Plain Water Cloning?

[quokka]

Hi all,

I have done a bit of plain water cloning (just cuttings in a cup of water) in the past and have had mixed results.

I am just a little bit unsure of why it works sometimes and why it doesn't.

I think one thing i have noticed is that cuttings that have some harder wood seem to do better, but i have had soft ones work and hard ones not work, so i am a little bit unsure.

I just like to keep it as basic as i can, so i prefer to water clone if i can.

Does anyone else water clone, and have they got any tips?

Thanks.

 

[lovinthegreen]

I just use a 16 site cloner with only purified water for cloning, what it sounds like you are talking about is just leaving it in a cup of plain water and letting it set for a week or 2 and roots start shooting out? i would say the two main factors for why it would or wouldn't work are amount of light getting to the roots and temp of the water. i have done this with a couple of different plants and even a few cannabis strains. honestly i don't know why sometimes it did not work... i will tell you though just leave it and i had a clone take after 20 days haha and still grew up just fine. just depends if you want to wait or not most of the time. like i said though i just have a simple 4 gallon 16 site cloner with plain water in it, and that takes anywhere from 7 to 10 days to get roots. so if your not worried about time then just use the cup and water method, one trick is to add small amounts of water as it evaporates and only keep the part you want roots to grow in the water haha i had some roots coming out of a bottom node once with too much humidity good luck i hope this helped?

 

[quokka]

Thanks.

Yeah, i know it is a bit slower but i don't take many clones and i'm not in a hurry.
I have some success with this method but i am just trying to figure out why it works sometimes and doesn't other times.
I think you are right about water temperature and low light.

 

[sanjuan]

I get maybe a 25% success rate in pH 7.4 tap water. This time, I'm going with pH 6.0 and changing the water every two or three days. I used two different shelves with different wattage CFLs in the ceiling and I'm not convinced light on the roots matters; I use clear spice jars.

I don't do any better in plain coco or the "World Class Walmart Cloner" (vermiculite) so now I've also got a 25 site Botanicare aerocloner going. I didn't see any advantage when I used rooting gel in my other methods so I'm using plain pH'd water in the machine with bleach added for a 3.5ppm total chlorine level.

Some people add hydrogen peroxide for plain water cloning but I haven't tried it.

 

[lovinthegreen]

yea i would try a couple clones with no light reaching the roots and some where it gets in. then the next step would be to see what temps work best for you... for some reason my cloner likes to work a little better around the 80-85F range.. i like that your going the route to save electricity and trying to keep it simple. i really am excited to see your findings. i know at least 2 growers who just use solo cups for cloning and it all started as a lazy experiment. one of em left a cup with like 10 clones in it for over a week meaning to get to it, but to his amazement most of them had already rooted or started too. they just leave the cups filled with water next too there other veg plants on the ground haha

 

[lovinthegreen]

also they just use plain RO water... idk if that will make a difference?

 

[sanjuan]

That is the water temperature range I've seen people recommend. My machine was hitting 86F so I added a cycle timer for one minute on/off and now have 82F.
I have a seedling heating mat and thermostat that I might use when the weather turns colder.

I'd think spring water makes more sense than RO but one person reported soaking in RO first and then going to rockwool works well.

 

[lovinthegreen]

yea i would think spring water would b better as well. but I'm just letting u know what i have seen others do

 

[Gry]

It was what momma used to use for her houseplants, so I thought i would try it with cannabis. It worked out pretty well for me. That was back in the 70s. Spoke with her on the phone last week. She still recalls well using it as a method to clone. I can still hear her saying "don't forget to change out the water every few days now ". She loves to talk about how her mother once smuggled a shamrock back from Ireland.