The fan leaves will be the source for carbos that will generate new tissue, roots. You only cut off leafsets to allow a few nodes to reside "underground" which will be your rooting zones. The plant can not make sufficient food for root output without sufficient leaf surface.
Just curious, what's with the 45* cutting drill?
Point of topping looks good, but, that is one stunted plant. Have you inspected the root system? Is it getting sufficient N or are you doing the typical NPK drill of too much K? What is the NPK ratio of your food?
Also, looks like the stem has been invaded by pythium (damp-off). Why is it off colored (brown)? What's up with the small cup in a big pot?
here i'll give u a rundown a-z maybe you'll get it more...
oh, i forgot, this is the link i choose to use for cloning guide, seemed simple enough, if youhave anything to add, or discredit, let me know!
http://www.gardenscure.com/420/propagation/75812-cloning-guide-dummies.html
this is 1st run at growing, they were doing fine until i did all of the following at once :
i bogged (not transplant, i cut the bottom off the smaller cup, so as to limit the shock the plant gets.. apparently called 'bogging down') i bogged them, from 8oz cups to 5gal buckets lol (not knowing really what i was doing..)
and at the same time, i thought since the roots surely werent in the reservoir at the bottom of my 5gal yet, that they wouldnt get enough water unless i gave em plenty... so i was feeding once a day and watering once a day... at too low of a ph on top of that, so i burned them by other giving too much nutes, or i sent them into nute lockout because of the quantity and ph i was feeding... this was at day 20 from when the seedlings broke ground (prior to this, they were under a 32w 48in fluro daylight shoplight. where the growth was most likely pretty pitiful compared to what it shoulda been, so im sure that set me back. anyway, so same day istarted over feeding and i bogged to way too big of container, i also put them under a 1000w MH and room temps soared to 88-92 for afew days.. but the weather cooled off and its been about 2.5 weeks its a steady 75-78..
so thats the story of why theyre so stunted, i totally know what i did wrong from the nutes to the bucket to the temp to the light being too close etc etc.. will i grow a perfect plant next go cause i know these things? probly not, but will be a lot better off than i was this time..
as for the 45degree cut, every cloning guide, help, tips n tricks whatever you wish to call it, saysthat cutting the bottom of the cutting on a 45degree with promote roots to grow more easily.. i even make a tiny slit up the stemp like 3\4inch cause this apparently helps too (i have yet to succesfully clone, but ive only tried this one time so far.. and its been 4days, they dont look too good honestly but i dunno what they SHOULD look like either so i wont trust myself on that one.. im just giving them 10-14days and should root.. and no i dnopt have bubble cloner or anythin, i just put the cuttings in presoaked rw cubes and rooting gel + rooting excelerator and am hoping for the best..
the reason the stem is kind brown like that, is because 2days before topping, i tried cloning from the lower branches of the plant, and in one of my cuts i was a little clumsy and cut into main stem on the down slice, not like THROUGH it, just as if i was skinning the plant a bit, so i peeled off that little.. splinter of stem and it 'healed' that color.. so far anyway
as foor npk, im using lucas formula, id have to read the bottles but lights r off and they are in there so id have to wait until later to check, but like i said lucas formula, seems to be pretty well established as good feeding schedule.. is GH flora series, only the micro and bloom no grow formula.. and its a 1:2 ratio.. .
5ml per Gal of micro
10ml per gal of bloom
and slowly bump it up to 8ml micro - 16ml bloom per GAL when in flowering.. i also give them calmag with every other watering.. ( i mean watering, as in i do following schedule:
feed, water, water with calmag, feed, water, water with calmag.. etc
i just wanted to know if the topping was good , i know the rest isnt lol, its just these are trial plants, so i wanted to 'try' as much as i can on THESe one's, so as not to screw up my next crop.. and topping was something i really wanted to see how it goes...
so far, in the 2 days since topping, each branch has formed 1 entire leaf set, and the next leafset is i dunno there like 1\3 normal size .. i dunno if thats bad or good growth, but it doesnt seem to have slowed that much from before, so that was my main goal, see if topping slows it down or not,i'd say not
Takes some guts to openly list the mistakes we made, doesn't it?