# Keeping plants from deteriorating during shipping?



## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Often I have received plants that have started to deteriorate, and often these plants continue to go downhill and soon die completely. I have gotten feed back that sometimes people have had the same experience with plants that I shipped. I am wondering if anyone has tried plant hormones to keep them fresh longer. 

Cytokinins are said to retard senescence in plants. If you cut off a leaf, it will deteriorate rapidly even if keept moist and well lit. Cytokinins are said to be produced mostly in the root tips and translocated to the stems and leaves. The cut off of the cytokinin supply is said to be the reason for the leaf senescing rapidly. Cut leaves sprayed with a dilute cytokinin solution last a lot longer. 

I am going to try to get hold of some cytokinins and spray them onto some plants and keep them in the dark in a ziplock bag and see if they last longer than a control group. Has any one else tried this?


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## Gomer (Feb 2, 2004)

News to me, but I happily await the results!


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## aquatic-store.com (Jun 23, 2004)

Kinda expensive but maybe the local barnes and noble may have this for perusing.

http://www.floridaplants.com/CR/cytokini.htm


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Too expensive! You can get a pretty good summary of what is known about cytokinins in a textbook for an introductory botany course. Of course, those are about as expensive these days! The inflation in textbook prices is almost as bad as it is in medicine.

I found an internet source: http://www.super-grow.biz/Products.jsp 
You can get 1 gram of kinetin for $10.00, and that is plenty to find out if it works and, if it does, to send out a lot of plants, since you use it at a concentration of around 300 ppm.

I also got some kind of concoction at a florest shop used to keep flowers fresh. I assume it contains cytokinin, but contents are not listed on the bottle. The whole one gallon bottle cost $75.00, and so I got 5 bucks worth. Will try it out soon.


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## gnome (Jan 27, 2004)

HeyPK said:


> Cytokinins are said to be produced mostly in the root tips and translocated to the stems and leaves. The cut off of the cytokinin supply is said to be the reason for the leaf senescing rapidly. Cut leaves sprayed with a dilute cytokinin solution last a lot longer.


So this would explain why sending plants *with* roots intact typically arrive in much better shape and recover faster than cuttings, right? Because there are certain plants that are reputed to be poor shippers, which I've found to travel just fine as long as the roots are kept on. Once the plant arrives to the destination, the roots can be trimmed or cut off completely, but they seem to help greatly in "preserving" the plant while in transit. Is this "cytokinin" stuff the reason why?

-Naomi


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## Rolo (May 12, 2004)

Interesting thread, learn something new everyday. ADA's Green Gain is a cytokinin product which I'm just now getting an understand of what it does.


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## HeyPK (Jan 23, 2004)

Gnome wrote:


> Once the plant arrives to the destination, the roots can be trimmed or cut off completely, but they seem to help greatly in "preserving" the plant while in transit. Is this "cytokinin" stuff the reason why?


Could be. Although the roots would have to be healthy and undamaged. Often the roots get mangled when the plant is pulled up or separated from a dense mass of other plants, and I doubt that these damaged roots would contribute much.

I know of at least one plant that goes down hill fast when moved into the dark, even roots and all, and that is _Hemianthus micranthemoides_. This plant grows for me perfectly well floating, and if I take some of it and put it in a bag in the dark or in dim light, it deteriorates in just a few days despite having all its roots undamaged. I think that is going to be the first plant I experiment on with my flower-preserving solution because I have a bunch of it floating and shading out harder-to grow plants. Just about anything is harder to grow than _Hemianthus_. It is like duckweed!


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## Raul-7 (Feb 4, 2004)

Rolo said:


> Interesting thread, learn something new everyday. ADA's Green Gain is a cytokinin product which I'm just now getting an understand of what it does.


What is Green Gain made for?


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## gnome (Jan 27, 2004)

Last year, I sent out Elatine triandra from my own tank. AFAIK, unless any of the people I sent it to fibbed so I wouldn't feel bad, every single one of them arrived "in excellent condition." One was even sent to Hawaii, was delayed and spent four days in transit, and it still arrived "in excellent condition." That was the one plant I included as a freebie that I was SURE would be green goo when it got there. I had no idea why, but I had a feeling it was because for one, it was growing as a *creeper* in my tank, basically putting roots out from every single "node" from the original stems, and when I sent them, I pulled up entire "patches," roots and all, and tried to do as little severing of anything as possible. So from what you say, it seems that it has a lot to do with keeping the roots on, and their being in good condition. 

Appears that when Elatine is sent as cuttings from stands in which they're growing vertically, they almost always incur serious damage during shipping. OTOH, I've sent other plants with what looked like healthy roots, and they didn't make it. Namely, Limnophila aromatica. They were sent in the emersed form and just disintegrated after the recipient put it in his tank. 

-Naomi


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## Rolo (May 12, 2004)

Raul, I can't speak for Green Gain since I've never used it. All I can show you is the product description from Jeff's site: 


> Stem plants requires a trimming once in a while. Stress that plants receive at trimming, sometimes restrains their growth. Green Gain, contains active ingredients (trace elements, minerals, amino acid etc.). Among other various botanical hormones, Green Gain includes *cytokinin* which, extracted from natural materials, eases plant stress and increases the resistance of aquatic plants against diseases.


I just noticed "cytokinin" was in there and made the connection to this thread.


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## drongo12 (Nov 25, 2008)

When shipping I have found that getting most of the water off the plants and then packing them as closely together as possible works well. when i ship i actually use a salad spinner to get rid of excess water. the plants arrive 'bendy' but when put back in normal growing conditions, they spring strait back.

David


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