Stevia Cuttings Accident

Bad news, I found my Stevia cuttings on the balcony floor! In this delicate stage I suspect it could very well be the end of them.
We've had some bad weather and very strong wind that created chaos on my balcony garden. Fortunately enough, my Stevia Rebaudiana plants from which I took the cutting are O.K.! Check out my main blog and you'll see that my tomato plants were less fortunate. I'm still counting the casualties, but there's some hope that my cuttings will survive. However, I won't make the same mistake twice, so I brought the cuttings inside where they'll have at least some chance to survive, i.e. root.
In the case they die, I'll be sure to take more cuttings as soon as I can. Next time, my Stevia cuttings will be safely placed inside of my apartment, in controlled environment.

Stevia Rebaudiana Propagation

I have finally taken a few cuttings of my Stevia plants! Allegedly, Stevia cuttings should root easily, but I guess it wouldn't harm to use commercial rooting hormones. However, I haven't done that because I'm interested to see how soon will the cuttings root by itself. Of course, rooting hormone would speed up the process, but I'm in no hurry.

Propagating Stevia by stem cuttings is done in the following manner. Take cuttings about 3 inches long and remove the lower leaves, keeping two or three smaller ones.





In meanwhile I've prepared jiffy peat pellets in which I placed my Stevia cuttings. The cuttings should be placed in a shady place with adequate air humidity.

Stay Sweet!

Ready to cut

My Stevia plants are growing fine and as I've mentioned before I plan to propagate them by cuttings. I plan to do that not only because of poor germination rate of Stevia seeds, but because of saving my first Stevia Reabaudiana genetics. By saying this, I do more than hope it wont be the last!
Tomorrow is The day!
Wish me luck and stay sweet!

Seed Germination in Stevia Rebaudiana

A few days ago I stumbled upon an interesting study regarding germination of Stevia Rebaudiana seeds. Germinating those tinny seeds can really be a hassle(as I experienced) and that's why Stevia propagation is usually done by cuttings.
It is pronounced that Poor seed germination is one of the factors limiting large-scale cultivation, what is of special concern for northern growers who must grow this plant as an annual. This study evaluates the influence of pollination treatments as well as the effect of light and darkness during germination of Stevia seeds, so I can advise it to anyone who's about to germinate some Stevia seeds. Maybe it will help you to get better germination rate than I have had with my Stevia seeds!

Stay Sweet!

Stevia in Croatia?

Finally, I've found the web site for which I thought was no longer active, as I wrote in one of my earlier posts Stevia Seeds . I'm referring to this site, owned by people who were good enough to provide me with some Stevia Rebaudiana seeds.

I'm not sure if they're still fully active, but I sent them an e-mail to thank them for the seeds once again. They offer some basic information about Stevia Rebaudiana and some Stevia products, like dried Stevia leaves and Stevia extract. The name of the site refers to my country, i.e. Croatia and it seems their target market seems to be in Croatia, as they say in their offer Where you can buy Stevia in Croatia!. On the other hand, there is not a lot of people in Croatia who know about this plant or have even heard about it. It's like a really well kept secret hidden away from common folks. There was some actions taken by green activists in order to educate the people, but unfortunately it was far from enough for people to hear. Nevertheless, it's a praiseworthy effort! As far as I know there's no official Stevia Rebaudiana production or offering in Croatia, so I'll be safe to guess the owners of this site grow or get their Stevia somewhere else.

I call upon them, come to Croatia, spread the word about Stevia Rebaudiana and scatter some seeds across the land, especially if this still stands: Croatia is one of minority countries in the world where is STEVIA recognized as welfare plant of set.

The results of Stevia pinching

After I've topped, i.e. pinched my Stevia plants for the second time, I waited a while for them to heal. Now, they are growing again and I hope that I'll be able to take some cuttings very soon. I've never tried to propagate Stevia Rebaudiana, so it will be a first time for me. Wish me luck!
Here are a few photographs of my Stevia plants that will show you the pinching method and its results, i.e. new growth which will be used for cuttings.

Here's the place where I made the first cut, the top shoot of the plant!



Here's the place where I made the second cut, thus creating four new plant shoots!




Stay Sweet!

Opinion on Stevia Rebaudiana

I was just searching Google for some information regarding this beautiful herb and came upon this interesting publication.
It's titled as an Opinion on Stevia Rebaudiana Bertoni Plants and Leaves and its' main purpose is to as they say assess the safety from the consumer health point of view of the leaves of Stevia Rebaudiana Bertoni as Novel Food. This opinion is brought by European Commission, i.e. its Scientific Committee on Food.
Interestingly enough, I thought to myself, there's somebody who cares about what we eat, NOT!
If this care should be genuine in any sense, it for sure wouldn't allow a bunch of products you can find in your stores today. We are all overdosed on sugar and salt, bunch of additives and chemicals, yet we find so much supposedly unanswered questions and controversy surrounding one plant. As expected, it is concluded that information submitted on Stevia products was insufficient with regard to specification and standardization of the commercial product and contains no safety studies. There are no satisfactory data to support the safe use of these products as ingredients of food or as sucrose substitute for diabetics and obese individuals.
We shouldn't forget that there are cultures(people) around the world that have used Stevia leaf for generations.
It seems to me that there certainly is a way to gather sufficient information regarding the safety of Stevia usage, but is there will!?