Clones won't root

I have been attempting to clone unsuccessfully for about a month now. This is my method: I take a branch that is about 5” long from the bottom of the plant, cut at a 45 degree angle, cut the large leaves in half, dip into rooting hormone, and put into rock wool.

I have a mat heater that keeps the temperature inside the dome at about 80. I spray them twice a day with water that has a PH of 5.5-6.0. I keep the lights on 24/0, and they are about 10” from the domes. It’s been about a month, and I do not have any roots yet. Any suggestions? Is there anything that I am doing wrong? Thanks.

What strain are you trying to clone? Some plants like autoflowering lowryder etc etc are extremerly hard if not impossible to clone.

The rockwool might be too wet. Pull some of them out and look at the stems. If it was to wet they will be all mushy. Also when cutting clones I prefer to do a straight cut because it sits in the rockwool better but my rockwool already has holes in it for the plants. Also you should put little cuts all over the bottom of the stem because roots can grow more easily from the cuts. Lastly I recomend completely preparing the rockwool before putting the cuttings in to prevent having any rooting hormones get washed away.

lorrie1 said:

What strain are you trying to clone? Some plants like autoflowering lowryder etc etc are extremerly hard if not impossible to clone.

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A month seems way too long, but if they're not totally sagged over, who knows? What kinda light are you using? You don't need them very close if your'e using a high watt metal halide. What kind of rooting hormone. I use Clonex. It's a thick gel that I dip them in. I put them in a different medium (forgot what it's called) but it's basically made out of shredded bark and formed into small squares. They fit perfectly into ice trays and I keep the water up about 1/2 an inch. I put them under fluorescents and 10 days later they're loaded with roots. I'd say at least 9 out of 10 success rate. Good luck

check out Subcools thread on this subject ..if you can find it

Cut the leaves in half? Where do the plants store energy? In the leaves....why would you take half the energy source away?Plus why stress them like that?I know some people do it but I don't understand why.

EDIT... And I realize we all have our own ways of doing things and whatever works is a good thing.My way works for me and your way works for you.

my guess: your cuttings are too woody for your gel, tender stems root the easiest. My guru suggested intentionally growing the clone mother under weaker light than usual so that the stems were soft, it works. I root in pure perlite with a bit of my potting soil mixed in (Pro Mix) BTW

it sounds to me like the clones are too big try smaller clones and make shure not to use any fertz I have clones that are 2 months old right now and they still have no roots lol all because I added just a drop of fertz

mustang531981 said:

I have been attempting to clone unsuccessfully for about a month now. This is my method: I take a branch that is about 5” long from the bottom of the plant, cut at a 45 degree angle, cut the large leaves in half, dip into rooting hormone, and put into rock wool.

I have a mat heater that keeps the temperature inside the dome at about 80. I spray them twice a day with water that has a PH of 5.5-6.0. I keep the lights on 24/0, and they are about 10” from the domes. It’s been about a month, and I do not have any roots yet. Any suggestions? Is there anything that I am doing wrong? Thanks.

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after the third day take the dome off and stop spraying them. let the rockwool become almost dry before adding more water. by letting the rockwool dry out somewhat and NOT misting them they will create new roots to seek water. this is good. this is what you want. you need to force them to make roots. you are watering them thru the leaves so they don't need to. stop doing that. remove the dome, stop misting, and let them dry between waterings.

Thanks for the reply. I built an EZ cloner, and now I have 100% success rate.

i had a hard time cloning for a while. i had a clone dome, heat mat, olivias cloning gel, a good environment, and plenty of water. still, i never got roots. instead, the cuttings just rotted. the following are some things i did differently with this batch and have gotten 100% cloning rate. the strain is grapefruit skunk.
1. get the cuttings in the gel within five seconds or air will get into the stem and start the rotting process. i always try and really glop the gel on the stem and scoop it over into the hole of my rooter. there is usually gel overflowing out of the hole in my rooter.
2. put 1/8" perlite at the bottom of your cloning tray (i use a general hydroponics 50 spot rapid rooter tray with dome.) and always keep that perlite soaked in distilled water.
3. i dont mist ever. i keep the vent holes closed on the dome and let condensation build up. you MUST VENT the dome for at least 15 minutes a day. i just take the dome off as soon as i get into the room after work and put it on right before i go make dinner. this gives them fresh air.
4. i do not give them food, only water.

if you are using soil, i would recommend getting some rapid rooters. i like them a lot better than plain rock wool.
good luck!!

Thanks for all of the good advise!

Here is the steps I follow when cloning....I have had good success with these steps...I hope this helps.

It was impossible to find a humidity dome in my town that was tall. Thus the reason to cut up the plastic bottles, I was getting ready to cut some 2 liter pepsi bottles up when i decided to give an old aquarium a try first.

It works well and it had a temperature sticker on the side of it. I just used plastic wrap to cover the top.

1. Start off by getting a clean area to work.

2. Make sure you have your rooting gel or powder, a container of water big enough to do cuttings in, SHARP scissors, and some pre-soaked peat pellets.

