Sphagnum peat moss for cloning!

I want to try sphagnum peat moss for cloning because of its' moisture retention properties. I have seen some info on successful cloning in coco, but I only have peat moss. Question is will I need to sterilize the peat moss, the microbial life may not be good for the raw wound of a freshly cut clone?

I recently saw a video from John Berfelo and he used those peat moss plugs to clone.

I doubt they are especially treated, just dehydrated and compressed peat moss. Not sure if he even used nutes or plain water but it is definitely doable and I wanted to give it a go some time in the future as well.

You could check out John's tube channel and see how he went about it.

Search here for making a bubble cloner.
Burn1

The important thing is to not oversaturate the peat.

The jiffy pellets are what bigbadbiddy was talking about and they work fairly well. I used them for the first 10 years of growing. I stopped using them because I got a few bad batches that caused all my cuts to mold and die. Just make sure to squeeze them out a little if you use them so theyre not sopping wet. If you wanna go just peat straight put the bag I doubt it'll work unless you lime it to fix the ph then wet it with a wetting agent and pack it in the trays so there's no air pockets. Ive never tried it so cant say for sure itll work. Im trying straight coco myself for the first time to root in and the cuts in rapid rooters seem to be doing better. Good luck and let us know how it works for ya.

I am going to boil it before I use for cloning, can't hurt!

Will update progress!

peat works fine for cloning. i'd add some perlite and/or vermiculite. also a good idea to hydrate the peat first using a wetting agent like yucca.

i wouldn't sterilize but if it helps you sleep at night go for it.

I use ProMix BX as my cloning medium--as opposed to straight peat. ProMix is about 85% Sphagnum Peat and amended with perlite, vermiculite, calcitic & dolomitic limestone, macro & micro nutes, and of course mycorrhizae.

There are enough nutrients in ProMix to promote initial plant development that nothing but water is needed for the first week or so.

So, no--I would not sterilize peat before using it for cuttings. For me, the time from "snip" to "transplant to cup" is about 2 weeks--and that includes a 2 day water soak before the cutting is inserted in premoistened (water only) Promix.

I will volunteer this simple observation--since my custom grow medium is peat based, the idea of using peat as a rooting medium came to me one night when I ran out rooting cubes. About half the cuttings were in Root Riot (made of bark) and the other half in ProMix (made of peat).

The ProMix batch had stronger roots, hearty enough to transplant into cups (simple 50/50 blend of Promix and my grow medium) many days earlier than the Root Riot bunch, and most important--no "transplant shock". New growth was observed sooner on the Promix bunch and weeks later when they were in 1/2 gallon containers, the plants had more internodes, larger leaf and were taller than the Root Riot bunch.

BTW, I premoistened the ProMix with de-chlorinated water at the rate of 35%...10 oz (volume) ProMix + 3.5 oz water, let it sit overnight and mix well/fluff up before using.

ProMix BX is widely used in the nursery industry for seedlings and peat is the primary medium in those veggie 6 packs you buy in the store. They don't use "clone machines".

Premier Peat, 20% sand.

Use a regular 72 cell tray, 1/2" sand in the bottom of each cell.

I don't sterilize anything, ever, as far as growing medium.

Don't go sterilising compost. I use the same stuff, nothing added to it, just the clone, tap water and a 17w cfl between 3 cuttings.

OK...fresh off the press!

Here is a cutting I snipped on 3/25 from a plant top, and after trimming the leaves and making the 45 degree cut, the stem soaked in water for 2 days (cfl light on 24 hours) in a tray just like the one you see in the background.



On 3/27 the stem was dipped in full strength Hormex for exactly 60 seconds before being inserted in about 1 1/2 ounce (volume) of pre-moistened ProMix BX inside a 2" net cup, and then placed in a tray under a humidity dome (T5 lights, 22/2).

This morning is April 4th, and marks the 10th day since it was snipped and 8 days since since the stem was placed in ProMix Bx. It should be ready to transplant in a few days.

This type of rapid progress for cuttings is normal in my garden--not the exception. Oh yeah, I do add a pinch of CalPhos to the ProMix before it is pre-moistened.

I primarily used jiffy pellets (doing up to 5000 cuttings for spring) and had great success. I also used straight peat pressed into planter 'cups' similar to what Doc shows. We either soaked the peat in a bucket first in warm water then pack it into the 'cups' or put them in and pour warm water over them. The first is more thorough.

Then just poke a hole with whatever, push the prepped cutting in and compress the peat around the cutting.

Do not sterilize. It is the natural occurring microbes in peat moss which help prevent pathogens.

Nice thread. Had just bought a bale of peat to try to clone with recently. Those root riot plugs are just to pricey.


Curious if you guys using pure peat are liming it, and or adding any amendments?


Would be nice to not only clone cheaply in peat, but add enough food to keep them really lush through the process.

Thanks,
Mr^^

It is my understanding, pure peat (not ProMixBX) will require some amending of both macro/micro nutes and lime to increase the Ph. Copying ProMixBX formulation might work--here is snaphot of a portion of ProMixBX Technical Data Sheet.



As you can see, it is about 85% peat with vermiculite and perlite making up the other 15%.

