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ongoing biweekly cloning attempts and failures

PaulieWaulie

Member
Veteran
3 years growing experience, had success in first year, now in a 2 year rut.

I had another post for my previous 2 attempts in March here...

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=371345

Figured I would make an official thread, seeing as it will take many attempts.

I have Turboklone24 that I just got, but low and behold first 2 runs with no sucess, I will also be doing 2 trays of rockwool side by side continuously.

The purpose of this thread, is to get advice, then follow advice, then fail, then show you the results of your advice and ask why?
Every attempt I will switch up 1-2 things in the environment until success is achieved.

I will start a new turboklone run in 1 week and will post it here. Did 2 trays of rockwool cubes yesterday, here they are on D1.

TEMPS

heat mat set 78F, the heating range is 76-80. Probe is inserted in a cube inside the dome

HUMIDITY

both vents are completely open. I am seeing 80-90RH.

GRODAN CUBES

soaked over night in 5.7PH Tap water. Put in salad spinner to reduce water content to 50% of water capacity. I used a scale to weigh it dry, then completely soaked and weighed it, then subtracted to figure out what was 50%. I also am experimenting with different grodans, I have 3 variations, the 1.5", the 1", and a 1" split in half.


MOMS/CLONES

10 different strains being cloned, 2-4 cuttings each. So its not a matter of oh this genetics takes maybe longer or is harder etc.


LIGHTS

17W 4FT LED TUBE, 4K, @ 18/6, 12" DISTANCE = 5K LUMENS



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SuperBadGrower

Active member
I read through the other thread & I guarantee all your problems will be solved if you stopped using domes. I clone in 40% RH without dome, 7.5 PH tap water and NAA. All the fussing around with PH and nutrients is not necessary

clonee.jpg
 

superpedro

Member
Veteran
Those are big clones.
I have never done anything but small clones. I belive the stems develop roots faster if cut above where the stem is hollow.
And from there it's easy to catch up to bigger cuts..
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10 days later
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AgentPothead

Just this guy, ya know?
I read through the other thread & I guarantee all your problems will be solved if you stopped using domes. I clone in 40% RH without dome, 7.5 PH tap water and NAA. All the fussing around with PH and nutrients is not necessary

View attachment 526268
That's not a clone, that's a branch! Most people take much, much, much smaller clones. And that being the case, yes I would most definitely use a humidity dome. Unless you are using one of the air/water cloners. Those keep the root areas humid enough a dome isn't needed.
 

Maple_Flail

Well-known member
those are some leafy clones IMHO

way too much for the plant to feed off of, before it will want to grow roots and take to your solution.

I think your clone/cutting selection needs a bit of work. Meaning what you decide to cut off for a clone and how much or how little you manicure it before you set it to root.

whats the mother plants health like?
 

SuperBadGrower

Active member
That's not a clone, that's a branch! Most people take much, much, much smaller clones. And that being the case, yes I would most definitely use a humidity dome.

These are right next to them :
thin-one.jpg

Its not like I'm only cloning a plant with thick branches for years... I clone everything this way, from 3 to 9 inch.
thick-one.jpg

thin-ones-2.jpg
thin-ones-3.jpg

Never a dome
 

SuperBadGrower

Active member
Even if they wilt at first they always come back after a few hours :)
wilting.jpg
wiltreturn.jpg
They tend to wilt if the mother plant is low on water

If that stem is surrounded by water it has no choice but to take it, no matter what medium

(My mistake to use 100% perlite BTW, I was not anticipating low RH :laughing: add coco to retain moisture)
In my first year or years of cloning I had some plants die from not hardening them off or just rotting up inside the dome.. also root rot. so I figured I would stop using those domes

All that said, of course 65% or 70% is better =) But rather 40% than ~85% and above IMO, that's where some lethal problems seem to come... 40% they can handle...at 30% I'm sure we would see them die too!
 
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AgentPothead

Just this guy, ya know?

Blazeee

Well-known member
Veteran
those are some leafy clones IMHO

way too much for the plant to feed off of, before it will want to grow roots and take to your solution.

I think your clone/cutting selection needs a bit of work. Meaning what you decide to cut off for a clone and how much or how little you manicure it before you set it to root.

whats the mother plants health like?

