Trädgårdsmästarens förökningsmetoder – schema och katalog över förökningsdelar vid vegetativ förökning av fleråriga örtartade växter

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this licentiate thesis is to gather and classify information about traditional vegetative propagation of perennial herbaceous plants. This thesis is the first, self-contained part of a survey of propagation methods used by horticulturists. The overarching issue concerns horticultural craft practice and knowledge as explanations, understanding and skills in the conditions, processes, and procedures in plant propagation practices. Knowledge of plant propagation is based on a long tradition of horticultural activities in which the transfer of knowledge has mainly been restricted to the working process. However, in recent decades, the number of professional propagators has decreased. As a consequence, there is an increasing risk that some aspects of this knowledge will be lost to future generations. Admittedly, written information about plant propagation is scattered in various sources, but it is difficult to find instructions that clearly describe the various procedures and action steps, and the variants of the same, included in the propagation process. In order to determine and evaluate the relationship between instructions of how work is (or ought to be) performed and plants of various kinds requires either that you have extensive practical experience, or that you have a clear method for organizing, analysing and drawing conclusions about performance in propagation practices. One part of this method is structuring of information. Therefore the question to be considered in this study is: What is the best way to organize collected information on vegetative propagation methods in order for it to function as instructions for the practical work? Information is obtained by observations in nurseries, in dialogue with professional growers and an examination of instructions in written sources. Part of the methodology was that the investigator was involved as an active participant. A key part of the inquiry has therefore been my own propagation trials and experiments carried out with students. The result is a model for sorting and structuring propagation methods based on the plant parts used for vegetative propagation. The model is presented as a scheme and a catalogue. In addition to the aim of constructing the scheme and the catalogue, an additional purpose is to take the first steps towards the propagation instructions in focus in the second part of the study. The paper concludes with a discussion of possible model expansions, as well as how the model can be related to various growth habits. The underlying idea is that the link between reproduction and growth habit may reveal untested combinations of propagation techniques and plant species. It should also be possible to provide answers to why and how the various methods of vegetative propagation work, and how they might evolve.