Super tight collars, will they kill my plants?

Hello everyone. A few weeks ago I made an aero type cloner. Just a water pump with sprinkler head in a 5 gallon bucket with the timer set to 15 min on, 15 off. It's been working awesome with almost anything I put in it and I figured I'd try to go ahead an just grow a plant in it since I've rooted all the MJ clones I can handle.

The question is regarding the collars I made. They are foam with a material that seems almost identical to those cheap pool noodles.


They are very tight on the stems and although I didn't have any problems with the small clones, the oldest one was discolored on the stem where the foam was holding it. If I have to get another lid and cut holes for netpots I will but I'd rather stick with the foam if I can for an entire grow.

I have small and larger collars. I planned on using one of the larger ones until I needed to increase the diameter to accommodate the stem in a month or two when it gets too large.




I've already pulled my MJ clones but have a tomato for an image showing how tight they are.

(I haven't changed the rez in about 12-14 days so it's starting to get a little funky, going to change it out today)



What do you guys think?

Yup tight! Could you not just lay them on top of the holes? Would they still hold the cutting doing that. Im wondering that as well, about to start clones in aero garden. Could you make the holes bigger?

waterdawg said:

Yup tight! Could you not just lay them on top of the holes? Would they still hold the cutting doing that. Im wondering that as well, about to start clones in aero garden. Could you make the holes bigger?

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It would still hold them as just cuttings but I had all different lengths as was worried about controlling how much stem was exposed to the nutrients on some of them. I think I'll just make the holes on the lid bigger and add net pots or use one of those pool noodles and run the stem down it and let the leaves hold it up.

For the time being, I am testing with some tomatoes, broccoli and lettuce as I've already put the clones I wanted in a DWC unit. We'll see how it goes.

Yup I just use netpots. So light proof is not a requirement?

waterdawg said:

Yup I just use netpots. So light proof is not a requirement?

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Ok
Lately I've just been filling the holes with lava rock to prevent light getting in. That's why I wanted to keep using the foam collars. Another thing is those lava rocks go shooting all over the floor whenever I open the lid to put ice bottle in or check the roots. Collars alone would be the cleaner option.

FrostyPelican said:

Ok
Lately I've just been filling the holes with lava rock to prevent light getting in. That's why I wanted to keep using the foam collars. Another thing is those lava rocks go shooting all over the floor whenever I open the lid to put ice bottle in or check the roots. Collars alone would be the cleaner option.

Click to expand...

Lol how full are they? I open my lid every day to check roots and no balls come rolling out.

waterdawg said:

Lol how full are they? I open my lid every day to check roots and no balls come rolling out.

Click to expand...

Sorry for delay, been out.

Haha, not that full but it's when I put the ice bottle in (still very hot here and cool tube on the way). Until they get bigger I'm now using a bunch of 2 in netpots so the lava rocks kind of stick up and are loose. I think I'm going to just slice off parts of a pool noodle so it's like a doughnut and drop the stem down it. It won't be tight like that until they get large.

Last year I grew a good sized plant in a 2 inch netpot and the roots broke it and part of the stalk embedded it self in it.

I just started using 3" and was using 6" lol. But yup even 3" seems a bit cramped. Still I have no issues yet. I may try the noodles as well for cloning then into the netpots and hydroton.