This! Start by taking more material off, those clones are way too leafy, cut them back to the length in the pictures posted by superbadgrower. Start by doing this first.

Personally I root my clones with the dome on, maybe my environments different to you guys, but start by taking more material off first, then experiment removing the dome.
 

SuperBadGrower

Active member
Those look great but every single one of them is about 2x the size of my clones. Maybe that's why mine clone slowly compared to the rest of ya'll? I honestly dunno.

Hmm, it could be man! To me, those are really quite small ones. Right now thye are about 4.5-5 inch but they have grown a bit. it has a great success rate like this, the piece of branch, though small, is rigid enough to support the new growth in case it wilts. :)

I got some other branches going, I like to leave as many node tips as possible, but yeah, having less fan leaves helps I think, as said before! There was a study done on cloning where the results were optimal with 3 fan leaves remaining and not snipping the tips. However it's just one study

https://www.researchgate.net/public...position_rooting_hormone_and_leaf_tip_removal
 

starke

Well-known member
FWIW I clone like SuperBadGrower, in solo hempys with a mix of perlite and hydroton. I water them every other day just like a hempy. About a 95% success rate pretty much regardless of humidity or water quality. Clones have rooted just as quickly in my .2ec/8.0ph well water, that same water ph'd to 5.8 and that water run through my RO at 0ec/5.8ph.

Based on my experience thus far I think too much moisture both RH and root zone have killed more clones than anything else.
 
T

TakenByTheSky

Too much leaf, the cutting will put too much energy on keeping those leaves alive and not enough into rooting.

I always use peat pucks and cheap Walmart cloning powder in a plastic cup with a plastic bag over it and get about 90% on average.

After years of doing it I can get almost any cut to root no matter how beat up with enough time and a little TLC.

A healthy well watered mother before cuts are taken helps Alot.
 

PaulieWaulie

Member
Veteran
The second run is on day 6, and I have started to witness drooping on some cuts, when pulling up they show rotting. This run has been done with 50% water capacity rockwool cubes, and having vent lids 100% open giving me humidity range of 70-80%. No condensation inside the dome has been developing.This proves that in this case my problems of not rooting, and rotting, has nothing to do with Rockwell wetness, or domes or humidity.

I also watched 20-30 youtube cloning videos and I see people generally doing everything and getting great results in 5-7 days.

Some people have massive leafy clones! Some Tiny, Some literally pour water on Rockwell cubes, others squeeze them out, some leave domes on 100% closed until roots are shown, others start opening vents on day 3 slowly. Some scrape the stems, some don't, some ph the water and do nutrients, some use plain tap water. Some use heating mats on all the time, others intermittent 15 mins on 15 mins off, some on a controller, some no heating matte.

So ultimately everyone has their own technique.

I feel like I'm paying specific attention to all the parameters way more than any of these guys, and I'm getting no results. Something is very very wrong. I have now failed the 3rd rockwool run, supervised by the community.

As far as clone size, I have been starting to make them smaller, some are very small. if size was indeed the culprit, I would have the 1/3 of the cuttings that are smaller root for me, which is not the case. But yes I will make all small cuts moving forward tiny. I have started removing all the fan leaves from my mom, so that I just have small secondary leaves remaining by the time I take the cutting in a few days. This should also be less stressful since less cutting is being done on the cuts at time of cloning.

The issue could also be not enough light or too much, and also the wrong spectrum.

No one is giving specific numbers for the amount of Lux on any videos I watched. Someone said 20-30W LED over a tray. Another video said 90 micromoles which is about 3-5K LUX.

I will say that my current turbo klone run had no roots for 14 days, then I changed to an LED from CFL and shortened the distance and my lux went from 3K to 8K, and a week later today I have seen roots forming on 3 cuttings. So this light change could be the reason, it def didn't hurt.

So I am buying one of these to experiment on the next run to have a different spectrum closer to 6500K

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0...&pf_rd_p=05326fd5-c43e-4948-99b1-a65b129fdd73

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0761KKJGQ...olid=29MLUGZ472UWL&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it


Another thing could be the heating mat. Sure 78-80F gives optimal results, but maybe its going over 1-2F to 82 in some areas and causing the rot.

