Efficacy of "willow water" for improving propagation of cuttings

Question

"Willow water" is a term for water that has had willow soaked in it to extract compounds that improve the chances of a cutting growing roots. Here's a fairly descriptive article on it.

I tried it once when I was given some cuttings from a ficus tree, and one cutting grew roots (it's now about a metre tall, and makes a nice indoor plant).

What I don't know is how much of a difference it really makes to use willow water rather than just plain water (or commercial rooting hormone). Does anyone have a good feel as to how much it improves the strike rate of cuttings?

Answer 1

Willow water could contain an unusually high amount of "phyto-hormones", which support the growth of roots. I think this will be an auxine-derivate, which the willow contains. Clear water doesn't contain those phyto-hormones. So plant and root-growth comes from the cuttings themselves. However, I'm not 100% sure.

Conventional rooting hormones containing those pyhto-hormones, but they are synthetic. One exception may exist, if I'm not wrong — There's a product based on a special variety of seaweed. The seaweed used contains a relatively high amount of auxines and this product might be used in organic horticulture/agriculture in Europe.