Way to grow clones in veg slowly until you need them?

Has anyone ever purposely grown clones in veg (sort of in suspended animation) slowly until you need them? What temps and light conditions? How long could you go without damaging the plant's potential later?

Veg under low lighting. Def slows them down. No science or any real experiments , just experience with it. I've kept some small for 2 months at a time. They do need a little bit of time to take back off once under ample lighting. But they always grow just fine IME.

How low should the lighting be?

I agree with DoubleTripleOG keep the light levels low with fluorescent or low watt Leds.
Another trick is to take off fan leafs to slow vertical growth and allow for some nice side branching when you do throw them into growth mode.

Peace GG

Let them become pot bound. Reduce light, water, nutes. But be careful stressed plants are vulnerable to disease and pests!

Drop the temperature to 50-60 degrees. Reduce lighting intensity and reduce the hours to 18 (On)-6(Off).

I used to hold rooted clones in a stasis state. I would root them in an aerocloner. And then, once rooted, I would put them in a bubble cloner with the same solution that was in the aero. I would keep a 23watt compact flouro over them about 14 inches.

They would stay in there for months. I wouldn’t even clean or dump the solution. I’d just top it off when needed. Sometimes they would start to grow and stretch some. I’d just top them real aggressively and they would then be stunted and just hang out again. It works great.

Here’s a pic of two bubble cloners I was using to hold cuts until I needed them. Some of those were already in there for months...

6 hour light and dark periodes, will slow them down with out any stress.

Palindrome said:

6 hour light and dark periodes, will slow them down with out any stress.

Click to expand...

Damn that's good. Even Spock raised his eyebrow and nodded. I wonder if logic or incompetence found it.





Somehow, chopping the bottom off your rooted cutting, and rooting it again, didn't work. At least, not very well. Unless you wanted hardened off tooth picks.

I have tried a few times. Each the same.

However, getting them up to 500mm and taking a 100mm cutting, made a good cutting. The then mum was also alright.

I do that with my outdoors. To put out a second wave a month later.

Usually the end result of slow clones is stacked nodes. Stacked nodes bad, Stacked nodes very bad...

I'm always forever cloning. I take them for reasons i won't know until later down the line. Therefore i do exactly what you ask. I keep them under a 36 watt fluro (two 18 w fluros). They will grow very slowly... 6 inches every 2 months. I do use soil whilst this is happening. I use the pb 3/4 and half fill them with soil.

Tissue culture.

Do a search for "air layering" and check out my old thread. Not exactly about keeping plants from growing until you want, but then again maybe it is, and a way to wait until you want to cut your clones off.

The mother plant is still connected while the branches root out, and they continue to grow if you want them too, and makes you wonder why you ever cut clones and use a propagation system to begin with..

If you let the air layered roots dry out the plant will start to repair, but then if you get the dried roots wet again, they root out really fast again within a day.

Keeps your plant count down too.

Ive air layered 3ft bushy 1/2" + branches before that are bigger than most peoples plants b4 they flip. You do need a support like a scrog/trellis net to hold them up though if you go that big.

I've been able to keep small bonzai plants alive for months if not years if I wanted.

Now days I can take a small plant, air layer about 50-70% of the branches, and hook her up with a medical IV bag, filled up with a low PH'd dose of cloning formula. Then I use the extra IV tubing with a manifold, hooked to multiple industrial syringe tips, to poke into all the wrapped air layers. Works good for a continous feed, without injecting them everyday, just keep the back topped off. This way its like having one small plant, that is ready to cut as many clones as you need, all in one! Plus they stay healthy and are still connected to mom.

Its a cool way to gift clones to friends, and the look on their face is priceless. Im pretty sure Im the only person to ever do it, but feel free to steal my idea


I really want to graft multiple strains onto bonsai plants with my auto feed air layering idea, be a cool way to keep multiple genetics in a micro size space, and ready to cut clones as i need then..

Rooted under 6666 light





Veg



Slows down a lot!

It took 21 days or something to root thouse clones

prune said:

Usually the end result of slow clones is stacked nodes. Stacked nodes bad, Stacked nodes very bad...

Click to expand...

Never really thought about it but what makes stacked nodes bad?
When they go from veg to bloom, they stretch out nodes, no?
Or now that I am thinking about it: no where for the budage to grow into?

Keep the temp on the cooler side, you might shock em but it will slow them down