EDIT: "This post follows my Downton Abbey style journey with two albo monstera cuttings with updates and pictures for over a three years! 🌱

If you have an albo cutting thats got rot
***PLEASE FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS FROM GINA1960 BELOW***

It tells you exactly what you need to do, please read the whole thread before asking for advice 💗"
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Hello everyone! I'm so grateful for this website and all the amazing advice on it! I hope I could get a bit of advice.

I have a lovely top cutting of a Variegated Monstera Albo Borsigiana.



The plant has been rooting in water since 1 FEB. I've been cleaning, rinsing and replacing the water every week.

I have two tiny tiny roots! Yay But...



It looks like I'm getting a bit of root rot at the bottom. I think I caught it early enough.





I would like to get rid of the rot ASAP so my baby can continue to grow some more roots. What should I do?

Well........
my first bit of thought is....why did you try to root it in water? I am not trying to be obtuse, but, when did you ever know a plant that rooted itself in water?

This is the problem with this method...which for some reason people seem to believe will always work but actually almost never does. The stem will start to rot from the water before the plant develops sufficient roots. AND, the roots that it DOES develop in water are WATER roots, not SOIL roots. They are a different set of roots. Water roots are much more fragile than soil roots. Water roots have to be converted to soil roots once you plant the plant. This is just another misstep in the rooting process. It can be done, but it is a time consuming process shepherding a plant from water roots to soil roots.

You are much better off just STARTING OUT in soil.

Now you have a section of your stem that has rotted. Hopefully, (I can't tell from the photos) this does not include the node.

You need to take a sharp sterile (sterilize with heat, or alcohol) tool and cut the rotted part of the stem off at lest a 1/4 inch preferable a 1/2 inch up into firm healthy stem tissue. Dip that in a powdered fungicide like CAPTAN. Place the cutting into a substrate made of the following:

1 part coarse perlite
1 part good quality soilless potting mix
1 part fir bark (Orchid bark)
1 part horticultural charcoal
you can also mix in any of these:
1 part LECA (Aliflor, compressed clay pellets), 1 part hydrated coconut husk chips)

Water once, then water judiciously, maybe once a week.

This is how I myself root all of my cuttings that I propagate from my variegated Monsteras. I also propagate top cuttings of all my Philodendrons and vining Anthuriums the same way. It has never failed me. I have NEVER rooted anything in water, and I never will.

These are some of my plants that I have rooted in this manner

Thank you for such a clear answer! This is exactly the information I've been looking for.

I rooted in water because that's what I was told by many people.

I'll get this little guy squared away immediately. Follow up questions for you.

1. How big/small of a pot should it be in?
2. How deep should the stem be under the medium?

Thank you so much for taking the time to give me such a clear answer and for sharing lovely pictures of your beautiful plants

You are welcome! In answer to your questions, I see two healthy roots emergent and the leaf scar at the node seems to be producing a third.
In all honesty, IF that all white leaf is the lowest leaf (I can;t actually tell from your photos) I personally would cut that leaf off and bury the stem up to just over the leaf mode it came out of.

I would put it in a nursery pot, the smallest diameter you can, but as tall as you can get. Until it is well rooted and growing, you may have to sacrifice esthetics for practicality. If you can locate one, a 4" pot that is 6-8" tall, like a vase. would be perfect. These aren;t really garden variety though, but a florist or a nursery might have an extra they could hook you up with...we call them 'bullet' containers, sometimes they are square on the bottom and sometimes rounded like a bullet. They are commonly used to root things, especially palm seedlings, that need to develop good deep root systems before being transplanted to regular nursery pots. It will probably be top heavy so setting it inside another empty pot to stabilize it would help. If you can;t find that, an orchid pot with slits, or even a wood slat orchid BASKET would be great. I root many epiphytic anthurium in baskets...you can line it with netting so the media doesn't fall out, and it can be carried to the sink and watered in the sink. This has an extra benefit in that the media dries even more quickly, and you can actually see and feel a lot better how much water is getting retained and therefore keep it more evenly moist, not sopping wet. Once it is well rooted, you can just leave it in the wood basket and media and bury that in a container of substrate.

In looking at your photos, the meristem of your plant is HIGHLY VARIEGATED. The degree of striping on the stem is what determines the degree of marking on the leaves. It should grow into a beautiful highly marked specimen. This is what you always need to look for when buying cuttings of variegated plants. Pass on any that have poorly marked stems, the leaves will be less that stellar. Pass on any that have really HUGE bands of white...these may produce a dead ends of too many all white leaves, which cannot photosynthesize. You want a really good mix in the stripes.

I will also mention this to you....some people have had success with the following 2 methods of rooting these cuttings....I myself have not tried this, for MONSTERA (although I have used the moss method for a lot of stuff). You can try to root in straight perlite, but you have to be very watchful not to let the plant dry out. You can also try to root in nothing but damp sphagnum moss. I have several epiphytic anthuriums that I actually grow in nothing but moss, as well as epiphytic orchids. The moss has to be left evenly moist, not too wet. And the exposure of the cut end to the damp moss always presents another opportunity for rot to set in. So some people dip the cut end in melted candle wax. But, I have seen them come back and say it rotted ANYWAY with the wax. I have seen people do this, particularly with Anthurium warocqueanum (the Queen) with good results....I actually grow my Queen in a chunky mix but wrap all the new emergent roots in moss. When I have seen this done, they have used a tall cylindrical clear glass vase. This also has the advantage, like the orchid basket, of letting you really keep an eye on the rooting process. But it is a sealed container so you have to be careful.

