[ThePizzaMan]

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

[Rolling Stoner]

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

[Mr. Roseberry]

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]

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

[epicseeds]

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]

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]

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...