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Plant n Prosper
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RM - aquagrower
Active member
"Clonability", if that's even a word, is a genetic trait. Some plants are just tough to get to root. Somtimes even 1 pheno out of the same pack of seeds can be harder to clone than another.
When going thru a pack or 2 of seeds looking for keepers, clonability is one of the traits I look for, along with growth, time, yeild, taste, etc.
These random failures have hit me a few times and the same for some locals , often it can be rationalised but sometimes it seems inexplicable as nothing has changed in a previously working setup.
When i used rockwool , i had best results setting the blocks in a tray then covering them with clingfilm , pushing holes in for the cuts.
Keeps the rootzone at 75f sat in a thermostatically controlled propagator , and rooted faster with no dome and lower room humidity , same with rootriots and peat plugs.
Would suggest the dry air increases transpiration and the stress from that increases the hormones for rooting , the dome added nearly a week and often led to mould.
Small changes can have an effect that suprises , changeing to a shiny new scalpel blade from a grubby and dull old locknife caused alarm , plants were suddenly takeing twice as long and not rooting from the cut surface.
By experiment it seems a certain degree of cell damage triggers the rooting process , with most punctures produceing a root in wool or bubbler.
Getting more and faster roots takeing cuts a week into flower than in late veg , just as they start to stretch and before any/few pistills have formed.
One detail i noticed , digital thermometers and the ones in pH meters can be wildly innacurate , best use a clinical glass type that will always be correct sat in the middle of a block/bubbler for an accurate rootzone figure.
Its a selection criteria that is usually low on the list but as important as most if you run clone from clone without mothers to reduce the chance of RA,s ect.
Quite pronounced in some crosses , hollow or solid stems cloneing best with slightly different cutting methods.
And the odd one that seems to have a genetic problem rooting , or even layering.
When i used rockwool , i had best results setting the blocks in a tray then covering them with clingfilm , pushing holes in for the cuts.
Keeps the rootzone at 75f sat in a thermostatically controlled propagator , and rooted faster with no dome and lower room humidity , same with rootriots and peat plugs.
Would suggest the dry air increases transpiration and the stress from that increases the hormones for rooting , the dome added nearly a week and often led to mould.
Small changes can have an effect that suprises , changeing to a shiny new scalpel blade from a grubby and dull old locknife caused alarm , plants were suddenly takeing twice as long and not rooting from the cut surface.
By experiment it seems a certain degree of cell damage triggers the rooting process , with most punctures produceing a root in wool or bubbler.
Getting more and faster roots takeing cuts a week into flower than in late veg , just as they start to stretch and before any/few pistills have formed.
One detail i noticed , digital thermometers and the ones in pH meters can be wildly innacurate , best use a clinical glass type that will always be correct sat in the middle of a block/bubbler for an accurate rootzone figure.
Its a selection criteria that is usually low on the list but as important as most if you run clone from clone without mothers to reduce the chance of RA,s ect.
Quite pronounced in some crosses , hollow or solid stems cloneing best with slightly different cutting methods.
And the odd one that seems to have a genetic problem rooting , or even layering.
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Plant n Prosper
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My take.
My take.
Ok, lets take your setup, your making diag. cuts, then stripping, then using superthrive, and then some other clone stuff. WOW! Thats a lot of products man.
That gel shit is just some acidic compound to remove the outer layer of the stem, WHICH YOU STRIPPED OFF ALLREADY LOL!
You have a great cloning passion man, with this clone shit though sometimes less is more.
I prefer just putting the stem in a cup of water.
My take.
Ok, lets take your setup, your making diag. cuts, then stripping, then using superthrive, and then some other clone stuff. WOW! Thats a lot of products man.
That gel shit is just some acidic compound to remove the outer layer of the stem, WHICH YOU STRIPPED OFF ALLREADY LOL!
You have a great cloning passion man, with this clone shit though sometimes less is more.
I prefer just putting the stem in a cup of water.
Get them domes off and let them breath . And stop misting them . I was having the same problem with rock wool.Now I pre soaked my rock wool for 24 hrs in 5.5 ph tap water . Then i let the rock wool sit for another day to make sure they where not over watered . Then i take clones add a little bit of rooting hormone and tapped the extra gel off the clone and placed it in the rock wool with the dome on for only the 1st 24 hrs and misted the inside of the dome not the plants . Then took the dome off and stopped babying them . a few wilted after i took off the dome I placed the dome back on for 12 hrs and then removed it and left it off all rooted in 10 days and are thriving .
