Root Stimulators

What a root stimulator actually does

The label covers four chemistries that share a target, not a recipe. Auxins do the hormone job: Rootex puts IBA at 4g/L in the gel and liquid and 3g/kg in the powder, while Ezi-Root pairs IBA with NAA in a non-alcohol base. Those tell a cutting to push roots from the cut stem. Kelp, humic and fulvic acid, and amino acids sit in the biostimulant group — they feed the processes that grow a root rather than forcing one. Inoculants add living fungi and bacteria to the root zone. Mineral root feeds supply the phosphorus and traces a young root system is short of.

A propagator cutting and a plant three weeks into veg are not after the same bottle. Hormone gel will not move an established root ball. A granular inoculant does no work if it never meets a root.

Our range of root stimulators

Rooting hormones and cloning gels

The same IBA formula from Rootex ships three ways — powder, liquid and gel — for semi-hardwood cuttings. Ezi-Root puts two auxins together with a wetting agent and a fungicide. ROOT!T Rooting Gel skips hormone altogether: it seals the cut against dehydration and infection. Clonex Cloning Solution is a nutrient concentrate with rooting hormone, run at 5–10mL per litre from first root initiation until the cutting is ready to plant on.

Kelp, fulvic and biostimulant tonics

Algae is the base of CANNA Rhizotonic, with vitamins B1 and B2 added. Cyco Ryzo Fuel is a pure-kelp bottle. Marine and plant extracts plus fulvic acid and thiamine make up Growth Technology Rootzone. Mills Start-R is humic and fulvic acids plus kelp that is rich in auxins and cytokinins. Purified humates plus a systemic fungicide is why Professor's Go Roots is sold for the whole crop cycle, not only veg.

Mycorrhizae and beneficial bacteria

The tins differ mainly by how many organisms they hold. Mykos is one species on purpose — Rhizophagus intraradices — and it carries no Trichoderma. Great White goes wide: 16 mycorrhizal fungi, 14 bacteria and 2 Trichoderma species. Three Bacillus species at 10 billion CFU per millilitre is the Tribus Original formula. Dr Greenthumbs Root Roids mixes mycorrhizae with bacteria that solubilise nutrients, and BBA Hymax is Trichoderma by itself.

Concentrated root feeds

House & Garden Roots Excelurator is dosed at 0.3mL per litre for the first five weeks of growth. Atami Rootbastic is a 4-14-4, heavy on phosphorus, for the first three weeks of veg. FloraMax Root-XS and Flairform Roots both aim at a denser root mat — 2mL/L and 1.5mL/L — from seed through to early bloom.

How to choose a root stimulator

1. Start with the stage. Hormone gel or powder is the cutting bottle. Transplants and early veg want an inoculant or a biostimulant. Once the plant is established, use a maintenance dose — not a rooting hormone.
2. Read the dose rate, not the bottle size. Doses here run from 0.3mL per litre to 2mL per litre. A 250mL bottle of one product can last longer than a litre of another.
3. Decide whether you want living organisms. An inoculant only works if it reaches the root. Mykos states it must come into contact with the roots, so it goes in the planting hole rather than over the top.
4. Check what it will not mix with. FloraMax and Flairform both warn against running their organic additives with chlorines or peroxides. Root Roids goes into the tank after pH is already set.

Root stimulators or microbes and beneficial bacteria?

This page groups products by the job they do; Microbes & Beneficial Bacteria groups them by what is in the tin. A rooting gel or kelp tonic lives only here. An enzyme cleaner or a root-zone flush lives only there. A mycorrhizal inoculant sold to build root mass sits on both — 23 of the 84 entries here also appear on that page. Shop by outcome and stay; shop for a named organism and start there.

Where a root bottle sits against base feed and the rest of a schedule is in the wider hydroponic additives and supplements range, or the store's guide to organic versus synthetic nutrients.