"Clearly" a better way to propagate leaves!

I'm often amazed that after 30+ years of growing (I started when I was 14) I can still uncover a bit of knowledge that I did not possess the day before.

During one of my regular trips to California I stopped in at the Smart & Final store to see what goodies they had that could be repurposed into a violet related accessory.  What I found on this trip were clear two ounce and rather shallow cups (a.k.a. Pots!).  I thought they might actually take up less room in my trays then my three ounce Solo cups so I threw caution to the wind and splurged $2.00 for 150.

Once I got them home I quickly realized while they were shallower than the three ounce Solo cups, their diameter was a tad bit wider so the net benefit was the big goose egg!  Since I had already taken my soldering iron to the pots to create drainage holds I decided to pot up a tray of leaf cuttings to see how they'd perform in the rather shallow pots.

What I noticed a couple of months later was the leaf cuttings in these pots produced plantlets that could be harvested sooner (about 30 days), produced more plantlets and there were virtually no underdeveloped plantlets in these pots as compared to leaf cuttings propagated in non-clear pots.  Why you ask?  I theorize that the clear containers allow light to hit the soil, roots and developing plantlets which allows them to mature much sooner.

Fluke?  Give it a try and let me know if you don't experience the same end result.  Here's a picture of what those leaf pots looked like in three months.