Fall of the Clones, please help!

I just recently cloned for my first time. After just an hour of cloning my clones began to fall limp. Now, about 20 hours later, they're completely fallen over, wilted, and dead. Where did I go wrong? Here's what I did.

Step 1: Soaked rockwool cubes in distilled reverse osmosis water (1ppm), the water was adjusted using hydroponic pH down prior to soaking. pH was 5.5. I then cut my clones from my plants at a 45 degree angle with a clean and sterile razor, dipped them in clonex root solution, and inserted them in to the soaked cubes. I put the cubes holding my cut clones in a clean aluminum pie pan and under a plastic humindity box, then put them under my CFL light in my newly built veg box. The light was about 2 inches above the top of the plastic, about 5 inches from the top of the clones.

Clearly I need to try again. I have some FF ocean forrest soil, should I use that instead of rockwool cubes? I don't have enough branches to botch another set of clones, please help!

Wow, it sounds like you did everything right. Sometimes doing everything right just doesn't get it though. Its just a case of bad luck. I've had a string of bad luck lately myself.

The cuttings need a chance to recover from being cut. Next time immeadiately after cutting as you described, place them in a glass of room temp water. Do not use rooting gel. Let them sit in indirect light for 24 to 48 hours, THEN dip them in rooting gel (I like Rootech) and plant them exactly as you described.

I tried doing what you did once... I lost over half the cuttings.

BTW... I use regular tap water. I read years ago that the mild chlorine in tap water helps kill bacteria. Maybe it's my water, but I never have a problem.

Good Luck!

Bump for support. I need to clone again soon, please help.

fuck rockwool. take those same stems and recut them under water. then take a dwc system, anything that holds water with an airstone, and stick them in it. keep the leaves out an just the stem in. i used a coffee can and just poked some holes in the lid. dropped in the fresh cut under water clones and bamn a few days u got succes. i used superthrive after a few days and i think it helped but it not needed. that my advice. i got 100 percent success.gl

I cut 2 test clones and put them in cups of water. One in a cup of tap water and one in a cup of reverse osmosis distilled water. I'll post updates tomorrow.

Thanks for the good advice! What's the dwc system? Also, do you guys recommend the plastic cover for a humidity chamber?

Also what is the next step here? If they do survive in their cups of water how long until I take them out? When should I dip them in cloning solution? When should I put them in soil?

put an airstone in the cup of water. u'll see. otherwise it looked like u had ur rockwool too wet..

Dont squeeze rockwool. Your crushing all the air space.

DWC = deep water.. chamber I think (? someone correct me, please). I use peat pots with great success, always use hormone as soon as I place the cuttings into the pots. The cuttings are places pretty much immediately after being taken. I keep the light at VERY low levels, on for 24hrs/day. I also trim down the leaves severely. Sorry, haven't put up any pix of my clones, but if you look at how Subcool trims his down you'll see what I mean.

Good luck!

you didnt soak the cloans for 2-5 mins after you cut, after you do that you then you roll in root solution. then keep under lights for extensive periods of time. some people put under for 24 hrs and it works. some die at 24. play around with it near there.

SelfSupplied said:

Also what is the next step here? If they do survive in their cups of water how long until I take them out? When should I dip them in cloning solution? When should I put them in soil?

Click to expand...

I've let a batch of +cuttings sitin water for a week (got busy and +f+orgot em) They will actually start growing roots in the water. If you're going with a soil grow you could just let them root in the water and then plant them in your dirt.

Humidity is very necessary. I keep my whole clone room humid and so do not use domes, but if you have humidity levels lower than 50% you should use domes for a week after planting the rooted cuttings.

I am expert in hydro, but have no experience growing in dirt (I hate getting dirty ) so maybe you should listen to peeps who DO dirt grows after you plant your cuttings.

WHY DIRT?

After reading all the posts prior to my input, I'd say the problem was the lack of moisture around the stem and humidity ( the lack thereof ). You must make your 45 degree cut under water. Just to prevent air contacting your cut. Dip in rooting hormone and place in your rockwool or rapid rooter as quickly as possible. Tap water that has set for 24 hours is perfectly fine for watering. DO NOT use any kind of metal container for any reason. I personally use rapid rooters placed in a styrophome egg carton. The size of the egg carton fits well inside a tupperware type cover to keep the humidity high. Once the roots start to appear thru the sides of the rapid rooter, I'll transplant to my growing medium, be it a hydro system or soil. Makes no difference. You must keep the humidity high for about 4-5 more days in your growing medium. Wilting and dyeing is in my opinion the result of low humidity. Good luck on your next attempt to clone. Hope this helps. Nim

thats was my thoughts aswell i have always cloned with rockwool and clonex and 9/10 of my clones make it and make sure a couple times a day ur spary disstilled water in the dome with a spray bottle to keep humidity up

Update.

I cut two clones last night to test this method of just sitting them in cups of water. I used peices of aluminum foil with holes in them at the top of the cups to hold the plants in place. One cup had distilled water (7.0pH, 2ppm) the other cup had straight tap water (7.6pH, 146ppm). The distilled water clone died this morning, the tap water clone looks alive and well. After this result I purchased a shallow tupperware and will modify it tomorrow with rubber stoppers to hold my clones in it, then I'll fill it with straight tap water and try with 7 more. The notion of chlorine in the water killing bacteria is a solid thought.

On a semi-unrelated note, I purchased several clear plastic ketchup/mustard bottles tonight to put nutes in as means to make water solutions much less time consuming and less messy. I labeled them all with black markers and got to thinking...is the fact that the containers are clear going to pose a problem? They have some light from my room getting to them, is this going to cause a problem?

My one living clone has become bright white in the center of all five of the top leaves (but not on any of the bottom leaves). Why is this?

How does the airstone work? I looked at some online and it looks like they're rocks you connect to an air pump to put bubbles in the water. If it's a problem to get air bubbles in to the stems wouldn't this be counterintuitive?

if its the machine im thinking your thinking of, the bubles mist the bottom of the cutting thus misting it providing an efficient amout of water. it could be something totaly different. does it hold like 14 and look like a black box?

The airstone keeps oxygen in the water, a necessity for roots to grow.

The reason you might want to make your initial cut underwater is to prevent an air emolism, which is where a bubble of air gets caught in the stem, kind of like a blood clot, and causes the plant to die. This isn't a risk while using an airstone in a DWC system, but becomes one when you take a bunch of cuttings and don't dip the first one in water until you;ve cut them all. Either make the cut underwater or stick your cutting in a cup of water as soon as you make it to prevent embolisms.