How come many houseplants will rot if their roots sit in waterlogged soil but when you propagate plants you let the roots sit in water to grow?

Question

How come many houseplants will rot if their roots sit in waterlogged soil but when you propagate plants you let the roots sit in water to grow?

In: Biology

Answer 1

And to add on to all the points about bacteria that people have been making there’s also an abundance of beneficial bacteria.

I’m an amateur at some hobby hydroponics and one of the things that I’ve learned now the semi-hard way is that you can’t fight nature but you can harness it.

My most recent crop I nearly lost due to trying (and failing) to fight some sort of infection with peroxide and similar disinfecting agents. I talked to some more experienced hydroponics growers and ditched the h202 in favor of a concentrated beneficial bacteria product; In a week I went from literally losing all the protruding roots and nearly losing the plant to having almost the most root mass I’ve ever seen in plants this young.

It massively out competes the damaging bacteria in my reservoir *and* does a lot to help the plant grow stronger and faster.