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New to cloning in Rockwool...tips needed

ThePizzaMan

Active member
Veteran
Hey guys

I have been cloning in rapid rooters for several years. I am moving to a new spot..and have had to take tons of clones(tons for me anyway).

I am trying out some rockwool 1.5 cubes, which I ph'd to 5.5 when I let them soak for about an hour. They have been in the dome for about 4 days now.

I have noticed that some cubes are lighter than others. what is the best method of rewetting the cubes? spray them? dip them in water? How do you yourself rewet them? what do you ph the solution with? Do you add nutes?

Do you leave the paper on...or do you remove it?

I have the thermostat set to 78f...should I remove the dome if they allow. It has been dry the past few days at 50%rh ....but they are all standing firm at attention...more so than the RR's. Should I not touch them if they are not drooping?

thanks

TpM
 
I use the clonex nutrient solution from the beginning, 1-0.4-1, and water the cubes with a stainless steel turkey baster. Makes it real easy to give just the right amount of moisture. I mist with that solution as well. PH as you would anything else. Remove the dome for short periods of time if you start to see roots or open the vents in the dome. I always mist the inside of the dome itself as well. Sounds like you are on the way though if they are not drooping.

Good luck
 
I haven't used them but plan to. My plan is to fill a tray full of perlite. Then fill the tray with water until it is an inch below the top of the perlite. Set your Rockwool on the perlite and let them wick up what they need to stay hydrated. So instead of watering each cube, you're just keeping the perlite moist.
 

ThePizzaMan

Active member
Veteran
Thanks for the reply guys. rollings stoner .... thanks for the tips. we are on day 7 right now. No sign of roots...however one of them .. the stem was poking out from the bottom like a fraction...and there is a fat root nub shooting off of it....so I dont know.

They are kinda moist...and they are not wilting at all. Both dome circles are cracked full bore...and when I take the dome off(which I havent yet), they dont seem to notice a bit. Which in contrast to the rapid rooters...which are up and down up and down. I like rockwool better...but I feel like I cant fully trust it yet. I hope I learn to love it...because I can see the draw. Much cleaner to work with.

Ill keep updated.

Update 1) second rockwool clone has white nubs out the bottom. Things are starting to happen. :)

Thanks

TpM
 
Last edited:

epicseeds

Member
The trick to cloning with rw + dome is all about the cuttings you take.

You want nice healthy stems and good foliage.

DO NOT cut the leafs in half - you want as much transpiration as possible to happen in the dome and the foliage helps with this.



PH the rw cubes in a 5 gal bucket of very light bloom base solution. K is good for the roots

Damp off the cubes so when you mildly flick it no water comes out of the cubes

When you poke the clone into the rw, first feel the top of cube with your finger for a "hard" spot feeling and poke it in there.

If you fill up a standard black clone tray with ~25 2x2 cubes in checkerboard formation it will maintain a healthy hunidity for weeks.

Just make sure you leave minimum of 2 nice sized fan leafs on the clone.

All you gotta do is lightly spray the dome with plain water and then seal it all up.

If you are in a climate and having trouble keeping droplets on the side of the dome for ~1 week then I have heard of people spreading an inch of perlite on the bottom of the clone tray with the cubes resting on top putting 1/4 inch of a light solution at the bottom to keep humidity up.


Dont let any air in for a week or so. Check on them every day and if things seem droopy open it up for a bit and feel the top of the cubes - they should be slightly moist to the touch. A better way to gauge if they need more water is by weight. Make sure to take a mental note of how heavy they feel the day you put them in when no water was running out of the bottom after a mildly violent shake.

Day 1-7 keep dome fully closed and keep high humidity
Day 7-14 slowly open up the top vents every other day

With the method above I get maybe one out of 25 die - usually do to it being an inferior cutting. After 2 weeks you should have crazy roots busting out of the bottom of the cubes.

I've always used clonex gel and have never tried not using it but I hear it is not necessary as long as you scrape the stem correctly and keep a proper humidity level
 

Dakine

Active member
Veteran
So I use Rockwool Cubes for cloning as well.. I get 100% rooted. Ill explain how I always took cuttings before the group of cuts I just took.