I will set the temp to 74F on the next run so as to not provide heat but just make sure it doesn't get cold.

I will post RUN #4 in a few days. I will give the current run until day 10 ish until I pull the plug on it, since almost half the cuts on day 7 have shown rotting it is basically a failure again.

If I don't figure out this cloning thing, I will have to quit growing. I have about 2 months to figure it out, so that's 4 runs, even though I can do 2 runs at the same time side by side, so if I can think of enough variables to switch up for each run I will keep testing. Once I run out of variables I will be at a dead end, and just have to realize that I don't have a greenthump after giving my life to this hobby for 3 years. The frustration is so high for me, that suicide is being considered. Don't worry I wont do it. But man, there would be some final release to this frustration I am feeling every day until I start seeing roots.

PS. Im not a complete idiot, I have a bloom room filled with 16 Lime Gorilla Bubbles that look great. So I'm not some bumbling fool.
 

PaulieWaulie

Member
Veteran
FWIW I clone like SuperBadGrower, in solo hempys with a mix of perlite and hydroton. I water them every other day just like a hempy. About a 95% success rate pretty much regardless of humidity or water quality. Clones have rooted just as quickly in my .2ec/8.0ph well water, that same water ph'd to 5.8 and that water run through my RO at 0ec/5.8ph.

Based on my experience thus far I think too much moisture both RH and root zone have killed more clones than anything else.

I will try this way with a few cups, reading the SGS sticky right now.

THX!
 

pinkus

Well-known member
Veteran
WAY too much leaf material. A topknot of leaf and a stem will work infinitely better.
 

PaulieWaulie

Member
Veteran
Even if they wilt at first they always come back after a few hours :)
View attachment 526310
View attachment 526311
They tend to wilt if the mother plant is low on water

If that stem is surrounded by water it has no choice but to take it, no matter what medium

(My mistake to use 100% perlite BTW, I was not anticipating low RH :laughing: add coco to retain moisture)
In my first year or years of cloning I had some plants die from not hardening them off or just rotting up inside the dome.. also root rot. so I figured I would stop using those domes

All that said, of course 65% or 70% is better =) But rather 40% than ~85% and above IMO, that's where some lethal problems seem to come... 40% they can handle...at 30% I'm sure we would see them die too!


I had no wilting this current rune with dome vents completely open, giving 70-80RH. Unfortunately still no success, for some other reason obviously than this...
 

PaulieWaulie

Member
Veteran
This! Start by taking more material off, those clones are way too leafy, cut them back to the length in the pictures posted by superbadgrower. Start by doing this first.

Personally I root my clones with the dome on, maybe my environments different to you guys, but start by taking more material off first, then experiment removing the dome.

Will do!, I will also do just 1 cut per cube. So will be easier for you guys to see what they look like in the pics I post.

THX, check back again!
 

bsgospel

Bat Macumba
What are you feeding your moms? Can we get a peek at those too?

When it comes to rockwool, I think you could speed things up by adding a little nutrition and cloning gel. When you spin dry the cubes and shake them of excess water, you're not squeezing them too hard or anything, right?

Soil or plugs- these have some minimum of nutrition. The rockwool is just a blank slate (for the most part). I think you could get roots out of that if you waited long enough but I've never attempted just rockwool and water.

What works for me in any medium is 110 micro moles, 70% humidity, a little dip of gel, and watering only when necessary. Optional (soil, coco, or plugs)- 200ppm of some seedling or quarter strength nute mix. I also only take the best tops, no hollow stems, from fully fed mothers. 8" lengths, snipped leaf tips or not (I find it doesn't matter), 2-3 nodes.

You'll get it, just hang in there.
 

aridbud

automeister
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Soil or plugs- these have some minimum of nutrition. The rockwool is just a blank slate (for the most part). I think you could get roots out of that if you waited long enough but I've never attempted just rockwool and water.
When we used to run nice looking bag seed way back when, it was rockwool cubes (rinsed and filtered water). Worked well for cloning! No domes, no gel...just cubes moistened. I think a lot of failures comes from drenching cubes.

Now such a seedster, haven't cloned (except for landscaping plants), in a long time.
 
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