Increase cloning success!! Cut again underwater

A recent lab we conducted in my plant physiology class showed me why it is extremely important to keep a cutting's water column intact. Plants take in water by essentially pumping it up into the roots. This is accomplished by water molecules exiting the plant through their stomata, through a process known as transpiration. An easy way to picture this is to think of the water in the plant as being a long chain of H20 molucules, as one molecule leaves a stomate another is taken up by the root hairs.

Having said that, this is where the cutting technique becomes important. When you cut a clone off of a mother plant you are also cutting off that "chain" of molecules. When this happens an air pocket, known as an embolism, can form inside the xylem (water conducting organ) of the plant. When an embolism occurs it causes the chain of water to break, making it all the harder for water uptake to occur, and thus roots to form.

To remedy this problem a second cut should be made to the clone underwater after it is removed from the mother plant. This will preserve the "water pump" of the xylem and allow for easier transpiration. Another tip is to make that second underwater cut at a 45 degree angle. This not only increases surface area but allows a different area of the stem to be exposed, decreasing the chances of an embolism forming over the whole cut part.

Once the underwater cut has been made you can dip the clone in rooting hormone and plant as usual, but try to do so quickly so the base of the clone doesn't dry out before dipping in the gel

Nah, I've never found that extra step worth it. Have 100% clone success in aerocloner in about 7-10 days and 10-14 days with rockwool or soil.

Its a nice theory and all but I think it is just not going to hurt the cut to be made in the air rather than water. People always want to worry about sterile cloning sheers and sterile this and that. Tell you what, snap a branch off the plants in your landscape and stick them in the ground. Water them and they will be a brand new plant. No root hormone, no special cutting procedures, etc.

Nature is a tough ol gal!

Thanks for posting the info tho!

Best vibes!

hey importedtermite
thx for your post and welcome to the ic!
i think your post is valuable and will get you closer to 100% strike rate with using this method. thx

Its good technique say for something really critical. Id do all that if it meant saving something irreplaceable. Like cloning the last kush at the apocalypse.

Lester Beans said:

Nah, I've never found that extra step worth it. Have 100% clone success in aerocloner in about 7-10 days and 10-14 days with rockwool or soil.

Its a nice theory and all but I think it is just not going to hurt the cut to be made in the air rather than water. People always want to worry about sterile cloning sheers and sterile this and that. Tell you what, snap a branch off the plants in your landscape and stick them in the ground. Water them and they will be a brand new plant. No root hormone, no special cutting procedures, etc.

Nature is a tough ol gal!

Thanks for posting the info tho!

Best vibes!

Click to expand...

Agree 100%

If you immediately put the cut into a glass of water, wouldn't that maintain the minimum xylem pressure in the xylem to prevent an embolism?

That's how I have always done clones, and almost always have 100% success rate. Often with rooted clones growing while still in the medium they were cloned in. On the flip side, I have often cut clones, and let the cut/exposed end sit in open air for several mins, and still had success getting it to root.

Here is what the author said in cannabis botany...

Making Cuttings

Cuttings of relatively young vegetative limbs 10 to 45 centimeters (4 to 18 inches) are made with a sharp knife or razor blade and immediately placed in a container of clean, pure water so the cut ends are well covered. It is essential that the cuttings be placed in water as soon as they are removed or a bubble of air (embolism) may enter the cut end and block the transpiration stream in the cutting, causing it to wilt. Cuttings made under water avoid the possibility of an embolism. If cuttings are exposed to the air they are cut again before being inserted into the rooting medium.


But....imo....its bullshit..... cannabis botany was written by clarke....this little bit....is the thing he was most wrong about.....

jmo....

What about when you take it out of the water after the second cut? How do you stop it then?

Moses you have the coolest avatar on here. I don't exactly know why but IMHO it is. It is like a friend got his picture snapped at a party or something. I would hang out with that guy. Who is it?

Is the name like Wellfleet, Maine?

Lester Beans: Although I do agree you can still achieve success without this extra step I feel that it's not much extra effort and ensures there is a good column of water in the clone.

blueberrydrumz: Thank you guys for having such a knowledgeable community! I'll be sure to post more updates as we continue doing different labs throughout the semester. I know we will be working with CO2 and photosynthetic rates, so there's bound to be some more info I can add.

chronosync: To me, if I'm making the effort of cloning, I want a near 100% success rate. So taking the necessary steps that are proven to be more effective is something I always strive to do.

DoubleTripleOG: I don't think it's so much the fact that you are quick after the first cut but more the fact that when you cut the stem you are exposing it to air so the column is immediately broken. Making that second cut underwater enable the chain to be connected again.

BudleyDoRight: I've read multiple posts of yours, and have learned a lot from them, so first and foremost I would like to thank you for your contributions. It's helped me bring up some nice plants so far in my first attempt at indoor growing. Now concerning the second cut and embolism, I would have to disagree with you. Yes you can still have success without doing this but it is no bullshit. In our experiment, we placed mint and radish cuttings in the ends of a tube connected to a pipette. We then filled the tubes and pipettes with water using a syringe. One of the radishes had an air bubble we didn't notice when filling it and that cutting absorbed 5mL less (2.1mL compared to 6.9mL) over an hour period than another cutting that had no air bubble. The radish that had the embolism was wilted and not healthy looking at all. Our experiment was to see the difference between light/no light and with wind/no wind, but the air bubble demonstrated what happens if there isn't a solid column of water. I encourage you to try this experiment yourself with some clones you have, we used plumbers tape and vasoline to seal the stem and tube.

iTarzan: I would assume that the surface tension of the water will keep the end of the stem saturated long enough to dip in the rooting hormone, which would seal it as well

I want a near 100% success rate.
======================

Let me tell you how I do that....

