News » 20.05.2026 - "The new substrate has significantly contributed towards propagation success of clematis"

With a legacy of more than 60 years, Amerigo Farms and its Canadian parent company, Homestead Growers, built their reputation on technical discipline, specialty crops and excellence at scale.

With operations in Florida, South Carolina and Ontario, the multi-faceted grower operates roughly 1.5 million square feet of greenhouse production. Considered one of the world's top three potted calla lily producers, the grower offers a diverse crop selection, including mums, lilies, freesia, tropicals and poinsettias.

Now, Amerigo Farms is getting attention for a new reason: a clematis program, focused on precision propagation and premium liner production.

In just two years, despite the crop's reputation for difficulty and disease risk, the Amerigo has scaled its clematis program quickly and successfully, delivering quality and consistency — and exceeding customer expectations.

Adding Clematis to Amerigo Farms production
Amerigo Farms acquired Roseville Farms' clematis program in 2023, just a few months after the arrival of Amerigo's Head Grower and Production Manager Dinesh Chaudhari. Located at the company's 75-acre Mount Dora, Florida, facility, Chaudhari brought more than two decades of global propagation experience to the Amerigo team.

Born and raised in an agricultural family in India, Chaudhari's early fascination with propagation led to a master's degree in horticulture and a career spanning multiple countries, from India and Kenya to China (The Netherlands Joint Venture Organization) and ultimately the United States; crops from cut flowers to CEA produce; and propagation methods, including extensive micropropagation.

That journey shaped both his technical propagation expertise and his philosophy as a grower focused on precision, discipline and systems. Notoriously complicated clematis was a natural fit for his skill and his passion.

Chaudhari explains the challenges clematis presents as a woody perennial. Cuttings take much longer to root than softwood or semi-hardwood cuttings, and careful moisture management is critical. So are patience and diligent maintenance — from liner to flowering finished plant, clematis takes nearly two years.

Amerigo's clematis production model consists of three segments:

Liners – bare rooted from 50-cell trays, sold vernalized or unvernalized.
Semi-finished plants – vernalized 3.5-inch pots, ready in one year.
Finished plants – 2.5-quart (trade 1-gallon) pots, ready at two years.

In its first year, the Amerigo domestic clematis program produced nearly one million plants. This season, Chaudhari will propagate 1 to 1.2 million clematis — some designated for liners, others for semi-finished and finished plants, and a portion retained for 2028 mother stock. Plans call for 1.2 to 1.4 million clematis propagated annually.

Rebuilding mother stock and protocols
Mother stock presented one of the most critical challenges when Amerigo acquired the Roseville Farms clematis program. The Roseville program had been winding down prior to the acquisition. Regeneration of the mother stock was crucial to the new program's success.

"The starting material is the most important thing," Chaudhari says. "If your starting material is clean — vigorous, fresh, genetically proven, genetically true to type — then it already gives you 50% of your achievement. Then the rest 50% you do with your skills and expertise," said Dinesh Chaudhari, Amerigo Farms Head Grower & Production Manager.

Unlike more common crops, little detailed guidance exists for clematis production. Available information offers few specifics on factors such as nutrient ratios, EC, pH, or irrigation strategies.

Rather than treating that as a limitation, Chaudhari used it as an opportunity to build a program from the ground up — tailor-made for Amerigo's Florida facilities.

Chaudhari and his team focused on improving mother plant status, dialing in the essentials, and developing a fertilizer regimen for mother stock and liners.

"I carefully tweaked nutrient ppm levels and conducted several soil and leaf tissue analyses to evaluate both nutrient availability and actual plant uptake," he shares. "This allowed us to optimize feeding for best growth, consistency, and plant performance."

From that work came clearly defined best management practices (BMPs) to ensure consistency, efficiency and plant health at every stage, from mother stock and liner propagation through semi-finished and finished flowering pots.

Solving the media + moisture equation
Chaudhari started running propagation trials from day one of the clematis program's acquisition. Growing media selection and related misting and moisture management strategies proved to be the most complex variables the team faced. "In propagation, the rule is less water, less problem. If you water too much, you will have pathogens and fungal problems and diseases," he says.