I had been having all sorts of problems until med-man nailed it when he told me i wasn't making the clones work for roots . I had been giving them a perfect environment to not root by giving them everything they wanted . My clones were taking almost 3 weeks to root and looked like they where shocked when they did root and took 2-4 weeks to recover .
Bottom line rock wool with domes on is too wet and the pants don't go looking for water.
I had been having all sorts of problems until med-man nailed it when he told me i wasn't making the clones work for roots . I had been giving them a perfect environment to not root by giving them everything they wanted . My clones were taking almost 3 weeks to root and looked like they where shocked when they did root and took 2-4 weeks to recover .
Bottom line rock wool with domes on is too wet and the pants don't go looking for water.
When I read the original post I sorta chuckled to myself that practically everything being done in the cloning setup/process needed revision in some manner.
Chlorinated tap water does NOT aid in promoting root growth. While the chlorine does help slightly to prevent mold and fungus, it kills plant cells faster than they can go. Not to mention that some cities and municipalities chlorinate the water so heavily that it will bleach and kill plants if sprayed on them.
I use RO or bottled water for cloning. It doesn't require much anyway and the cost is negligible.
Also: while the T5's are great for cloning; I find that if I keep the cutting in the dark for the first 24 or 36 hours and then under T5's a couple feet above for a couple more days before direct light, they usually have roots by day 5.
Chlorinated tap water does NOT aid in promoting root growth. While the chlorine does help slightly to prevent mold and fungus, it kills plant cells faster than they can go. Not to mention that some cities and municipalities chlorinate the water so heavily that it will bleach and kill plants if sprayed on them.
I use RO or bottled water for cloning. It doesn't require much anyway and the cost is negligible.
Also: while the T5's are great for cloning; I find that if I keep the cutting in the dark for the first 24 or 36 hours and then under T5's a couple feet above for a couple more days before direct light, they usually have roots by day 5.
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Plant n Prosper
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noyd666
I found after half an hour of soaking em before i place the cut into the cube that 5-6 real good shakes gets alot of water out and there pretty light again
get your self a salad spinner, cheap, you will be surprised how much excess comes out, squeezing the cubes fucks the porosity of said cube, flinging the water works, but after 8o clones you arm falls of. tap water, no roots no eat. use a syringe to feed water when down, even pick each one up and water lightly from bottom, roots will come alooking.
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Plant n Prosper
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maybe the ambient temps are fluctuating in your area and are having an affect on your overall temps? (I don't know, just tossing it out there) Im thinking that if you have a mat and the temps change unbeknownst to you then it can hinder growth rates
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noyd666
sorry mate ,only used tap water straight out of tap, chemicals in water keep pathegens away, everybody plays this game different, but I have success this way. temp and humidity has to be right, I have killed a fewWell if you use RO water you really need to pH the water or it will stress the plants.
Most water out of the tap is pH buffered to around 7 (neutral) so it won't hurt the plant. The recommended of 5.5-5.7 is more acidic and some believe this helps the stem pop roots faster.
Its not that no one knows the answer, its that people have had success with it both ways. The amount of chlorine and such in the tap is far lower than what would harm the plants, in most cases. Every tap is different though so YMMV. I have cloned in straight tap, non pH adjusted, tap that I've pH'd to 5.5, 5.7, 5.8, and 6, and RO/DI that was adjusted to 5.8 and they all seem to work around the same for me.
IMO, the problem for most isn't as much the water chemistry as it is the environment. Get your light, temp, RH in check without drowning or drying them out and you'll get roots every time.
