Trying to up my cloning game

Uncle Reefer said:

I just use side lighting from the veg room.Sub 80 degree room using jiffy pucks, just filtered tap water and a clean tray and lid. 7 days half got roots 12 days I got way more than I need. Yes, you can way over think cloning. The main thing is to have a super healthy doner ( don't call them mums because I, just don't keep mums. Every cutting is from a plant about to go into flower.) Be sure that the doner gets no nutes a week before the cutting.

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thenotsoesoteric said:

If it is cold I use a heating pad but other than that I simply use trimming shears and take cuts and immediately dip them in plain water and stick them right into pre PH'd and moistened rock wool cubes. No dome, no rooting gels, just a t5 and plain water till the cuts start yellowing or roots pop out f the bottom of the cube.

I honestly only had dampening off when I used domes and rooting gels, but this was also early in my growing years. I did do the DIY aero 5 gallon bucket and those things kick ass but are a pain in the ass compared to my current method. I don't typically lose clones and usually only takes a week or week and a half for roots.

I have had roots in 3-4 days using the dome and gel combo but typically 60% would root and 40% would wilt and when you lose a awesome cut because the clone wilted it hurts so you learn not to do that again.

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Budley Doright said:

I get dampening with RW but never had it using root riot cubes and honestly without the dome I have shit luck.

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CobKits said:

for many years i would take successful cuts into 1.5" cubes and be 90%+ successful in 10-21 days, by following the old Ed lore/wisdom of:

-dont fertilize with N right before cutting (id throw em on a bloom nute for a few days)
-take lower slightly woody branches
-2-3 node cuttings root the best
-remove all fan leaves
-moderate light
-water only! no nutes
-mist dome daily and open up once a day to allow for air circulation

id throw em under a 15W 18" t8 tube and have great success

somewhere a few years ago i stopped having the same success. High percentage taking forever to root/losing vigor/damping off. i attributed this to a few factors (not exactly linear in my discovery of them but more of a summary of what i know right now):

-cloning hormone solutions have changed. I remember IBA being banned/frowned upon so i thought that was the reason. last few years ive used the purple clonex gel with spotty results. back in the day i used to use a product called Woods (IBA + NAA) which stopped becoming available at my local store in the late 90s (this is way way before i would order stuff on the internet) i switched to olivias (no IBA) and it was never as good. i took a break from growing from 2002-2007 and after that used clonex but never could get the same results i used to

-possibly genetics. im a mostly one or two trick pony these days but i think weve all seen those easy rooting strains that you just cant stop (Dark Heart's "Dream Queen" comes to mind). its possible that i had some real easy cloning strains back in the day but not so much now. I tend to go for same phenos then as now so i dont think that is all that significant

-i got too ambitious. After seeing people root giant top branches in 7 days i tried to replicate but of course these greener ones were harder to root, and damping off was more common

-my setup changed. namely temp and lighting. using mostly led lighting for cloning but back then i was running 8x1000W hps. now i run a lot less watts and its LED so my overall temps are different in my space a bit, might be too cool for the cuts and exacerbated by the low radiant heat of the leds on the leaves

-aerocloners/DWC cloners. Ive had mixed results with these. when they work they are amazing. they maintain vigor and have explosive root growth. When they fail i lose the whole tray and it sucks. i think i can make it work with the right clones, right precautions, not reusing foam pucks, using clear rez, etc, but at the end of the day its too much work and too high of a chance of catastrophic failure

So anyway this was annoying but i could deal, i would just take more cuts and roll with it. I got pissed off this week because my friend took a bunch of cuts for me on thanksgiving and called me and 100% of them were rooted. i took a tray about the same time - 0% were rooted. ok so theres got to be lots of room for improvement.

so my method is the same as its its been. my cubes are stacked (not squeezed!) before i put cuts in them to make sure they are wet but not saturated. low light so they arent uptaking much, after 7 days i check them and lightly mist bottom of cube to maintain moisture

his method:

use a grodan insert tray



put cuts into upside-down rapidrooters in the cells and fill a solid tray underneath with water up to just the bottom of the rapidrooters and let them wick.

using dip and grow concentrate to unknown dilution (i need to follow up)

also not sure of his light intensity or if he used a heat mat

so today i went and got some dip-n-grow concentrate (1% IBA/ 0.5% NAA) and also some cheap 0.1% IBA powder from Lowes

i think part of the problem is that the 0.3% IBA in clonex is literally too much and is inhibiting rooting

i got some root riot plugs and also the smaller sheets of rw cubes that fit that tray

another method ive heard of is fill the tray up to water below the media and crank your heat pad and let it evaporate the water up to the media and clones

so i was going to experiment with root riot plugs vs rw and try to use a few different chems including

clonex as-is
clonex diluted from 0.3 to 0.1 IBA
0.1 IBA powder from lowes
dip and gro diluted to 0.1 IBA and 0.05 NNA

thoughts? i hope to up my game to where i can root big tops in <14 days and keep the vigor. that will likely involve feeding them nute solutions and stronger lights. For now i would be happy to get back to high success rate with smaller cuts and then build on that

Click to expand...

