Top 6 Best Rooting Hormone Reviews – Buying Guide

The best rooting hormone product can help you propagate the plants successfully. However, there are many options out there, making you confused as you don’t know which one is suitable for your needs.

To help you out in this issue, we have compiled a list of great products for your consideration, along with a helpful buying guide.

We consider the Garden Safe Brand TakeRoot Rooting Hormone as our best overall for its effectiveness in boosting the root development of the cutting.

Moreover, it comes at a more affordable price in comparison with many other products. Finally, it can work with varieties of plants thanks to an optimal formula with the auxin chemical – the IBA (Indole-3-Butyric Acid).

Top 6 Best Rooting Hormones Reviews

Garden Safe Brand TakeRoot Rooting Hormone – Best Overall

This rooting hormone is our winner for its excellent performance in every aspect. Firstly, it stands out with a 0.1% active ingredient concentration – the IBA identical to the IAA natural hormone.

Accordingly, it can undoubtedly boost the development of the root, increasing the success rate of propagating.

Also, this rooting hormone powder works with most garden, home, and greenhouse plant species. It is ideal for African Violets, Woody Ornamentals, Coleus, Geraniums, and Philodendrons.

This root growth hormone is an affordable option for you to propagate plants. With a net weight of 2 oz per container, it can be used for casual gardening for a while.

One more thing, you will find it relatively easy to use. All you need to do is to put some of the powder in the shot glass or bottle cap, dip the moistened plant cutting and grow it in moist soil.

That said, it is only ideal for softwood cuttings. If you seek a strong rooting hormone for your plants, it might not be your perfect choice.

What We Like

• Affordable price
• Easy to use
• Contain active ingredients identical to natural rooting hormone
• Work well with a wide variety of plants

What Can Be Improved?

• Not for hardwood cuttings

Technaflora Rootech Gel For Plants – Best For Rapid Rooting Promotion

Our runner-up – the Technaflora Rootech Gel, is a rooting hormone with a high concentration of vitamins and nutrients, including vitamin B1. This vital vitamin increase plants stress resistance, thus leading to stronger root health

We highly appreciate it for its unique recipe to promote healthy plant root development in a fast way.

Coming with one of the strongest concentrations of IBA – 0.55%, this gel hormone can stimulate even the hard-to-root plants to propagate rapidly.

It also outweighs other products for a rootech unique formulation surrounding the stem with sustenance to foster strong clones with healthy root systems consistently.

You can apply it right at launch as the rootech gel is packaged in a ready-to-use container.

That said, it comes in a significantly small container of 0.25 oz, which is only enough for merely three shoebox-sized containers of jiffy pods with colones.

What We Like

• High concentration of nutrients and vitamins
• Promote healthy plant root growth fast
• Rootech unique formulation
• Easy to use

What Can Be Improved?

• Small container

Xtreme Gardening RT1351 – Best For Nitrogen Conversion

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The next spot belongs to the Xtreme Gardening RT1351 for its incredibly efficient nitrogen conversion ability. Accordingly, this rooting hormone can convert nitrogen’s N2 form into NH3 ammoniacal nitrogen available for plants to use.

Notably, the RT1351 hormone delivers around 50-70% of nitrogen needed by most plants. Besides its nitrogen-fixation benefit to crops, it also helps stimulate plant development by catalyzing the natural growth hormone release.

This release facilitates the root to grow and optimizes your garden’s harvest productivity. What also impressed us is its ability to keep plants efficient and green.

However, it is not an affordable choice for those on a tight budget.

What We Like

• Highly-efficient nitrogen conversion
• Keep crops efficient and green
• Stimulate the plant development

What Can Be Improved?

• High price

Dyna-Gro DYKLN008 Nutrient – Best For Highly-Nutrient Formula

Dyna-Gro DYKLN008 Nutrient deserves a location on our list for its high nutrient formula. Different from other products, it contains all 16 essential minerals for optimal plant growth.

Many only have N-P-K or some additional elements, yet they are still incomplete. Accordingly, it can ensure the best conditions for plants to grow.

Notably, its rooting compounds of K-L-N is proven to be a great solution to boost vigorous root growth on plant cuttings, newly potted plants, and even transplants.

Besides vitamin B1, K-L-N has both IAA and IBA hormones to kick your plant’s root development into high gear. It works well to make propagating plant cuttings greatly simple.

Nevertheless, though it is pretty easy to use, the manufacturer still needs to offer instructions on using it or when. That it only states the measurement on the mixture is not enough.

What We Like

• Highly-nutrient formula with all 16 essential minerals
• Efficient K-L-N mixture for plant root growth
• Provide IAA and IBA hormones

What Can Be Improved?

• Lack of detailed instructions

Hormodin #2 Rooting Hormone – Best For Propagating Semi-Woody & Woody Plants

The Hormodin #2 is specially formulated for propagating many semi-woody and woody plants thanks to a concentration of 0.3% IBA to stimulate root growth while reducing the plant loss and propagation bench time.

It also works best for moderately hard-to-root cuttings such as roses, forsythia, arborvitaes, most evergreens, and common junipers. You will love its ease of use, yielding reliable performance of non-disease migration and rooted cuttings.

