Assessment of the usefulness of selected media used in the rooting process of lavender cotton shoot cuttings

Lavender cotton (Santolina chamaecyparissus L.) shoot cuttings, obtained from two-year-old mother plants, were rooted in five different media under an unheated foil tunnel. Two ready-made and widely recommended media were used: Hartmann peat substrate and Ceres peat-coconut substrate, as well as three prepared mixtures: high peat + mineral soil, high peat + perlite and high peat + sand. The influence of medium type on the number of rooted cuttings and the quality of the root system was assessed for two cultivation times during a three-year study after eight weeks from the date of cutting. As far as the ready-made rooting substrates are concerned, Ceres peat-coconut substrate turned out to be better when compared with the Hartmann substrate. The number of high quality rooted cuttings was larger when media containing high peat mixed with either mineral soil or sand were used in comparison with the mixture of high peat and perlite.