That said, if we are talking about ProMixBX (which I use and have years of experience with) then it really is ready to go right out of the bale--just add water. But, adding a pinch of CalPhos (2.5ml per "gallon" of slightly packed ProMixBX) seems to increase root mass a bit. The ratio of water to ProMixBX that I found that works the best for me is 35% by volume (10 oz of slightly packed ProMixBX + 3.5 oz of dechlorinated water).

The brain may wonder and think, ahh maybe a bit of liquid kelp or substitute compost tea for water might work....been there, done that. Pure water always got the best results...but please don't let me stop anyone from experimenting; one way to learn is experimentation.

My logic to use peat for cuttings is based on the goal to move a cutting as fast as possible to a component found in the final grow medium--thinking it will reduce any transition/transplant shock caused by introducing the fresh baby cutting to a "foreign" component of the grow medium (ie, going from rockwool cube to soil...or root riot to peat). So...transplanting a cutting in a peat based "root cube" to peat based grow medium does work--whether it is Jiffy Pellets, or ProMix in beer cups...or 2" net cups

For the record, the medium I tested which produced roots earliest and had "mostest" was fine grade orchid bark. Problem is the loose orchid bark provides zero structure to hold the cutting upright and everything falls apart during the transplanting process. Which makes sense, as Root Riot is made from bark.

Cost--yeah, bag of 100 Root Riots is $25 or so...a bale of ProMixBX is less than $40 and the tiny net cups are pennies each and reusable. Not to mention the speed--for me, the time the cutting goes from snip to cup transplant is always less than 2 weeks--and always 100% success. It seems that the greater the time between "snip" and "transplant"--there is a loss in cuttings (less than 100% success).

Of course, using Hormex is a sweet trick--since it is much more affordable than the pricey Cannabis based cloning gels and it also is good bottled nutrient for feeding the roots/soil (2.5 - 5ml/gallon).

The period of time when rooting is occurring in many species of plants, nutrients are not an issue. I've always used only straight peat or peat pellets with roots showing in 7 to 10 days (with cannabis). I don't know if nutrients might have altered this.

When needing to keep the rooted cutting preserved and growing if it's not planting time yet, I've kept them in trays with compost tea about 1/8th to 1/4 inch deep which was slopped back and forth daily. Sometimes rooted cuttings were kept like this for 2 weeks and ended up with tangled masses of roots over a foot long.

A bale of peat moss is $9 to $15. If you buy peat pellets from a wholesaler they 'were' about $20 per 1000.

Microbeman said:

The period of time when rooting is occurring in many species of plants, nutrients are not an issue. ...

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I agree if we are talking about seedlings. As we all know, seeds contain basically all the nutrients a seedling needs to get started for the first week or so. But when it comes to cuttings/clones--some basic micro/macro nutes added to the "cutting medium" can make a struggling cutting flourish, and shave a few days off the "wait until transplant" date. If nutes are not necessary for a cutting medium, then something like coco coir (which is absent of most micro/macro nutes) would be incredibly successful; but unfortunately that has not been my experience.

I go for speed...defined as the least amount of time between "snip" and "transplant to cup".

The reason why peat moss has been used historically in the nursery industry and farming for rooting cuttings is its natural ability to mitigate pathogens, predominantly damping off.

Coming out of my discovery of naturally occurring microorganisms in peat moss, I hypothesized this was the reason for the lower rate of pathogens if using peat moss for rooting cuttings.

Our motivation was also a fast turn around from taking cuttings to root production, generally 7 to 10 days (for cannabis). As stated, we never experimented with nutrients mixed into the peat moss so I cannot comment on efficacy. As things went, we never seemed to need this but it seems to work for you.

We did use rooting hormone powder used by commercial nurseries. (IAA #3) and often (Glomus Intraradices) Rhizophagus irregularis.

Once the roots are protruding from the 'container' they are no longer up-taking any (substantial) nutrient from the media. Thus the reason we used CT for holding the plantlings for transplant time. As I stated we did around 5000 for spring planting. [separate from our indoor production]

We did discover that trimming the tips off leaves was counterproductive to later plant vigor. We only did this with leaves which might otherwise hang to the base of the tray.

I believe the OP said they only had peat moss on hand, so I'm just validating that they can work with what they have.

Another way to root cuttings is in water only.

DocTim420 said:

I agree if we are talking about seedlings. As we all know, seeds contain basically all the nutrients a seedling needs to get started for the first week or so. But when it comes to cuttings/clones--some basic micro/macro nutes added to the "cutting medium" can make a struggling cutting flourish, and shave a few days off the "wait until transplant" date. If nutes are not necessary for a cutting medium, then something like coco coir (which is absent of most micro/macro nutes) would be incredibly successful; but unfortunately that has not been my experience.

I go for speed...defined as the least amount of time between "snip" and "transplant to cup".

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The peat pucks work great with just water they don't need a thing.
I have also used cups of coco for clones and it work great too!

cyat said:

The peat pucks work great with just water they don't need a thing.
I have also used cups of coco for clones and it work great too!

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Yes there are definitely many techniques and devices available for successfully rooting cuttings. I tried a new method last year for apple tree cuttings > failed miserably.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxmOVKcREw0&t=59s

I got as far as having the white protrusions but after planting there was no growing.

MedResearcher said:

Curious if you guys using pure peat are liming it, and or adding any amendments?

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Rootone F with full-size Jiffy pellets was perfection, so of course it isn't made anymore. Just that hormone and fungicide for me then - now it's not the same with other rooting hormone.