Best Way to Propagate Rubber Trees (Ficus Elastica)

Here's the tutorial on how you can propagate your rubber tree easily. I have a multi-branch rubber tree mother plant (black prince) imported from Thailand which I bought from a local seller in Manila. I bought it in 2021 for five thousand eight hundred pesos, quite expensive at that time. This time you can buy the same size with multiple branches for around three to four thousand five hundred as I've seen from Cubao plant sellers.

There are many ways to propagate rubber plants, you can just cut about 10 inches from its branch (top cut) and put it in a bottle with water, and much better if there's a rooting hormone. You can buy rooting hormones online for only five to ten pesos for a sachet. You can also use aloe vera stem as a rooting hormone. After cutting you can also directly plant it on the soil.

But for a more rate of success, air layering or marcotting is the best way to propagate rubber plant. See below images of the actual propagation I have made thru marcotting.

I have planted it on a 9x7 inches clay pot to make it stable. I let it stay in a bright, indirect sunlight and will move it to our garden after two weeks.

                                    This is the photo after I cut it from the mother plant

How to do it:

1. A strip of bark is first removed from around the portion of the stem to be rooted.
2. This involves pressing a sharp knife against the bark preferably as close as possible below a node, moving the knife in a circular motion around the stem.
3. A similar cut is made generally about 1 inches below the first cut, but it can be wider with larger stem.
4. The two cuts are then connected by a straight cut and the bark is pried loose and removed.
5. The debarked portion of the stem is then scraped to remove the phloem and cambium, that slippery coating on the wood, to prevent the wound from healing and the upper and lower barks from reconnecting.