I have A black plastic container that fits 9rockwool cubes at a time, its not even totally flat on the bottom of it lol..I Soak the cubes in plain tap water that has 7.2-7.4Ph lol, I do this right before I start taking Cuts..

So ill cut a clone off either right above a node, if I want to basically top A branch.. Or pretty close to the main stem it comes out from.. Flat straight cut for now w/ scissors or razor not brand new.. Place into cup of water.

Now we have our cubes still soaking , and we have the cuts we took soaking in a cup of plain water for about 30min. Get your rooting powder or gel ready, by putting a little bit into/on something that you can dip or roll your cut on. This is usually where I light my cig lol..

Now I will empty the water out of the container that my cubes are in. then ill put it under faucet and fill with water again just to try to be clean about something.. Empty water out.
Trim some leaves if thats what you prefer.. Sometimes I do sometimes I dont but I leave on the lowest leaves on my cut if it will be above the top of the cube, cut will usually start eating those leaves and turn yellow and die, while tops are staying green.. Thats if you take nice cuts, ill usually take cuts that didnt/couldnt repair themselves after a deficiency..
-Once your done trimming tip of the leafs, or some lower growth. Take the cuttings out of the water 1 by 1 and make an angled cut, to increase surface area for roots to grow. Stick back in cup of water after each 1 is cut.. (take a couple drags of ur cig if needed, then get rid of it)

Now I have my rockwool cubes already in my container lined up, not soaking in water anymore. But water accumilating at bottom of container from cubes dripping.. Cuts already trimmed and with an angled cut soaking in water, and my rooting gel all ready..
1 by 1 , ill take each cutting and either dip the lowest parts of the stem, that will be in the cube. Into the Clonex Gel straight down or roll it in the gel and put into the cube. I always push the cuts slightly into the cube. You can feel when your pushing it in LOL..

If the cut is alot smaller then the hole thats already there and the stem isnt really snug up against the rockwool. I will try to push the rockwool to atleast close the top. Then Ill add about 1/2 cup of plain tap water to the container with cubes and cuts in it. Then ill spray cuts with water 2x day, morning and evening.

This pic was taken awhile ago, but it was to show what my set up looked like, and how bad of cuts I will attempt to root instead of not trying to clone them at all..



Usually after 1week



I do not put A cover or anything on top of them anymore. Once the water I added to the container dries out, usually takes 2-3 days. I will wait 1-2 Days before adding just enough water to have the water line right above the bottom of the cubes. So I add less water 2nd time..

The cuts in the picture where actually SUPER small, only up to 1inch above the cube top lol.. I recommend taking Bigger cuts if you can, just know if you ever need to save A strain, size doesnt matter haha!
 

Dakine

Active member
Veteran
So since I've been having 100% success rates with the method I posted above, I wanted to try something out.

I have 2-SSSDH girls who just went into flower 1 week ago. So I wanted to cut the low growth off. I was just going to cut them and leave on top of soil, but then I remembered people scraping the outter skin of there cuts off when prepping. To increase the surface area for roots to grow even more then an angled cut!!

So I took the lower growth off from both SSSDH girls. Such a variety of cuts... Small,Big,couple that where topped with 2 shoots already growing, 1 cut that apparently I broke awhile ago and it healed itself...

Anyways I used the exact same method as posted above. Except right before I made the angled cut, I scraped the outter skin/layer off the bottom of the stem. I scraped with scissors until I could see A whiteish color right under a super thin layer of light green, then I made my angled cut. I scraped the entire part of the stem thats in the rockwool cube.

Check these cuts out hhaha!



I scraped A little to high on these stems.. If you look at the left cut below you can see a couple roots alot higher then the top of the cube lol.. Alot of the cuts have roots everywhere that I scraped... Most have roots popping out the tops..



So before this last batch I took. The roots would only form on the angled cut. So would only be at the bottom of the cube, so there was mostly only roots coming out the bottom. sometimes in the middle but not many...

Now the Roots are growing on the entire stem thats in the rockwool cube. So im waiting to see but ill bet roots will be coming out everywhere on the cube. It will just take a little longer to start popping out. theres so much more roots to grow, plus the roots have more rockwool to go through...
 