Even if you are very careful, rot can still set in again. That is why I suggest dipping the cut end into a fungicide powder. I myself use CAPTAN, because it is what I always have on hand to soak and pot up single start bare root heliconia, calathea, etlingera and other rhizomes, which are also very prone to rot in the rooting stage. Some people will say use cinnamon, but, the concentration of the active anti fungal agent in cinnamon is not sufficient in this case to make any difference.

The methods I use are what would normally be used in a growing operation, not in a houseplant scenario. This is how places like Ecuagenera root plants. They take the bare root stem cuttings from their huge stock plants and pot them directly into the growing substrate. I figure what works for them, will work for me, and it does. But I have been doing this a long time, and have found what works for ME, PERSONALLY, in my conditions. It may not work for everyone.

it is very easy to make a tall narrow pot from a tall drink bottle: just cut off the top and make a few holes on the bottom. I put my Ficus lyrata cuttings into those and then put several of them into a bath/garbage basket for stability and water run-off.
I have done some funky rooting of cut-off Alo 'Poly' tubers (got very long over the years, like trunks) by cutting a round hole in plastic deli tub and sticking the cut end of tuber thru it to be in the air and not wet, and then filling the tub with moist sphag. worked very well. and how does it stand with a stem sticking out :? I propped it inside another container that holds the deli tub high by the rim, so there is room in the bottom so the cut end of the tuber does not touch. I used cinnamon to put on cut end too to make it dry faster, otherwise the cut might weep for sev days.
I used a similar procedure with a fat long stem of Philo subincisum (about an inch) by laying it in shallow tub with moist sphag and sticking out the cut stem on the side. I use grocery plastic containers of all kinds: very easy to cut with utility cutters/scisors. the tomato ones have perforations already - work very well for sphag.

Great idea! I have used waxed dixie cups before LOL just punch a couple holes in the bottom. Then once the plant is fully rooted you can peel the cup off and plant it

Thank you all for your help! More help needed below.

Here is the update and pictures of surgery sadly the rot was way worse than I thought. It looked minor from the outside...

Prep station:



Captan, sterile knife and good potting mix that @gina1960 listed above.

Cut 1:



Sterilize then cut 2:


Sterilize then cut 3:


Sterilize then cut 4:


Sterilize then cut 5 :


At this point this beautiful (but not photosynthesizing leaf was lost, probably for the best, but it scared the lights out of me):



With the leaf removed I was able to cut the rot down to this. I cannot cut any further without taking off the roots. Any advice on this?




I dipped it in the captan and put it in The medium. I'm not sure if this was the right thing to do. Should I have cut more? (I'm not an expert monstera surgeon).

I gave him a little spritz if water. He's now propped up with some of my orchid things.



Thank you! Any advice on the rot/cutting/roots welcome!

you might be able to kind of surgically scoop that out with the very tip of your knife but if you go to much farther you might impact the developing roots there...the fungicide may well kill that and stop it, I hope so!!!!!!!

I think I'm going to let it rest...? And pray that the captan works. I'll keep updating this thread in the next few days and maybe weeks/months if this little guy makes it. I have another cutting that doesn't have any rot that I put through the same procedure so we'll see what happens.

@gina1960 Thank you so much for all of your help it is so appreciated.

Please do keep us updated! I am pulling for you and your plants!!!!!!!!

Update #1:

Both plants looking happy! But it's a little too early to tell if we're out of the dark @gina1960



As an experiment I took the single stem (not viable) and placed it in a jar of soil just to see how long it would take to wilt and die. Kind of morbid but a good science experiment to maybe check my other two against. The single leaf is still going but is starting to yellow around the photosynthesizing green parts.

Yea!
So glad!!!!!!!!!

It's now 15 MAR and my science experiment with the all white leaf has com to an end. These leaves will live without a viable system for two weeks. That's crazy! I'm sure if the leaf has more green it might have been even longer. So it's a good sign my two viable leaves are still alive.

The other two are still going strong:

Just watered them. Hopefully some rooting action is going on below the soil! I'd do anything to take a peek.... but I think it's best to just let 'em do their thing and not interfere.

NO PEEKING They look FAB!

5-18-2020 - Update everything looks like it's going well but I just saw a spot on leaf #2. Going to keep an eye on it.




Up close:



Let me know if you have any thoughts!

29 March Update!

It feels like some roots are forming. The leaves no longer need the orchid supports, so I'm removing them today. The yellow spot on leaf #2 has turned brown. No other changes. Doesn't look like it's getting worse hoping that the rot isn't running rampant underneath the medium.

I think you'd know pretty quick if it was

Any updates? I have the same issue so wondered how yours were coming on x

So it looks like I might be under watering a bit the leaves are curing back. Going to up my watering schedule! See if I can get them back to normal.

Cutting 1:



The plant that had surgery above seems to be doing ok! hopefully no rot underneath...

Cutting 2:



Cutting 2 was falling over so I decided to let some of the soil "fall out and prop him back up." I snuck a peak... he has no soil roots yet... and it looks like the cutting ends are pocked. At least he's still alive!

@chantellelouise I promise I'll keep updating until my cuttings form beautiful full plants or die by my black thumb! Hope your situation resolves.

April 25
Cutting #1: I believe is doing fine. When originally planted it was propped up with a stick so I HOPE 🤞that it has roots and that's why it's standing so well by itself.

Update on cutting #2:
No roots on this guy looked like the ends were rotted out so I cut a bit off and dipped them in captan. Put back in the soil and wait. Will up the watering schedule a bit. He looks a bit shriveled.