungal and bacterial. So a cutting soaked in it is also inoculated with some extra degree of disease resistance. I would think continuing to use willow water once the plants have already rooted would only re-inoculate your soil with that anti-microbial solution. Could it damage mycorrhizae fungal populations and beneficial soil bacteria? possibly.

I don't think willow water itself forces rooting of cuttings but I do believe it helps the cutting produce roots by its own mechanisms faster and with greater success. At least thats the understanding I have of how all this works.
-Jay