BambinoOG

Member
Thanks for posting cloning methods. Cool to share knowledge like this




So since I've been having 100% success rates with the method I posted above, I wanted to try something out.

I have 2-SSSDH girls who just went into flower 1 week ago. So I wanted to cut the low growth off. I was just going to cut them and leave on top of soil, but then I remembered people scraping the outter skin of there cuts off when prepping. To increase the surface area for roots to grow even more then an angled cut!!

So I took the lower growth off from both SSSDH girls. Such a variety of cuts... Small,Big,couple that where topped with 2 shoots already growing, 1 cut that apparently I broke awhile ago and it healed itself...

Anyways I used the exact same method as posted above. Except right before I made the angled cut, I scraped the outter skin/layer off the bottom of the stem. I scraped with scissors until I could see A whiteish color right under a super thin layer of light green, then I made my angled cut. I scraped the entire part of the stem thats in the rockwool cube.

Check these cuts out hhaha!

[URL=https://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c102/wipeout808/IMG_1050.jpg]View Image[/URL]

I scraped A little to high on these stems.. If you look at the left cut below you can see a couple roots alot higher then the top of the cube lol.. Alot of the cuts have roots everywhere that I scraped... Most have roots popping out the tops..

[URL=https://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c102/wipeout808/IMG_1085.jpg]View Image[/URL]

So before this last batch I took. The roots would only form on the angled cut. So would only be at the bottom of the cube, so there was mostly only roots coming out the bottom. sometimes in the middle but not many...

Now the Roots are growing on the entire stem thats in the rockwool cube. So im waiting to see but ill bet roots will be coming out everywhere on the cube. It will just take a little longer to start popping out. theres so much more roots to grow, plus the roots have more rockwool to go through...
 

ThePizzaMan

Active member
Veteran
The trick to cloning with rw + dome is all about the cuttings you take.

You want nice healthy stems and good foliage.

DO NOT cut the leafs in half - you want as much transpiration as possible to happen in the dome and the foliage helps with this.



PH the rw cubes in a 5 gal bucket of very light bloom base solution. K is good for the roots

Damp off the cubes so when you mildly flick it no water comes out of the cubes

When you poke the clone into the rw, first feel the top of cube with your finger for a "hard" spot feeling and poke it in there.

If you fill up a standard black clone tray with ~25 2x2 cubes in checkerboard formation it will maintain a healthy hunidity for weeks.

Just make sure you leave minimum of 2 nice sized fan leafs on the clone.

All you gotta do is lightly spray the dome with plain water and then seal it all up.

If you are in a climate and having trouble keeping droplets on the side of the dome for ~1 week then I have heard of people spreading an inch of perlite on the bottom of the clone tray with the cubes resting on top putting 1/4 inch of a light solution at the bottom to keep humidity up.


Dont let any air in for a week or so. Check on them every day and if things seem droopy open it up for a bit and feel the top of the cubes - they should be slightly moist to the touch. A better way to gauge if they need more water is by weight. Make sure to take a mental note of how heavy they feel the day you put them in when no water was running out of the bottom after a mildly violent shake.

Day 1-7 keep dome fully closed and keep high humidity
Day 7-14 slowly open up the top vents every other day

With the method above I get maybe one out of 25 die - usually do to it being an inferior cutting. After 2 weeks you should have crazy roots busting out of the bottom of the cubes.

I've always used clonex gel and have never tried not using it but I hear it is not necessary as long as you scrape the stem correctly and keep a proper humidity level


Thats pretty much what I do . Sorry for the late reply!