This suggestion comes in a one-oz jar to treat at least 35,000 average plant cuttings. However, if you seek a hormone for extremely difficult-to-root plants, it might not be your answer.

In this case, you can consider Hormodin #3 with a higher concentration of IBA (0.8%).

What We Like

• Ideal for semi-woody, woody
• Easy to use
• No disease migration
• Reduce bench time and plant loss

What Can Be Improved?

• Not strong enough for difficult-to-root plants

QADN Natural Quick Rooting Powder – Best For Plant Survival Rate

The last pick belongs to the QADN Natural Quick rooting powder for its ability to improve the cutting’s survival rate.

QADN utilizes the polysaccharide nutrient base to create an accurate and reliable ratio, making an ideal environment for rooting promotion.

Especially when transplanting or repotting, this hormone powder combined with the soil will generate a fully nutritional base for roots to survive.

After the plants are transplanted, damaged fibre roots can vigorously rejuvenate with this rooting hormone powder. It is advisable to use it for seed soaking, tree transplanting, and pruning to boost healthy roots.

Nevertheless, it might not be strong enough to benefit hard-to-root plants.

What We Like

• Deliver high survival rate for the cutting
• Promote root cuttings, fast rooting, and sprouting
• Rejuvenate the damaged roots

What Can Be Improved?

• Not great for hard-to-root cuttings

Complete Rooting Hormone Buying Guide

Types Of Rooting Hormone

Powder

It is one of the most popular kinds of rooting hormones available. It is easy to use and provides an intense layer of root stimulating ingredients.

Before dipping the cutting in this plant rooting hormone, you can see many gardeners deep them into water. This step is to facilitate the rooting hormone to adhere better.

Rooting powder is more shelf-stable than its counterparts yet less effective since the texture makes it hard to absorb evenly.

Liquid

Liquid rooting hormone bottles are available in either concentrated formulations requiring mixing with water or ready-to-use formulations. You can buy a liquid hormone either as a ready-to-use or a concentrated rooting solution.

If you are unfamiliar with the plant propagating process, it is best to opt for a premixed hormone for a much easier process. The concentrated type will need to be diluted before use.

This hormone can offer optimal coverage as it can seep into tiny pores in your plant cuttings. However, it is not a wise choice if you are about to store it for later uses.

Gel

Rooting gels or cloning gels are best for growing indoors as it is premixed and convenient to utilize. It also boasts a high success rate as this form can adhere well to the plant cuttings.

Accordingly, the tissues of your favourite plants can have much time to absorb the hormone. It also delivers a thicker hormone coating than liquid form.

In other words, it might provide more rooting-enhancing stimulus.

How To Choose The Right Rooting Hormones

Concentration

Rooting hormone products come in various concentrations. You can find some hormones come ready to use and are already diluted, while others might need cutting.

Usually, with the gel form, you can insert the cutting into them immediately. On the other hand, the powered and concentrated-liquid hormone products will need to dip the cutting into the water beforehand.

Synthetic Or Natural?

Another element you have to consider when buying a rooting hormone product is the type of ingredient.

• IAA (Indole-3-Acetic Acid) is an abundant plant hormone of the class auxin. It is predominantly created in the young leaves or apical buds of plants. It is well known as a cell division and elongation inducer.
• NAA (Naphthaleneacetic Acid) is a synthetic chemical formulation. It can boost the development of the root and retard rotting.
• IBA (Indole-3-Butyric Acid) is a form of the auxin plant hormone. It can trigger root growth and be available in many commercial hormone products.

Whereas the IAA is the auxin naturally happening in plants, the NAA and IBA are synthetic chemicals. These types can equally work well on the cuttings.

Many organic gardeners who want to use your garden to grow food and culinary types of plants might choose a natural kind as they don’t want to be exposed to chemicals.

Clear Instruction

A root hormone product needs to come with clear instructions. It will help consumers easily use the product for the cuttings while avoiding misuse of the hormone to increase the plant propagation rate.

Ease Of Use

If you are a plant propagating novice, seeking a ready-to-use hormone for plant rooting growth is essential. It can save you much time in learning how to use the rooting hormone.

How To Use Rooting Hormone Properly

The proper application of plant rooting hormone products can increase the odds of success in propagations.

• Take a 4 to 8-stem cutting from a plant.
• Completely strip but 1 or 2 top leaves from it.
• Bruise the stem end by crushing it to help the hormone product adhere better.
• Dip around 2 inches of the stem into the hormone. If you use a powder type, dip the cuttings into the water to efficiently penetrate the powder.
• Make a hole of around 2 inches in depth in the medium and put the treated cutting end into it.
• Press the medium around the cuttings and cover the tray or pot with plastic to retain moisture. By placing the cutting in this condition, the soil can stay moist to boost root growth.

What are the benefits of rooting hormone?

Final Thoughts

So you have gone through our best rooting hormone products. In short, we believe all products mentioned above can help you grow plants from cuttings effectively.

Of which, the Garden Safe Brand TakeRoot Rooting Hormone deserves the winner. It can work well with most varieties of plants and has a high success rate of propagating thanks to a concentration of 0.1% IBA.

Anyway, we hope our article is helpful for you. Thank you for reading!

Last update on 2024-06-07 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API