cloning, down to the basics

plato · Sep 18, 2013

So, I have had pretty bad luck with clones.
My first trial worked wonderfully...unfortunately the plants they came from turned out to be all males, so worthless clones.
I have managed to get a nice cut from my favorite mother rooted and well established, as well.
Most runs have been in soil/perlite- I feel the perlite makes the soil less clumpy, if that makes sense.
The clones go into Solo cups, with a dome. Most foliage is carefully trimmed away, and the bottom 1/2'' or so coated with clonex gel. I mist the domes daily to promote high humidity.
What happens to most, is after a few days the stem rots below the soil level, and I trash.
I have 1 going right now that has been in soil for ~10 days. It looks healthy, green and perky leaves. But when I tug it moves, indicating a lack of rooting.
I have read around, and found that many people have success rooting in water, so I am trying that as well.

Now, I have 3 questions.
1. How much light should I supply them with? I keep the clones in the less brightly lit corners of the veg tent, as I haven't space to set up a separate clone area. Is the over abundance of light causing me problems? I have the water clones in a window to receive natural light, but it is getting pretty late, so I don't think the photoperiod is going to be long enough, I will have to move them.
2. If I were to use a germination tray/dome, with starter plugs- would It be advisable to let water sit in the bottom of the tray for humidity, or would this just cause my soil to be over saturated? I know this is done with rockwool, but that is a horse of a different color.
3. What about cloning in vermiculite, instead of soil? Might this be beneficial? It should be able to set in the tray with water, and not oversaturate.

plato · Sep 18, 2013

WTF, I got glitched.
This thread don't show up in my posts, or on the recent post side bar

Hydrosun · Sep 18, 2013

Florecent bathroom lights can work well if your clones are stressed from too much light in the veg tent. A heat mat under the tray helps. Rappid Rooters with water in the tray works fine. You'll need to open or close the dome vents based on your area's humidity. In the desert keep it closed, with high natural humidity no dome needed.

Also JJScorpio has a nice cloning thread, I think it is a sticky in the growers forums.

:joint:

plato · Sep 18, 2013

Yeah, I read his thread. It's where I got most my info from.
Just wondering why I have so much problem with it. I don't have the spare money for rapid rooters atm, but I will probably pick some up next chance I get
I just re-read his thread, and it appears that he is elevating the plugs off the bottom of the tray. This makes sense.
I will try to imitate this method with my standard soil mixture for now, I don't need a 100 percent success rate. Just 1 out of each batch.
With soil, I can easily recycle so no waste if I fail.
Still gonna pick up some rapid rooters when I can

weedcurious64 · Sep 18, 2013

I do everything small, my mothers and clones all live in a 39 Gal Rubbermaid tub with a single 42 watt 6700k CFL.

Clones go inside a 2 G Lock'n'Lock that has a mixture of perlite and vermiculite (70/30) that is saturated, but no standing water in bottom. Temp is about 72 ... cuts go in, 11 days later they have roots ... occasionally I have 1 or 2 that take a little longer, but I'm well over 90% success with most batches being 100%

So yes, weak light, high humidity, low/mid 70s temps. Works for me.

Crusader Rabbit · Sep 18, 2013

Sounds like "damping off", a fungal infection that's really common in greenhouse culture.

plato · Sep 18, 2013

I like your plan weedcurious, I may try something like that next-plenty of plants to cut from right now-haven't sexed yet.
Right now I'm hoping the plain water method works, I read a lot of positive reviews
I've heard of the damping off, anything I can do to prevent it?

weedcurious64 · Sep 18, 2013

Give water a try ... I've been thinking about seeing how it goes, my moms throw off more clones than I need, so experimenting with propagation is a reasonable thing for me.

Also, I neglected to say I do use rooting powder in my method, so cut, dip in water, dredge in rooting compound (I use cheap stuff from HD) and then into the perl/verm mix.

Good luck with the water method.

With respect to damping off, it's usually one of a myriad number of fungal or bacterial issues ... these might be being introduced by your current system having some soil in it. If you go the water route that should fix that problem.

EclipseFour20 · Sep 18, 2013

From another thread....still doing it and 100% success with roots good enuf for transplanting under 10 days average (some need 14, but then these you can label "runts" and grow them accordingly).

EclipseFour20 said:
One simple trick an old timer taught me--that's blessing me now with 100% success and zero leaf droop: Immediately after cutting the clone--and before dipping it, place the stem in tap water for 2 days.

So...the process is:
1. Snip from plant.
2. Re-cut the stem at the appropriate spot & angle.
3. Place cutting in small container of tap water...under clear plastic dome for 48 hours (enough water to keep stems wet and leaves dry).
4. Remove from water, dip in rooting powder/gel/solution, remove/trim leaves, spray with water and insert in rooting medium (I dip the stem in Hormex for 1 minute, then rooting powder before going directly into ProMix Bx).
5. Cover under plastic dome and apply Rhizotonic foliar spray every other day.
6. Transplant to cup. After six days most of my cuttings have 1-1.5" roots protruding and are ready for transplanting; seldom do clones take more than 14 days to go from "snip from plant" to "transplant to cup".

During the 48 hour soaking period, water is transported up the xylem and re-distributed throughout the cutting. I tried 24 hours...tried 36...and 72, but the best was always 48 hours--with plain tap water. I conducted experiments comparing tap water with RO water and water supplemented with silica, liquid kelp, Rhizotonic, Hormex and combinations of each--and without exception, plain tap water for 48 hours resulted in the healthiest and largest plant at 7, 14, 21 & 28 day intervals...counting from "snip from plant" day.

Try it...you many never go back.

