When I say "8-14 days to roots", I don't mean tiny white nubs. I mean 8-14 days to 4"-6" root systems. That's pretty respectable, from what I've seen around here. Beyond that, it's tuning, not problem solving. I have a removable dome for mine, I bought a regular old ez cloner. I've done it with or without the dome, with and without ph-ing, and with and without the rooting gel, and with and without temp. controls.
The dome made as much difference as a fart in a hurricane regarding my rooting times. However, it did do a lovely job of fostering PM and some sort of mold on multiple runs. Your leaves don't need the moisture unless your cuttings are transpiring too much for the stem to keep up. Maybe in some places it makes a difference. For people in my climate, it doesn't. I'll also trade a day or two of rooting time for no PM any day. I have more clones at any given time than I have room to flower them. If you figure out how to get ahead of your grow needs with your cloning, those two days aren't even a loss. I can't smoke a clone, why make it so hard for myself? Know what I mean?
The only reason those labs you mention are going so crazy is because...well... that's a lab, their goal is to maximize it as much as possible. However, a laboratory is not there to make the call of whether the cost outweighs the reward. A lab does things that are inconvenient, because it has a favorable result. While that maximization may take a day off my rooting times, all that time spent on my clones could be better spent doing any one of a thousand things I could do. Plus, then I have to check them constantly for shit growing on them, and to ensure it's vented enough, until the day I pull them out. Then there's the fact that if I didn't want to continue the risk; I'd have to plant them as soon as they were rooted, therefore causing me to have to alter my personal schedule to plant my clones. If it works for you, keep doing it. However, also take into account that most people have more interesting things to do than put forth extra effort for a perk that has a negligible upside. I save time rooting, theoretically, but to what end really?
By seeing the days it takes you to clone, 8 - 14 days, I can tell that you're cloning isn't as efficient as it can be outside of strain genetics, and it is probably due to a few of the things I'm discussing. I'm not denying that you can get roots in tap water, I have cloned with a simple glass of water multiple times sitting on a window sill. However, when you go to a botany lab and you see how THEY process clones and what THEY do to ensure clones get roots you will realize the environment you are creating is not ideal. The warm water keeps the moisture in the air high, the dome traps that moisture, you can root either way, but I would love to see you build two exact cloners and side by side with and without a dome.
To be understood, how glorious, no!?
