Yesdog
Well-Known Member
I've been playing around with a new method of cloning that (at least for me) has had a 100% success rate so far (1 exception, this cut of rosemary i tried to clone from a sick plant, this might also not work with woody plants). I've had a high fail rate with other methods i was trying, so I don't really have much to compare it against, but maybe if somebody feels bold and has had success other ways, would be curious to see a comparison.
I'm writing this now, because I just had a cutting root that was.... totally unexpected. It was from a harvested plant, that was flushed, and has been at a super reduced 50% light cycle the last few days. The cutting sat in my basket with the rest of the plant for maybe... 10 minutes before i even touched it. I cleaned it up, prepared it this way, and it rooted within 24-36 hours. So I would be really interested if somebody (that normally has success cloning) wanted to do a side-by-side.
Anyways, this is basically all I did:
Environment- 5 gal bucket with air stones, 1.5" net pot sites on top for pots, or neoprene collars. Basic low-quality DIY bubble cloner. 24hrs of constant 30w 4R:1B LED light. Tap water (pH'd) and RapidStart.
Cutting- I've done it all sorts of ways and its worked. I got a bud to root that was just a bud and sugar leaves, no fan leaves. I've cut through a node, below a node, or just wherever. I like cutting through the nodes because it holds more of the 'paste' im going to describe, makes like a little shelf. I actually don't think I've particularly seen roots come out of the node more than anywhere else tho. I've left on various amounts of fan leaves, the plant seems to wilt more with more fan leaves, and after it recovers it seems to want to lose some of them anyways. So I'll just also kinda trim leaves as I go depending on how they look.
Now the scratch and paste part.
I'm using an insoluble rooting hormone that I bought on accident. I basically came up with this just experimenting with how to use the rooting hormone. The insoluble powder seems to only be for dirt- I'm guessing so it's more likely to stay stuck to the cutting when you water it in. On it's own I either couldn't get enough to stay on there, or I got enough on there that it didn't really wash off easily, and when it did big chunks just sorta fell off. So it either washed off, or it stayed super stuck to the cutting and the cutting dried out eventually and went all wet noodle. I'm honestly not sure how that powder is really supposed to work with dirt, maybe it normally just packs with the dirt when you plant it.
After a while I decided to try and use Great White. I read some post somewhere where they emailed the Great White people (too lazy to look it up) and they recommended putting it on fresh cuttings before putting it into RW or whatever media so the fungus is with the roots immediately, and the other stuff helps protect from rot. I tried this with rockwool plugs (also in that same bubble cloner) and it worked great. They werent like, exploding, and the roots looked like they were struggling with the RW.
So I tried a few cuttings without the RW, just straight into the collars, and tried mixing the rooting powder and the great white. When the dry mix got wet this time, it was much much more like a gooey paste, actually felt like it had some water content to it. It washed way too quick though, just like the normal GW, but maybe took a day at least this time, the clones also really didn't root that fast.
I started playing with scratching the clones and noticed an absolute speed up in rooting and number of roots. So I decided to basically just... mangle the bottom of the stem, I would do a bunch of horizontal cuts down, like if you were air layering. Tons of cuts, scratches, scrapes, they look demolished after. I would take scissors and jam the stem into the angle of the blade (and cutting down, not up). It should almost look shaggy (this was all under water too, glass of tap). Then i would pack the great white and dry rooting hormone mix (1 part GW, 2 parts insoluble hormone, mixed very well) into the wounds with a gloved hand, so it made this pasty looking scab over ever everywhere that was scratched up. I did all the scratching and cutting in a glass of clean tap water. The juice from the plant, excess water, and rough surface area seems to help hydrate the paste enough to stick *really* well sometimes.
I did this exact method on my last... 8 clones. All of them were taken from a flowering plant, and pulled through and rooted in 1-3 days. The picture I posted above was the day after I prepared the cutting. They all have gone through this same process- day one they look dry and pasty going in, next day the 'scab' is more smooth and moist, and is covered in bumps. Then roots from almost all of the bumps. I had to trim roots off of some of these clones because they were popping out all the way up to the neoprene collar.
And as far as humidity and stuff- I don't use a dome, and I've just been spraying them with water a few times a day, especially if they're wilting. Also some of them were wilting a little longer and i noticed the paste on the stem was still reallly reallly thick. So I'd just also lightly spray the stems to get em soaked, but not enough to really force much of the paste off. I feel like it only needs a few days on there and hinders water uptake a bit, so if stays longer i start to wash it off.
I'm guessing the presence of active Mycorrhizae and rooting hormone LITERALLY PACKED INTO THE OPEN WOUND OF A PLANT seems to work really well to stimulate root growth. Granted Mychs can't really live outside of the root zone, they are however physically kept near the plant via the paste, and the paste is mostly hydrated with 'plant blood' . The endo-mychs also have a VIP pass to the new root tissue. I imagine while the stem is covered with fledgling root tissue, the symbiotic process can probably start happening, especially with the paste keeping the spores physically close for so long. The other stuff in the GW probably helps to ward off pathogenic life in the open wound. I really don't even clean the blades i use for this. I can at least confirm that it hasn't hindered my process lol. I went from damn near 0% success to 100% (close to all the clones were from the same 2 plants also).