1... on your mother plant....select the part you wish to cut..... snip with sharp scissors.... no need for 45 degree cut...no need
to recut.....

2... immediately put the cut into a cup...quart jar etc with a couple inches of water...

3... I use a rooting hormone..... I think it would be difficult to hit near 100% without it...
clonex purple... I pour a small amount of the clonex into a smaller container.....

Each cutting then is taken from the quart jar blotted dry on a paper towel.... I then scarify the stem I scrape the stem on opposite sides.... expose cambium up the stem away from the cut.....I do this because
of the possibility that some stem rot may occur in the tip where the cut was.... dunk about an inch into the gel and plant the cutting into the medium.... in a hole you have made in the medium....with a nail or something.........plant then carefully firm medium around stem......

I insert the cut into vermiculite..... my cloner is kept in a meijer grocery bag...

The temps imo are critical..... 2 or 3 degrees from 80..... you need a thermometer...and the temps need to be constant.....lean to the warmer temps in that range

The grocery bag is loosely closed for the first 2 days....... then the bag is simply opened at the top...

The grocery bag is also key as it applies to trimming the leaves on your cutting...... I never do that..... the bag will reduce transpiration and eliminates the need to cut leaves...... if the leaves are consumed the clone dies..... cutting the leaves seem like a bad idea when this is considered.....

I almost cant recall the last clone I lost....

Getting 100% is actually pretty easy..... sort of...

That seems to be a pretty effective method, thank you for the advice. I'll be sure to implement something similar into my setup. Have you done anymore research into air layering or was it just not worth the effort?

importedtermite said:

That seems to be a pretty effective method, thank you for the advice. I'll be sure to implement something similar into my setup. Have you done anymore research into air layering or was it just not worth the effort?

Click to expand...

Im convinced air layering is how I will propagate in the NEAR future....

There is an airlaying thread in my signature....

In the next couple weeks I intend to do a major experiment.....

There are too many advantages in airlayering...... especially if you are in a plant count state like michigan....

I definitely agree that the most effective way to clone is air layering, and will more than likely be the technique I use once I have a better equipped (and perpetual) grow area. Your thread on the subject is one of my favorites on this site, it was probably one of the first ones I read lol. I too live in the mitten so plant count is something I need to take into consideration, but as I'm only a patient and not a caregiver at the moment 12 plants is plenty for me. However, with my limited space I almost think it would be more efficient to air layer than to clone with the traditional method.

Scraping away the stem is an excellent tip you gave as well. Roots elongate much like shoots do and have also an apical meristem. In the root's apical meristem right under the root cap, there is an area known as the quiescent (QC) center where much of the root differentiation begins. The QC happens to be right next to the cambium of the root, or the stem in our case. So by cutting into the stem and exposing the cambium you are allowing the rooting hormone to penetrate much easier and stem cells to start differentiating into root cells. Here's a figure of the showing the differences between apical meristems and the cambium

is it possible to get 101% success...????????????....I don't have issues with cloning its simple ..I very rarely loose any ...gen only when doing many trays full ...yeehaw...bury at least one node ,keep warm and moist with good humidity...don't need anything else really.. I don't even bother cutting at angle either...sometimes I even forget to use rooting compounds when using woods/liquid stuff....ha ha..i used olivias for like 2 years before reading label and finding out its just weak flowering ferts almost..so my tech is down pat long ago....BURYING ATLEAST ONE NODE made all the difference for my cloning success ratios..i like big clones too ..up to 12 inches...and I don't bother with razor blade I use good sharp scissors used only for cloning nothing else...I can clone like a madman ..real fast

You dont go to Moo U....do ya???

BURYING ATLEAST ONE NODE made all the difference for my cloning success ratios.

=================================================

My fishy friend and I agree about this .....sort of.....

He buries a stripped node to expose cambium.... I scrape opposite sides of the stem for the same result....

air layering is a waste of time unless you have some special needs...yeehaw..by the time you scrape stem and add hormone if so,,, wrap with moss and cover with saran wrap ..I already did like 6 clones or more depending on how fast you are...and you have to transplant again..i go right into 16 or 18 oz cups....it was fun to do in school and great for hard to root species ...weed aint one of those...

stoned-trout said:

air layering is a waste of time unless you have some special needs...yeehaw..

Click to expand...

Hey trout..... check this out...

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=309503&page=23

post 342..... about a 30 inch 1 day old clone....

BudleyDoRight said:

BURYING ATLEAST ONE NODE made all the difference for my cloning success ratios.

=================================================

My fishy friend and I agree about this .....sort of.....

He buries a stripped node to expose cambium.... I scrape opposite sides of the stem for the same result....

Click to expand...

I had everything else dialed in and kept loosing more than I would like ...then I discovered the ones that didn't root a lot of the time had no node buried...and they did indeed get scraped back then ..yeehaw!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...it was my issue and maybe not the solution for anyone elses problems with cloning...my game is tight baby...READ THREAD having extra big clones is a special need... I cant fit any thing over 12 inches total height in my cloning chambers I gen go with 10 inches total height...I was air layering in 1995 in the horticulture program at school for them ....not dope tho....