Cheers

TpM
 

SuperBadGrower

Active member
Yeah it will seem less moist than it really is. Those things are algae factories when you keep them too moist... for me anyway.
 

gmanwho

Well-known member
Veteran
I enjoy the rockwool clones as well. but its funny, of the 25/30 things i have in rotation ,some like the rapid rooters better. the pine bark or what ever they are. One plant i know is the MAC1. not to say it wont root in rockwool, i just find some like the pine better, then 95% of others like the rockwool better.


i do the 1/2inch of perlite in the tray bottoms as well. 400/500ppm food ph'd to 5.2/5.5. i put about 16-20oz of the same nutrient water i soak the cubes in into the bottom of the tray. cubes get pricked with a metal rod to make sure i dont crush the stem inserting to the rock wool( i dont use the existing pre drilled hole). cubes get soaked for not even a minute. i do not shake any water out of the cube after the soak.



i have the best luck when i mix in recharge beneficial powder, and actinovate biofungicide bacteria/fungi. I personally like Dip-n-grow rooting hormone the best. it is alcohol based an any bad bacteria from a previous cutting will not taint the dipping solution for the rest that follow. but really.... the actinovate an recharge really makes the roots pop!!!


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Great looking roots ^ I love rockwool as well. Soak 5.5 light nutes and hormex. I will look into Activonate and already have recharge. Hormex works awesome though I don't know why I would add anything, but I am going to just for experimenting! Thanks for the experience.
 

f-e

Well-known member
Mentor
Veteran
Wow, you guy are rooting into blocks I would consider finishing in. I used the trays of 1" blocks, that you pick up and dunk every few days. There was a smaller size, but I was using the larger ones.

Much better to root in coco. It's a lot cheaper and better for the environment.
 

PaulieWaulie

Member
Veteran
Are you guys using heating mats, with temp controller? I am getting stem rot.mush @ temp controller set to 80F.

Also what do you guys use for lights, specifically, what type size and watts of light, how many " from clones. I have a 17W 4FT LED Tube 12" from cuttings that are in a 10"x20" Tray, so they get half of that 17W = 8-9W. Is this enough? See my post for pics in this prop sub forum. thx
 

gmanwho

Well-known member
Veteran
Are you guys using heating mats, with temp controller? I am getting stem rot.mush @ temp controller set to 80F.

Also what do you guys use for lights, specifically, what type size and watts of light, how many " from clones. I have a 17W 4FT LED Tube 12" from cuttings that are in a 10"x20" Tray, so they get half of that 17W = 8-9W. Is this enough? See my post for pics in this prop sub forum. thx




i set my mat temp to 76f. one thing i can say is it reallllll important is where you have the temperature probe. ive had it placed in open air before an the heating mat never shut off. now i secure it in the dome, under a rooter block so it comes in contact with bottom temps of the tray.
 

JetLife175

Well-known member
Veteran
I ph my water to 5.3 and with a 30-45 minute soak the cubes are roughly sitting at 5.7-5.8 with 4-500 ppm of whatever grow you are using. 2ml of clonex per 5g of water is also added.

Quality of cutting matters but in a pinch you can take anything that’s got a node on it with enough stalk to root. Shave the stalk down or make multiple incisions on it, 45 degree cut at the bottom, dipped in clonex and then placed into cubes. And into trays. Domes on until I see roots and domes will stay on for the most part until roughly 3-4 days before they go into the veg area.

I take roughly 1k cuts a week and my success rate is over 99%. Not 100% but I’m not losing much at all.
 

MoS

Member
Been using rockwool cubes for years now, they can be tricky to work with especially with seedlings in my experience, too wet or too dry. Clones on the other hand are much easier too work with in rockwool, plus dirt cheap to use.
 

MoS

Member
On a side note, just started a batch of seeds up, journal later.

This time due to the mentioned issues I have experienced with seedlings in rockwoll with my DIY NFT system.

I am after 20 years with rockwoll trying out another way, using foam from some also dirt cheap pads normally used for cleaning pots and pans, abrasive side removed of course, seems to be easier to control humidity wise...
 

Naturalgazda

Active member
Cloning

Cloning

Hi boys. You're doing well. I have been using rw cubes for a long time. But I want to switch to a proven alternative. So that I have my own source of the medium. I have very nice results with sand. Fine sand. I only use water. I give a deeper layer of sand. Then he stabs himself well. It's done in 7 days. Maximum 10. However, if you leave it like this for a longer time, nice long roots will form. And there are a lot of them. I use a heated steamer or a 6.5 liter flowerpot with sand. Cover from the top with a microtene bag. Sometimes I uncover. In 7 days it is enough to pour sand once. Let it be stably moist. Heat is important.
 

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