CobKits said:

for many years i would take successful cuts into 1.5" cubes and be 90%+ successful in 10-21 days, by following the old Ed lore/wisdom of:

-dont fertilize with N right before cutting (id throw em on a bloom nute for a few days)
-take lower slightly woody branches
-2-3 node cuttings root the best
-remove all fan leaves
-moderate light
-water only! no nutes
-mist dome daily and open up once a day to allow for air circulation

id throw em under a 15W 18" t8 tube and have great success

somewhere a few years ago i stopped having the same success. High percentage taking forever to root/losing vigor/damping off. i attributed this to a few factors (not exactly linear in my discovery of them but more of a summary of what i know right now):

-cloning hormone solutions have changed. I remember IBA being banned/frowned upon so i thought that was the reason. last few years ive used the purple clonex gel with spotty results. back in the day i used to use a product called Woods (IBA + NAA) which stopped becoming available at my local store in the late 90s (this is way way before i would order stuff on the internet) i switched to olivias (no IBA) and it was never as good. i took a break from growing from 2002-2007 and after that used clonex but never could get the same results i used to

-possibly genetics. im a mostly one or two trick pony these days but i think weve all seen those easy rooting strains that you just cant stop (Dark Heart's "Dream Queen" comes to mind). its possible that i had some real easy cloning strains back in the day but not so much now. I tend to go for same phenos then as now so i dont think that is all that significant

-i got too ambitious. After seeing people root giant top branches in 7 days i tried to replicate but of course these greener ones were harder to root, and damping off was more common

-my setup changed. namely temp and lighting. using mostly led lighting for cloning but back then i was running 8x1000W hps. now i run a lot less watts and its LED so my overall temps are different in my space a bit, might be too cool for the cuts and exacerbated by the low radiant heat of the leds on the leaves

-aerocloners/DWC cloners. Ive had mixed results with these. when they work they are amazing. they maintain vigor and have explosive root growth. When they fail i lose the whole tray and it sucks. i think i can make it work with the right clones, right precautions, not reusing foam pucks, using clear rez, etc, but at the end of the day its too much work and too high of a chance of catastrophic failure

So anyway this was annoying but i could deal, i would just take more cuts and roll with it. I got pissed off this week because my friend took a bunch of cuts for me on thanksgiving and called me and 100% of them were rooted. i took a tray about the same time - 0% were rooted. ok so theres got to be lots of room for improvement.

so my method is the same as its its been. my cubes are stacked (not squeezed!) before i put cuts in them to make sure they are wet but not saturated. low light so they arent uptaking much, after 7 days i check them and lightly mist bottom of cube to maintain moisture

his method:

use a grodan insert tray

View attachment 4052835

put cuts into upside-down rapidrooters in the cells and fill a solid tray underneath with water up to just the bottom of the rapidrooters and let them wick.

using dip and grow concentrate to unknown dilution (i need to follow up)

also not sure of his light intensity or if he used a heat mat

so today i went and got some dip-n-grow concentrate (1% IBA/ 0.5% NAA) and also some cheap 0.1% IBA powder from Lowes

i think part of the problem is that the 0.3% IBA in clonex is literally too much and is inhibiting rooting

i got some root riot plugs and also the smaller sheets of rw cubes that fit that tray

another method ive heard of is fill the tray up to water below the media and crank your heat pad and let it evaporate the water up to the media and clones

so i was going to experiment with root riot plugs vs rw and try to use a few different chems including

clonex as-is
clonex diluted from 0.3 to 0.1 IBA
0.1 IBA powder from lowes
dip and gro diluted to 0.1 IBA and 0.05 NNA

thoughts? i hope to up my game to where i can root big tops in <14 days and keep the vigor. that will likely involve feeding them nute solutions and stronger lights. For now i would be happy to get back to high success rate with smaller cuts and then build on that

Click to expand...

klx said:

1. Take large clones from big, healthy mothers:

View attachment 4062049

2. Trim up the fan leaves and whack em in an aero cloner, mine is DIY in an esky. Coolers are good cos they dont leak:

View attachment 4062050

3. You can see the plumbing here and the mini sprinklers. 15 mins on, 45 mins off. If it is cold where you are you can put an aquarium heater in the water set to 29C, no nutes, no clonex, no nothing. 2 x 20W flouros over them or if it is near your mothers you can just use the residual light from them. 7 days later roots galore:

View attachment 4062051

Good luck!

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