I'm writing this now, because I just had a cutting root that was.... totally unexpected. It was from a harvested plant, that was flushed, and has been at a super reduced 50% light cycle the last few days. The cutting sat in my basket with the rest of the plant for maybe... 10 minutes before i even touched it. I cleaned it up, prepared it this way, and it rooted within 24-36 hours. So I would be really interested if somebody (that normally has success cloning) wanted to do a side-by-side.
Anyways, this is basically all I did:
Environment- 5 gal bucket with air stones, 1.5" net pot sites on top for pots, or neoprene collars. Basic low-quality DIY bubble cloner. 24hrs of constant 30w 4R:1B LED light. Tap water (pH'd) and RapidStart.
Cutting- I've done it all sorts of ways and its worked. I got a bud to root that was just a bud and sugar leaves, no fan leaves. I've cut through a node, below a node, or just wherever. I like cutting through the nodes because it holds more of the 'paste' im going to describe, makes like a little shelf. I actually don't think I've particularly seen roots come out of the node more than anywhere else tho. I've left on various amounts of fan leaves, the plant seems to wilt more with more fan leaves, and after it recovers it seems to want to lose some of them anyways. So I'll just also kinda trim leaves as I go depending on how they look.
Now the scratch and paste part.
I'm using an insoluble rooting hormone that I bought on accident. I basically came up with this just experimenting with how to use the rooting hormone. The insoluble powder seems to only be for dirt- I'm guessing so it's more likely to stay stuck to the cutting when you water it in. On it's own I either couldn't get enough to stay on there, or I got enough on there that it didn't really wash off easily, and when it did big chunks just sorta fell off. So it either washed off, or it stayed super stuck to the cutting and the cutting dried out eventually and went all wet noodle. I'm honestly not sure how that powder is really supposed to work with dirt, maybe it normally just packs with the dirt when you plant it.
After a while I decided to try and use Great White. I read some post somewhere where they emailed the Great White people (too lazy to look it up) and they recommended putting it on fresh cuttings before putting it into RW or whatever media so the fungus is with the roots immediately, and the other stuff helps protect from rot. I tried this with rockwool plugs (also in that same bubble cloner) and it worked great. They werent like, exploding, and the roots looked like they were struggling with the RW.
So I tried a few cuttings without the RW, just straight into the collars, and tried mixing the rooting powder and the great white. When the dry mix got wet this time, it was much much more like a gooey paste, actually felt like it had some water content to it. It washed way too quick though, just like the normal GW, but maybe took a day at least this time, the clones also really didn't root that fast.
I started playing with scratching the clones and noticed an absolute speed up in rooting and number of roots. So I decided to basically just... mangle the bottom of the stem, I would do a bunch of horizontal cuts down, like if you were air layering. Tons of cuts, scratches, scrapes, they look demolished after. I would take scissors and jam the stem into the angle of the blade (and cutting down, not up). It should almost look shaggy (this was all under water too, glass of tap). Then i would pack the great white and dry rooting hormone mix (1 part GW, 2 parts insoluble hormone, mixed very well) into the wounds with a gloved hand, so it made this pasty looking scab over ever everywhere that was scratched up. I did all the scratching and cutting in a glass of clean tap water. The juice from the plant, excess water, and rough surface area seems to help hydrate the paste enough to stick *really* well sometimes.
I did this exact method on my last... 8 clones. All of them were taken from a flowering plant, and pulled through and rooted in 1-3 days. The picture I posted above was the day after I prepared the cutting. They all have gone through this same process- day one they look dry and pasty going in, next day the 'scab' is more smooth and moist, and is covered in bumps. Then roots from almost all of the bumps. I had to trim roots off of some of these clones because they were popping out all the way up to the neoprene collar.
And as far as humidity and stuff- I don't use a dome, and I've just been spraying them with water a few times a day, especially if they're wilting. Also some of them were wilting a little longer and i noticed the paste on the stem was still reallly reallly thick. So I'd just also lightly spray the stems to get em soaked, but not enough to really force much of the paste off. I feel like it only needs a few days on there and hinders water uptake a bit, so if stays longer i start to wash it off.
I'm guessing the presence of active Mycorrhizae and rooting hormone LITERALLY PACKED INTO THE OPEN WOUND OF A PLANT seems to work really well to stimulate root growth. Granted Mychs can't really live outside of the root zone, they are however physically kept near the plant via the paste, and the paste is mostly hydrated with 'plant blood' . The endo-mychs also have a VIP pass to the new root tissue. I imagine while the stem is covered with fledgling root tissue, the symbiotic process can probably start happening, especially with the paste keeping the spores physically close for so long. The other stuff in the GW probably helps to ward off pathogenic life in the open wound. I really don't even clean the blades i use for this. I can at least confirm that it hasn't hindered my process lol. I went from damn near 0% success to 100% (close to all the clones were from the same 2 plants also).
Last edited:
. Note I do use a pair of scissors to cut them so not a clean slice more of a crush thing 
.