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fizzbomb
hi PnP, maybe try a different method for taking cuts, i have tried every way possible to take cuts, rockwool was very high maintenance i found, misting, propagtor lids, when to open air vents, are cubes to wet, lots of pissing about that i could have been doing without really, been using a bubble cloner for years now and would not go back to anything else.
i take a cut, place it into a glass of water, then into some clonex, then straight into the bubble cloner and thats it, i will replace the water after 1 week and after 2 weeks the root system i have is amazing, they ready to go, very low maintenance works best for me, and with the bubble cloner you very rarely lose a cut, best of luck PnP.
i use a 27 site cutting board, put 2 cuts in each site and its now a 54 site cutting board
i take a cut, place it into a glass of water, then into some clonex, then straight into the bubble cloner and thats it, i will replace the water after 1 week and after 2 weeks the root system i have is amazing, they ready to go, very low maintenance works best for me, and with the bubble cloner you very rarely lose a cut, best of luck PnP.
i use a 27 site cutting board, put 2 cuts in each site and its now a 54 site cutting board
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to me it seems squeezing the water out of the rw is fucking it up. if you read up on rockwool you will find that even when it's full of water to capacity, there is still 30% air in there. so no need to worry about that aspect, on the other hand squeezing the rockwool, will make them denser and harder for the roots to penetrate. have had rock wool before that was so dense to begin with that it was useless to clone with. the other point is the products, you need to chose 1 rooting product and for the rest just use tap water.
personally i like to make the final cut under water. would also agree to leave them alone for at least 5 days after you make them. the water in the rw cubes will be enough to make a good climate for the clones.
you just have to find what works for you, at the moment i'm using rhizopon tablets dissolved in water which i then let the clones sit in for 20 mins before sticking them in the plugs.
personally i like to make the final cut under water. would also agree to leave them alone for at least 5 days after you make them. the water in the rw cubes will be enough to make a good climate for the clones.
you just have to find what works for you, at the moment i'm using rhizopon tablets dissolved in water which i then let the clones sit in for 20 mins before sticking them in the plugs.
Dependant on geology and aquifers used , some areas can have water that is quite alkaline.
Here it is a blend of resevoir , borehole and sewage outfall that varies through the year.
Mine is 8.80 this week and has a burden of limestone that gives it a white tinge in a glass , and a scum with detergent or tea.
In comparison they take a few days longer in this soup than in rainwater or decent tapwater around pH6 , would adjust if its much over 7 myself , but temp seems more important than the water quality in practice , in a bubbler at least.
Rooting seems faster if there is a sharp gradient of temp and humidity between the leaves and the rooting zone , than if the whole thing is uniform under a dome.
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Plant n Prosper
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fizzbomb
hi PnP, i use a product called GHE Tri-Pack, 5ml from each bottle into 20L of tap water, adjust ph and it gets replaced after 1 week for fresh stuff.
The pump i use you can purchase from any aquarium shop or pet store, I also buy my airstones from there as well, its just a double air pump for a fish tank which is connected to 2 airstones, im not sure how many GPH the pump is tbh but its just 2 air stones in the tub.
i have used areoponic propagators before with good results, but sometimes you will lose a few cuts due to damping off which annoys me, nothing you can do about it, the only way i have ever lost a cut in the bubble cloner is if the water level has got too low and the cut is not in the water, it will just die.
I use the little net pots with the bottom cut away with the neropane collar's to hold the cut, my water level will be sitting level with the bottom of the net pot, and the bottom of the cutting about 1" under this, the cutting always has to be in the water or it will die without roots, but yeah you can get rid of the mister and just place cuts straight into water with airstones, change water after 1 week, it really is that simple.
hope that helps you out some PnP, any other questions just ask away, will be happy to help you out.
The pump i use you can purchase from any aquarium shop or pet store, I also buy my airstones from there as well, its just a double air pump for a fish tank which is connected to 2 airstones, im not sure how many GPH the pump is tbh but its just 2 air stones in the tub.
i have used areoponic propagators before with good results, but sometimes you will lose a few cuts due to damping off which annoys me, nothing you can do about it, the only way i have ever lost a cut in the bubble cloner is if the water level has got too low and the cut is not in the water, it will just die.
I use the little net pots with the bottom cut away with the neropane collar's to hold the cut, my water level will be sitting level with the bottom of the net pot, and the bottom of the cutting about 1" under this, the cutting always has to be in the water or it will die without roots, but yeah you can get rid of the mister and just place cuts straight into water with airstones, change water after 1 week, it really is that simple.
hope that helps you out some PnP, any other questions just ask away, will be happy to help you out.
He said bubbler so if he's doing it the standard way its with just airstone(s). You just stick your cuttings in so the bottom of the stem is around 1/4" into the water and an airstone to keep the air at 100% RH in the root zone and o2 to the water. Thats it, set it and forget it. They work great.