Identifying the best propagation media was especially critical given the crop's susceptibility to Calophoma clematidina, the fungal pathogen behind clematis wilt. "That is the most devasting disease in clematis," Chaudhari adds. "Unfortunately, it does not have any acute control. There is no chemical, so the best control is to prevent it."

Growing media trials included multiple mixes — some peat; some peat and perlite; some peat, perlite and pine bark. At the same time, Chaudhari experimented extensively with different auxins, particularly IAA (indole-3-acetic acid) and IBA (indole-3-butyric acid), adjusting ppm levels to optimize rooting performance and uniformity on his way to a unique Amerigo formulation.

Chaudhari explains that clematis propagation has three distinct stages that drove multiple trials:

After sticking, before callusing or root initiation.
Once root initiation begins.
Acclimatization or hardening.

Each stage requires different moisture, light and nutrition strategies. "By doing the multiple trials, I figured it out the optimum range of all these parameters, these requirements for the propagation," he says. "Eventually we really got good success with the liners." A turning point came with a new substrate: OASIS RhizoPlug.

Propagating success with OASIS RhizoPlug
Early on in Amerigo's trials, uneven moisture distribution in traditional media and glue plugs caused propagation setbacks. Some areas of the media stayed overly wet while others got too dry. "Also, with the glue plugs, once they get dry it's really hard to make them wet again," Chaudhari shares. "Because of the unevenness, you lose the rooting success.

A turning point in propagation trials came when Chaudhari received samples of OASIS RhizoPlug. "OASIS RhizoPlug has significantly contributed towards propagation success of clematis," he says.

Key observations
Five key observations of the substrate's performance made the difference:

Immediately simpler moisture management. "I really liked that it's very easy to make them wet, and it was very even cycles between dry and wet," he says. Predictable moisture uniformity allowed Amerigo to reduce watering frequency — a substantial advantage for a woody crop prone to disease.
Greater labor efficiency. "It's so easy to stick the cutting. It has that dibble groove or hole in it, so it's easy and it goes so fast. It is very efficient in terms of labor efficiency. That's an important part," he says.
Moisture retention where it counts: "As I said, OASIS RhizoPlug dries up nicely, but at the same time, it keeps some good moisture at the core, which always helps the roots to keep growing. That was something that helped this kind of crop especially," Chaudari adds.
Superior transplant integration. "After repotting, OASIS RhizoPlug really integrates well with any kind of a media you're using to fill the pot. Sometimes when you transplant, liners don't integrate well with media. I found OASIS RhizoPlug integrating perfectly," he says.
Buffer against post-transplant disease: "Most importantly, I observed that OASIS RhizoPlug stays drier after transplant, so it acts as a buffer between the transplant media and the core stem of the plant. You don't get into the issues of stem disease like wilt, or any kind of blight or Phytophthora," he explains.

Scaling with confidence
For Amerigo Farms, clematis represents more than diversification. It reflects a broader philosophy and objectives of quality, innovation and excellence through building strong systems, understanding the details, and committing for the long term.

Customer response to the program's first-year crop was positive. "Customers who received liners and semi-finished pots in 2025 are extremely happy, with several customers noting the plants exceeded their expectations in a first-year program," Chaudhari says. The team is confident and excited about growing the program and multiplying it every year.

Attention is now on strengthening the program's genetic portfolio. Promising, more vigorous, new varieties are under trial. "That will be a key to achieving our targets in the coming five years," he says, adding that the new genetics will add value not only to Amerigo's program, but to the industry as a whole.

"At Amerigo, we are not simply producing plants. We are building a technically sound and sustainable program designed for long-term success," Chaudhari says. "My goal is for growers to associate our clematis liners with vigor, uniformity and trust. When a customer plants an Amerigo liner, I want them to feel confident from day one."

Oasis Grower Solutions is proud to have OASIS RhizoPlug contribute to Amerigo Farms' success.

The Amerigo Farms clematis liner program is represented by Express Seed Company as part of the Think Plants initiative. For more information, contact Think Plants or reach out to Amerigo Farms directly.
 

 

Source: www.floraldaily.com

« Back