3. Spray the aquarium down with hydrogen peroxide.

4. Get a get amount of your rooting agent on your scissors and poke holes int the peat pellets to prepare a home to poke the clones after cutting. I like to get a bunch of the hormone in the hole.

5. Pick your branch for cloning confidently cut it. I like to have a couple sets of nodes. I peel the skin of the plant back by breaking the bottom node apart and peeling the little branches off. This exposes fresh skin to heal.

6. Place the cutting under water and take a 45 degree cut, get some root hormone on the bottom of the cutting and plug it into the peat pod.

7. Use your fingers and poke the peat pod shut so no light gets in around the stem. Place under a small florescent tube light 24 hours a day for a week or so.

8. Don't over water them...i just use the spray bottle of low ppm water (rain water) to do my watering when they look dry, let them breath a couple of times a day by taking the plastic back for a few minutes. Mist them about ounce a day, and don't do too much to them.

Sorry about the length of the post...i just want to get in and help someone, instead of being the one looking for help all the time. Keep up the good work, I hope this helps

Mama Kindbud said:

Cut the leaves in half? Where do the plants store energy? In the leaves....why would you take half the energy source away?Plus why stress them like that?I know some people do it but I don't understand why.

EDIT... And I realize we all have our own ways of doing things and whatever works is a good thing.My way works for me and your way works for you.

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the plant takes up limited amounts of water because it has no roots, and the more leaf matter, the more the clone will evaporate water (through the leaves), so it's best to keep just as few leaves as possible

I have had trouble with rooting clones as well, now i have a 90% positive outcome with cloning, because i stopped feeding my plants before cutting clones. It's best to stop feeding your plants 2 weeks prior to taking cuttings from them, the more nitrogen stored in the plant, the less likely it will be for clones to start rooting.

this is a good place for info!!!
im wondering why in another forum, ive seen them put cuttings straight into a cup of water, no hormone, str8 fresh water, and bam! badass roots!
no misting or dome...
i guess whatever works works!
hope my cuttings grow!!

oh yeah... is cloning ok if the mother is flowering??!?

joebaze said:

this is a good place for info!!!
Im wondering why in another forum, ive seen them put cuttings straight into a cup of water, no hormone, str8 fresh water, and bam! Badass roots!
No misting or dome...
I guess whatever works works!
Hope my cuttings grow!!

Oh yeah... Is cloning ok if the mother is flowering??!?

Click to expand...

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i keep my rockwool cubes wet all the time and have roots in 7 to 9 days. no heat pad but high heat and hummidity. and i leave the dome on 24/7 never misting cuz they are wet the whole timein the dome from the humidity.

i do realize this is an old thread, but id like to inject something.

firstly, if your taking cittings that are old enough to "get air in the stem" your using vegetation thats tol old. in all the years ive been doing this, ive NEVER had to worry about cutting a piece of stem under water as not to get air into it. you want new growth thats still relatively new, but is JUST STARTING to " harden off". youll know your cutting is just right when you make your initial cut with your razor blade and sap drips out or forms. the stem shouldnt be hollow, but it should still be relatively white and soft in the center.

secondly, after making your initial 45 degree cut ,it IS RECOMMENDED that you make to stem cuts lengthwise, leaving you 4 seperate sections on the very bottom of the stem,or scrape away the epidermis layer.. every spot youve cut or scraped that comes in contact with your rooting hormone will likely grow roots. the more exposed cambium layer, the more roots your clone will have. thats why its recomended to scrape the skin from the lower portion of your clones stem, to expose this layer to the rooting hormone. the epidermis acts to seal the stem ( just as your skin seals your body) so this must be scraped away to expose the layers that will root. ive had clones root damn near overnight, and ive had them take as much as 3 weeks to root. also, do NOT use anything THAT CONTAINS FERTILIZERS when cloning. the idea is to get the cutting to start searching for water and nutes elsewere.


thirdly, light makes a huge difference on how fast your clones root. if you keep lights directly on your clones, they will just use up whatever nitrogen and other nutes that are in its own vegatative growth, and not rworry about sending roots down to look for any. youll noticed this after about 10 days. your plants lower leaves will start to yellow quickly ( which is standard for clones who have put roots out as its using the nutes in the growth to make them) and you look and they have no roots, your lights are to strong. you want ambient subtle light, such as on the edge of your grow area, nothing directly shining on the clones.

You would think by now the human race would have botany/propergation by cutting down to more of a science but its some voodoo shit, I've had cuts that root in 7- 14 days as per normal, then others... exact same cut from same plant, method, conditions, everything and they just sit there for months on end, they don't die, they don't root, they don't do fucking anything.

No word of a lie, I've pulled 2-month-old cuts out of pucks and except for paleness they look like they were cut from their mothers yesterday

Ive semi-recently been able to get my hands on a single seed of landrace afghan skunk(which is extremely hard to do without ordering from overseas in my country). And this god forsaken fucking piece of shit just wont clone... 91 cuts over a 5 month period all dead, tried every which way of cloning, tried changing many variables, tried my go-to method that works 90% of the time with another strain... nothing they either rot from the cut then up the stem or just sit there like the living dead, while the other strain, in exact same conditions, medium has roots exploding in 10 days... i love growing but absolutely loath cloning.