Cheers!

plato · Sep 19, 2013

I set up a clone room.
I have an aquarium lamp with 2 13 watt cfls @ 6500k, same as veg tent. I only have 1 bulb plugged in, it seems sufficient.
All my current cuts are in water-except the one that has been in soil.
I will be cutting again soon, though. I gotta make sure I get a vible clone from my fav plant.
Iwill try the 48 hr soak, and use the verm/perlite instead of soil.
I haven't made any accommodation for humidity, got tired. I will fix that tonight with some perlite, like a shroom fruiting chamber.
Thanks for all the tips.

anon0988 · Sep 19, 2013

Cloning for me has been pretty easy in my limited experience. One thing I found that helped a dying clone was to wet the leaves every other day. My guess is that since the roots hadn't yet fully formed it was having problems getting enough water up the stem to the leaves. After 4 days of leaf wetting it recovered and shot out roots. Food for thought.

plato · Sep 19, 2013

I always read that leaves should only be wetted during the night...and due to the setup, I can only get to them during the day( veg tent is under the flowering room)
I guess that shouldn't be a problem with my new reduced lighting, anyway

plato · Sep 25, 2013

Well, the low light setup seems to be working. I believe I see roots starting to pop.
The one in soil still has nothing wtf? but it looks perky and happy, so I'll let her be.
I may be pruning my fave plant tonight, so I will try the above mentioned method, and see how that turns out

plato · Sep 29, 2013

So, all the cuts have rooted in water, I believe I first noticed after 3 days. I don't really remember...sobriety is a bitch.
All the cuts, that is, except for the most important strain, a known female purp whose (grand)mother just gave me a qp. I am getting nervous, because the mother just went to bloom and I will be very upset if I lose the strain. I think I have branches to spare, so I am gonna be cutting her one last time before it goes too far into bloom.
The one in soil, it still looks healthy. I stopped misting several days ago, though it has a humidity dome- never has any condensation though. It also does not show any signs of growth.
I also have 6 cuts in plain water, in the same room as the ones that grew roots. Same everything, a couple appear to be dying but most look healthy, just no root development.
I also have 2 in plain water in my veg tent, i decided to try this when a cut i placed in bloom took root in 48 hrs(only to identify itself as a male). These are pretty big comparatively, I thought that may be important.
Then I have 1 in my clone box, in a mix of perlite and vermiculite. It does not seem healthy.

weedcurious64 · Sep 30, 2013

Wow, 3 days is pretty quick to see roots! Remember, weak light on those cuts, give them too much and they try to grow and starve themselves. To the extent you're able make sure the temps are low-mid 70s.

As long as that purp looks healthy, don't worry about her being slow, but by all means take another cut or two or three ... hedge your bet!

Glad you're finding success in water.

plato · Oct 1, 2013

I don't have a thermometer in there, but the room is low 70s, maybe high 60s at night, then I'm in a confined space, with a light...so I'd say low-mid seventies is accurate.
I have a seedling heating mat w/ temp control, I have thought about adding that, just to be safe, but...it may just cause unnecessary problems

plato · Oct 1, 2013

weedcurious64 said:
Wow, 3 days is pretty quick to see roots! Remember, weak light on those cuts, give them too much and they try to grow and starve themselves. To the extent you're able make sure the temps are low-mid 70s.

As long as that purp looks healthy, don't worry about her being slow, but by all means take another cut or two or three ... hedge your bet!

Glad you're finding success in water.

I did indeed take a new cut- or 4. Noticed some branches that weren't gonna make anything but popcorn, and went into soil/perlite, with a water layer underneath, and a humidity dome.
This is about the same as my most successful round, so fingers crossed that at least 1 of the like 12 will root.
I got positive ID on a female that has 3 cuts with nice roots growing in the water, so I am less panicked, I will have something to fill the space at least, if the purp cuts don't grow out in time

maxibiogreen · Oct 1, 2013

.

.

Hi plato,

Clean tools, healthy plants from wich you ll take healthy clones from.
Take your cuts a little longer than necessary, let's say half an inch longer. Put your cuts in ph adjusted water container and leave them in a corner of your grow room with as less direct light as possible for 2 days. Do not forget to vaporize them with ph adjusted water once a day minimum.
Take rockwool cubes and place them in a 5.5 ph adjusted water, sqeeze them and redip them on the water to rinse them as much as possible of their impurities and to get them on a task according PH. Before inserting the cuts you ll want to remove approximativly 50 % of what your rockwool cube can hold
Back to your cuts,,, take them, do the finale 45 degree angle cut removing the half inch part we talked about at first, dip them in your powder, gel or whatever you use,(" if you room is clean u don't even have to use any of these. your choice.") and immediatly place them gently in the rockwool cube. I generally take a stem cut size piece of wood to pock a "pre hole" in the cubes before inserting the real thing. It definitly saves the cuts from unnecessary scratches and scares.
I place all cuts/cubes in a mini greehouse and vaporize them for a week minimum every time the light goes on,, leaving the dome open 5-10 minutes everyday.

Then you ll get roots

Afterward you can either repot you plants in dirt or use them in a hydro/aero systems.

Best of luck

plato · Oct 2, 2013

Thanks for that.
PH adjustments...I don't even have a tool for that. Lol
I have been meaning to get some rockwool cubes going on.

anon0988 · Oct 2, 2013

plato said:
PH adjustments...I don't even have a tool for that

A PH kit is an essential if you're even halfway serious about growing. PH can cause major problems, and adding nutrients can cause wide swings in PH. You should buy a kit, they're less than $20. HERE is a simple amazon search, take your pick.

cloning, down to the basics

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