A rooting hormone gives a cutting the chemical signal to grow roots. Commercial products use a synthetic auxin, usually indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) or 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA), which is the same class of hormone a plant produces at the growing tip. Applied to a fresh cut, it shortens the time to root and raises the share of cuttings that take at all. Canada Grow Supplies stocks cloning gels, cutting solutions, root stimulants and tissue culture media from Technaflora, Nutri+, Remo Nutrients, Optimum Hydroponix, CYCO, CANNA, General Hydroponics and Athena. Orders of $149 or more of eligible items ship free within Canada.
Rooting hormone or root stimulant? They are not the same thing
These sit side by side on every shelf and do different jobs, so it is worth getting straight before you buy.
- Rooting hormones contain an auxin and act on the cutting itself to start new roots. In this collection that means Remo Nutrients Roots (a gel with both IBA and NAA), Nutri+ Root Plus Rooting Gel (ready to use at 0.2% IBA), Optimum Pro 2001 Cutting Solution (a concentrate at 0.3% IBA), Technaflora Rootech Cloning Gel and CYCO Platinum Series Cyclone.
- Root stimulants contain no hormone. They feed and protect a root system that is already forming, using things like seaweed extract, humic acids and nutrients. CANNA Rhizotonic XP is built on Ascophyllum nodosum (kelp) extract, General Hydroponics RapidStart drives fine root-hair branching, and Optimum Humex is a humic soil conditioner.
A stimulant will not make a bare cutting strike on its own. Most growers use both: the hormone on the cut, the stimulant in the water or medium afterwards.
Gel, liquid or powder: which should you use?
Gel is the easiest to use well and the most popular for cloning. It clings to the cut surface, seals it against air, and the dose is already correct, so there is nothing to mix. Dip once, straight into the medium.
Liquid concentrates like Optimum Pro 2001 let you mix a quick-dip solution and treat a whole batch of cuttings consistently. That is why propagators running hundreds at a time prefer them.
Powder keeps longest on the shelf and suits woody, slow-rooting material. It is less forgiving on soft green cuttings, which can be scorched by too heavy a coating.
How to take a cutting that actually roots
- Take the cutting from healthy, actively growing material, 10 to 15 cm long with two or three nodes.
- Cut just below a node at roughly 45 degrees with a clean blade. More cut surface means more root sites, and a clean blade means fewer infections.
- Strip the lower leaves and cut the remaining ones in half, so the cutting loses less water while it has no roots.
- Apply the hormone immediately. Pour what you need into a separate cup and discard the leftover rather than dipping into the bottle, so you are not contaminating the whole container.
- Put it straight into moist medium, firm it in, and keep it humid and out of direct light until roots appear. Warmth at the base matters more than light at this stage.
Most softwood cuttings root in one to three weeks. Woody material can take considerably longer.
How much is too much?
More hormone does not mean more roots. Above the right concentration auxin inhibits root formation instead of driving it, and can burn the base of a soft cutting. Use the dilution on the label, and do not leave a cutting soaking in a concentrate when the instructions call for a quick dip.
Do you need a rooting hormone at all?
Not always. Mint, coleus, pothos, willow and many soft herbs root readily in plain water. Hormone earns its place on anything slow or woody, on expensive genetics where losing a cutting matters, and whenever you want a whole batch to root in the same week rather than over a month.
Tissue culture
If you are working in culture rather than with cuttings, Athena Roots and Athena Shoots Culture Media come as sterile 125 ml vessels in packs of ten, with the rooting and shooting stages formulated separately.
Shipping across Canada
Orders of $149 or more of eligible items ship free within Canada; oversized items and remote destinations carry a handling fee, and every order goes out in discreet packaging with no labels on the box. If you are not sure which product suits what you are propagating, call us at 888-349-0321.
