Propagation Cutting & Cuttings & Mother Plants Needed
Strikes grape
Enter your target plants, rooting success and cuttings per mother plant to get how many cuttings to strike, how many mother plants you need, and the expected rooted plants.
Plan your cuttings
Next: collect 1,572 cuttings from about 79 mother plants and stick them with rooting hormone under mist; cull weak rooters as you pot up.
Rooting % swings with species, cutting type (softwood/semi-hardwood/hardwood), hormone, season and mist control — log your own success rate and feed it back in.
Propagation by cuttings — key facts
- Cuttings needed
- target ÷ rooting % + buffer
- Mother plants
- cuttings ÷ cuttings per mother
- Expected rooted
- cuttings struck × rooting %
- Easy rooting
- ≈ 70–90% strike rate
- Hard species
- ≈ 30–50% strike rate
- Buffer
- ≈ 5–15% extra cuttings
- Raised from cuttings
- grape, rose, cassava, sugarcane
- Privacy
- Runs in your browser; nothing uploaded
Strike enough cuttings to hit your target
Many of the crops we grow never come from seed — grape, rose, hibiscus, cassava and sugarcane are all raised vegetatively from stem cuttings, so each new plant is a true copy of its mother. The catch is that not every cutting roots. Strike exactly your target number and a routine 70% strike rate leaves you nearly a third short at planting time, with no time to start again.
This tool fixes that by working back from the plants you actually need: cuttings to strike, mother (stock) plants required, the expected rooted plants and the rooting percentage behind it. Build in a buffer for handling losses, size your stock block, and pair it with the Grafting Success, Polybag Nursery and Tissue Culture tools for a complete propagation plan.
Never plant short
Strike enough to cover rooting losses.
Size the stock block
Know how many mother plants you need.
Plan the buffer
Add a margin for handling and disease.
Any cutting crop
Grape, rose, cassava, sugarcane and more.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is propagation by cuttings?+
Propagation by cuttings is raising new plants vegetatively from a piece of stem (or sometimes leaf or root) taken from a parent plant. Many crops — grape, rose, hibiscus, cassava, sugarcane — are raised this way, so every new plant is genetically identical to the mother. This calculator works out how many cuttings to strike and how many mother plants you need to hit a target.
How many cuttings do I need to strike?+
Not every cutting roots, so you strike more than your target. Cuttings needed = target plants ÷ rooting success, then add a buffer for handling losses. For example, to end up with 800 plants at 70% rooting you'd strike about 1,140 cuttings, plus a 10% buffer for roughly 1,250 cuttings.
What is rooting success and why does it matter?+
Rooting success (or strike rate) is the share of cuttings that form roots and become viable plants. It varies with species, cutting type, season, hormone use and mist — hardwood cuttings of easy species can exceed 85%, while difficult species may be 30–50%. The lower the rooting %, the more cuttings you must strike to reach the same target.
How many cuttings does one mother plant give?+
Each mother (stock) plant supplies only a limited number of cuttings per round without being weakened — anywhere from a handful on a young rose to dozens on a vigorous grape or sugarcane stool. Divide the total cuttings you need by the cuttings per mother plant to find how many stock plants you must keep.
Why add a buffer to the cuttings?+
A buffer covers losses beyond rooting failure — cuttings damaged in handling, lost to disease or rot in the bed, or culled as weak. A 5–15% buffer on top of the rooting-adjusted number means you still hit your target even after these extra losses. Skip it and a bad batch can leave you short for planting.
Hardwood, semi-hardwood or softwood cuttings?+
Hardwood cuttings are taken from dormant, mature wood (grape, fig, currant) and are slow but tough; semi-hardwood from part-ripened summer growth; softwood from soft new spring growth, which roots fast but wilts easily and needs mist. The cutting type affects rooting success, so set the rooting % to match what you're taking.
How do I keep good mother plants?+
Choose healthy, true-to-type, disease-free parents and manage them as dedicated stock plants — well fed, lightly pruned to push fresh shootable wood, and rogued of any off-types or virus. Good mother plants give more cuttings at higher rooting success, so a small well-kept block can supply a large propagation run.
Does this work for setts and canes too?+
Yes — sugarcane setts, cassava stem cuttings and similar cane crops follow the same maths: target plants ÷ establishment rate, plus buffer, divided by usable cuttings per cane. Just enter the establishment percentage as the rooting success and the number of setts each mother cane yields.
Are the numbers exact?+
They're solid planning figures. Real rooting varies with weather, media, hormone, hygiene and skill, so re-check your strike rate from past batches and feed it back in. Treat the result as how many to strike to be safe — measuring your own rooting % over a season makes it far more accurate.