This was my understanding too. I used plain water, only 1 out of 12 showed roots after 3 weeks.
I am struggling to make a connection between the change in environment and the roots starting to show in veg tent.
My leading theories are
1. Health of mother
a. Pests (I don't have anything I can see, I will start spraying as a preventive for a while).
b. Nutrients, I know I don't have optimal nutes, but I do have good healthy green growth, I am not sure if nutes being slightly off would cause clones to stunt to this extent.
2. Cloning conditions
a. Rockwool too wet / dry. Trying to fix this with a flood and drain cloner.
b. Too soft lighting, 15W led @ 10cm, is this enough?
c. Lack of nutes in cloning. I am experimenting taking clones in nutrients at the moment.
Thanks for responses so far! Every perspective helps.
As Spec said, clones don't need a lot of light. For many years a 20w cfl per propagator was my go to.
Root zone temp is key to faster roots and could be why your having different success rates.
Where you take the clones from in relation to the plant matters too, lower new growth is best due to the higher level of growth hormones , but that's not to say you cant root tops too.
If you pay attention to the environment and stay clean you will have higher success rates.
If your really struggling then you can get a seed cell tray and propagator bottom , fill every other cell with perlite and add an inch of water to the tray. That will wick up the perlite , means the stem will never be too wet, its not the fastest method but clones can stay alive like that for as long as it takes without stem rot. Also you literally never need a humidity dome or to mist them ever like that. They wont even wilt slightly.
There's so many ways to do it and they all work, just a case of getting the environment right to give them the best chance.