Stem plant (particularly Staurogyne Repens) Clarification

[nabokovfan87]

Hello Everyone!

It is that time again where I am going to trim the plants and I want to try something particularly new for myself.  The Stems as they stand are not extremely long, but there is enough there where I can go ahead and trim the stems to propagate them out. 

My question is two fold and I assume the answers, but I do want to ensure I am doing things properly for plant health and growth.  If I am planning on "topping" the stems, how close to the substrate should I cut the stems? Can I cut them directly at the level of the substrate?  Should I leave some leaves or will the stems that are currently rooted easily grow new leaves if I trim them bare?

This is the tank in question.  I'll grab a photo tomorrow after working of an easier view on the stems currently and my plan on where to cut.

Older Photo, plants are taller now.

[nabokovfan87]

Here's how the plants look today.

 

My apologies for the blurry photo. I guess imoved moved slightly, but you can see the length on the plants.

[nabokovfan87]

I found a few things while doing more research.

I'll quickly mention two of them here:

A. "plants need leaves for photosynthesis and having 2-3 layers of leaves to plant will help them to start off right while the roots grow."

This is referring to the top portions and how much length you need to plant. Having the bare stalks is beneficial. Roots will be encouraged to grow at the cut point of the stem and that will be in the substrate where the nutrients are located.

B. I found a Tom Barr video where he is discussing and trimming his S.Repens carpet. A lot of the video looks visually like he is hand pulling the plants out, but the discussion follows that he cuts the stems to the substrate and the following conversation is about how long until new growth is seen.

My previous method was to to the plants when they grew tall enough, then to pull off the bottom 2-3 layers of leaves and plant those stems. I can appreciate the difference here in technique because he is doing a "for profit" trim and wants healthy plants visually for the customer. There would be time into potting or bunching those trimmings, but it makes sense why he trimmed them the way he did.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Very interesting! I have my Repens but because it's in a low tech tank it's not super fast growing despite Easy Green so I've not yet had a chance to trim it (ok by me). My instinct is that the stem would need at least a couple of leaves for the photosynthesis in our tanks especially  just going by what I know of plants. 

[nabokovfan87]

@xXInkedPhoenixX yeah, it's been a challenge for me to learn some of the fine techniques just because there is so much basic information lacking full details.

I usually get the plants to 3-4" and then trim. 1/2-3/4" tall stem in the soil left with a good length plant to plob into the soil to propagate out. One of my issues I had previously was not planting deep enough!

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

What would happen when not planting deep enough? I presume uprooting but just curious if it's something else

[MattyM]

Mine got to the same point, the stems were long with just leaves towards the top and it looked kinda weird. I pulled them up, trimmed the roots and left a good amount of stem to replant. I quickly learned to plant at an angle, to help keep them from floating up (this tank has sand). 

Interestingly, the ones that I clipped and were floating had fresh roots in about a week - much better for planting. So I think next time I might tend a section at a time and float the clippings before planting so they are planted with some starter roots. 

[nabokovfan87]

Plants trimmed and re-planted.  The interesting thing was the amount of aerial roots on stems that were extremely short!  They wanted to be trimmed and replanted.  It was as if the main plant was waiting for the stem to break.  The other interesting thing was stems that had basically died off on the main stalk, shot out a side stalk and started to focus growth from those parts of the plants as opposed to the main branch. 

I found this a little bit ago, woke up and learned how to trim a tree.  Use that accordingly if you feel so for your plant trimmings.
 

.

 

On 6/9/2023 at 1:27 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

What would happen when not planting deep enough? I presume uprooting but just curious if it's something else

it gets shot to the filter (seachem tidal skimmer in this case) and doesn't have a place to float and grow.  Even floating, I've never had success floating a stem.bare

 

On 6/9/2023 at 2:14 PM, MattyM said:

Mine got to the same point, the stems were long with just leaves towards the top and it looked kinda weird. I pulled them up, trimmed the roots and left a good amount of stem to replant. I quickly learned to plant at an angle, to help keep them from floating up (this tank has sand). 

Interestingly, the ones that I clipped and were floating had fresh roots in about a week - much better for planting. So I think next time I might tend a section at a time and float the clippings before planting so they are planted with some starter roots. 

Agreed.  That is the main method I have seen.  I have also seen what is known as "topping" which may or may not involve pulling the bare sections as well as their rooted sections to make way for the "tops" that are healthy and thriving.  That method of replacing the bare stalks is something I've never learned when I first started out keeping aquarium plants and was a big explanatory as to why I managed to have so many issues.  Tall stems with 3-8 leaves and very tall bare stalks.  Basically the equivalent of palm trees in mario games.

On 6/9/2023 at 2:14 PM, MattyM said:

I quickly learned to plant at an angle, to help keep them from floating up (this tank has sand). 

I've tried a variety of different substrates. Some easier than others.  Some tools easier than others as well.  It's all relative.  No sand in this tank and a plethora of little catfish waiting to boop the plants up into the sky and just have fun with that.  I also have moss being pulled off daily by amano shrimp or by angry RTBS it seems who doesn't know her own size trying to graze on aufwuchs.

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

So, interestingly, I've learned something in my Bonsai keeping that helps with these stem plants as the same principal seems to apply in most of them. With my pomegranate tree I learned to trim between an area on a stem that has 2 leaves on it that are even with each other. The result this will get you is the plant splitting into 2 different areas and doing the process all over again. Trimming when it's just on one side does not get the same result. You want this for a bushier canopy. This works for Bacopa Caroliniana, I haven't tried it on my repens yet. Crappy drawing for illustration: