OK peeps here we go. Before i start i will explain a bit of how i came to the needs of cloning.
First off im quite new to growing and a seed source was not availible to me when i first started. I was quite paranoid about mail ordering seeds and so with the genetics i could find locally i began my mission of raising a mother plant to take cuttings from. The strain is the purps and is a rare find around my parts.
Now you dont neccisarilly have to raise a mother to take clones from but that is what i did. Mainly because I grow outdoors aswell and needed to produce a shit load of clones at once.
You can take cuttings from any plant anytime while in veg. If you aim to raise a mother you will want to top every shoot that grows above the first node. This will create 2 growing tips now instead of one. If you repeat this process many times you can take upwards of 20-50 clones off 1 plant every 7-14 days. Now unless your a commercial grower or an outdoor guerilla grower you probably wont be needing that many clones.
Ok onto the veg room.
This is my veg/mother/clone room which is built within the flower room and sealed from it aswell. I put the blocks on the floor which the cloner sits atop to help with draining because the amount of water it takes to fill the machine is HEAVY. I run the lights 24/7 for now. Its just a simple t8 floro hood. And i keep it pretty high above the clones as you will see. This room has fresh air intake and exhausts into the flower room. A small fan would work just aswell.
This is the reservoir which is nothing more than a storage tote. Black is ideal when shopping for one. The size you need will depend on how many clones you desire. I originally built this machine to root 15 clones at a time. However i have rooted as many as 200 at once which i will explain further below.
A heavy duty tote is also important. Why? because the cheap sterilite ones will bow out when full of water and will allow in light which will cause algae to grow which will slime up your roots. So Heavy duty and black are 2 important things to look for. If you cant find black you can foil tape the outside and that too will work. This tote cost me $12.00 at ACE hardware.
Notice the square holes in the lid. Those are the root plug sites. This is probably the hardest part of building this unit. It will take some time to cut them holes.
Moving on
Heres the side view and a look at the pump. This is a dual port aquarium pump $18.00 at walmart. I actually run 2 of these one on the front side and one on the back. So ive got a dedicated port for each airstone which really helps create alot more bubbles and mist within the res. One pump will still give great results but youll have dead spots where the bubbles are lacking. The drain spout is optional. It is handy when it comes time to change the water. I have just been pumping my res dry with my utilitech 1/3rd horse water pump right into the drain. Works slicker than ky jelly.
Black air hose is a must. If you use clear you will get algae. $3.00 at walmart. You may want to include some check valves inline to prevent backflow into the pumps. They are cheap insurance at just a few $$ apeice. However i dont use any and havent had a problem yet.
So far $60.00 spent not to bad. Now all we need is some good airstones.
Now you dont have to put a block in the bottom of your cloner but i do so that the airstones are closer to the clone stems. A shallower tote would be benificial but i couldnt find one at the time. Having a larger volume of water also keeps the temps a bit more stable as theres alot more of it to heat when the room gets hot during the heat of the day. Temps generally stay right around 78 degrees give or take.
For airstones i started out using little bitty 1" but they wouldn't stay put in the res and were wizzing around in the bottom so i went up to 12" and they really seem to work well. They are about $3.00 apeice at walmart again. They are heavy enough to stay where I put them under the surface which is nice. Sometimes a deadspot will become evident as the airstones age so youll have to move them around to get the bubbles rumbling evenly across the waters surface.
And here she is full of fresh h2o straight from the tap. My cities water is some of the cleanest water in the USA so im not to worried about using it.
See how evenly the bubbles are bursting on the surface. That is what we want to see. Onto the lid.
Remeber those square holes in the lid?. Well this is what we are going to use to make a snug fitting rooting plug. These are some childrens foam building blocks. I have not been able for the life of me been able to find a retail store who sells these. I stole a few from my kids and bought them a huge lego set for there loss. It was a fair trade.
The finished product. Just a lil trimming to make the plug snug fit into the lid of the cloner and wallah.
As you can see some of the plugs ive cut alot of material from the inners of the plug and thats because i grew 8 clone mothers for the outdoor season this year and i stuffed them lil root plugs just as full of cuttings as i could. 10-15 in each plug. Yes they did root just fine being that crowded and most where very healthy.
One thing I wanted to mention is that you can find an abundance of other materials to use as rooting plugs. You can also order the neoprene type if you wish. I have been asked many times where to get them lil blocks i use and the answer is i dont know. I have looked in every toy isle in my city and cant find em anywhere. They may be availible online somewhere though i never did a search yet for them.
Ok so we are ready to fill her up with clones now. I currently have no need to take clones but i decided today that i will take my 6 mothers in veg and take a cutting each from them and put them into flower. Ill get into that in a bit.
Heres a cutting from blue widow pheno2. Im going to leave only the top 2 sets of leaves.
Ok 3 sets since they are staggered. I slice the bottom straight off. Some say to cut at a 45 under water. Ive done both methods and either way i dont notice any diffrence in rooting times or overall health.
Once the cutting is trimmed i mist the stem with water and dip it in this rooting hormone for just a light coating and put directly in the root plug into the cloner.
Repeat as nescissary. Its really quit simple from here. I have been adding some foxfarm grow big veg nutes to the res in a low dose every water change. I like to change the water twice a month to keep the algae in check.
I have experimented with running the pumps on a timed schedule only to find that 24/7 is the best way to go. If your wanting to lower your electric bill though a schedule of 15 minutes on 45 off will help but slow the root growth slightly.
How Long does it take to root a clone????
Well it depends on the strain. I have found the strains ive aquired locally root really fast compared to strains ive aquired via seedbanks. I dont know why but they root fast. By fast i mean 1 week or less. Ive had some root in as few a 3 days. On the other end of the spectrum ive had strains such as the Arjans Strawberry Haze take as much as a month.
I can tell you that keeping the stems in or at the waters surface in the res is key.
The water level should be checked daily as it will evaporate to some degree. You idealy want to keep the water just at the stem so keep this in mind when taking cuttings. The softer the tissue you take a cutting from will also produce roots faster but they are hard to get as the doner plant ages. As long as that stem stays wet and the groing tip on top of the plant stays alive you will get roots no matter how tuff the stem tissue is. Just be patient. You will first see small roots developing and the foliage starting to yellow a bit and that is when they are ready to explode with root growth.
I let the root ball get about the size of a cigarette lighter and then put them in 4" soil pots. If your growing hydro you can actually veg the clones right in the cloner till ready for the hydro system. Ive done this on a small scale test run to see how well it will work as i plan a 15 bucket hydro run this winter, and it looks like it will work great.
And that concludes this tutorial for now. I will update the progress of the 5 clones i took from each mother today when roots start poppin. If you have any questions lay em on me brothers and sisters. 1BMM
wont post again till ive got something to show off. compete with the big boys haha
