Cloning Help And Tips Please :-d

[Military 7]

Hey there everyone... A few of you may know me, for the rest of you Im Military :-D Been around for quiet some time now, and just REALLY getting back into full swing with my new project.

 

So here are my stats and equipment.

 

Im using BOTH "Dip'N Grow" liquid rooting concentrate

and

"Schultz Take Root" Rooting hormone(powder)...

 

So far this is what I have done.

 

I took 6 cuttings..

 

2 of them I soaked in the Dip'N Grow liquid for about 5-10mins then planted them in some soil mixture, 50% perlite 50% soil/cuttings soil(really soft stuff)

 

2 of them I soaded in the Dip'N Grow liquid for about same time, 5-10mins,

then I "rubbed" the cutting in the Take Root powder. So these 2 cuttings have both the rooting hormones on them..

 

and the last 2 cuttings I only dipped them in the Dip'N Grow liquid only to make sure the stem was nice and wet, then I dipped it in the Take Root powder...

 

 

All are in same medium. I got them in a clear container with plastic wrap over them to act as a humi-dome.

 

 

Now I took very good care and paid much attention to how I was doing this, and made sure that there was atleast 2 areas on the stem that were "cut" so roots can come through, and made sure that I got them fully covered with the hormones.

 

The "pots" i used for the cuttings are as deep as the stems are long.. So really once they or if they start to root... it should be no time till i see roots poking out of the bottom of the "pots"

 

 

So my questions..

 

About how long does it take for the roots to start to develop??

 

And are there any ways that anyone knows of that is "simple" with nearly 95% success rate??

 

Also, I've seen people use JUST perlite as the medium, Im thinking about trying it myself, but what other good mediums are there?

 

Finally, are rockwool cubes a very good way to start clones?

 

(explanations on the above questions would be very much appreciated.)

[DrDee 0]

Hi Military,

Clone roots can take anywhere from a week to two. After that if they haven't rooted, it's trickier to keep them alive and chances of survival diminish.

 

Many people have near perfect success rates, as do I, but it's not simple. It's a complex task with many steps to it. Having said that, it's not exactly rocket science either. Let me comment on your other questions and then I'll outline my technique.

 

Other media to use? People use those expandable peat pucks to great success. Rockwool works great also (must pre-soak in ph corrected h20 first) Most any soil will work if it's not too hot and in the right ph range and drains well. I've used a coco/perlite mix. Far as just perlite...I just don't know man. Seems like it could drain too readily and dry out the stem.

 

OK, your technique, or what you've told us of it sounds ok. A little overkill on the rooting hormones but I don't think it will hurt anything. I actually use two different things as well, though one is home-made. Willow trees are loaded with auxins and if you take willow branches and boil them for a few hours, you get an auxin rich brownish liquid that I use to dip the stem into before I dip it into rooting powder. I use the willow juice dilute for watering them too.

 

I cut from the bottom preferably and once I cut the clones, they go immediately into a cold water bath. That shocks them a bit and halts metabolism. Being underwater also prevents transpiration which can suck an air bubble into the stem. Once that happens, the cutting will die unless you re-cut the bottom and immediately stick it into the media. Working fast is important.

 

I use a standard 10x20 tray with a dome and spray the inside of the dome and keep the media quite wet (not dripping wet) As they are getting older I stress them a bit by removing the dome and do that increasingly until I can have the dome off without wilting.

 

Enclosed is a shot of some clones that I cut last winter. I had 100% with that batch as I recall.

 

 

Hope some of this helps. I ran out of steam so please ask more questions if you need clarification.

 

Cheers,

Dee

[Military 7]

DrDee: thanks man for the input, you've really been some help for me lately :-D Very appreciative indeed.

 

I've made this same post on 2 forums, so i got 2x the input, and I think that I will have a better success rate now..

 

See now i know that the most important thing is patients :-D I've waited 5 days and checked my cuttings being disappointed with

what i saw.. lol

 

Never the less Ill get it sooner or later, hopefully I can get it sooner now that Ive gotten my help :-D

 

See i think the rockwool will work best for me, because Im going to be placing the cubes straight into there DWC homes...

I would want to try and stay away from the more soil based mediums for now...

 

Ill be sure to post my progress on my grow thread :-D

 

 

If anyone else wants to add anything or share their style PLEASE DO !!!

 

 

smoke on

[DrDee 0]

Hi Military,

Indeed patience is a virtue in all phases of growing. And happy to help when I can. I agree that Rockwool would be your best choice since the peat will shed a bit and get down into the res with potential to clog your pump.

 

Now here's an idea worth considering, though maybe after you develop a feel for cloning and have some success. People who do DWC or other hydro grows often do a hydro cloning thing so there isn't any medium. Also, and this is an area where I'm less knowledgable. There are "water" roots and "soil" roots and it's better to use clones with water roots already when using DWC. We've all seen pictures of those fat water roots that develop in DWC. So you may want to build yourself a cloner down the road.

 

As I recall, Dequelo included a tutorial on building a little bubble cloner in his "Dequelo grows some weed" thread. It's around here somewhere and is based on using rockwool cubes, but to eliminate those, all you do is get rubber gromets to hold the plant while the roots develop. Water cloners like that are a little faster and some people have claimed roots in 5 days but 7 to 10 is more normal. Good luck.

 

Cheers,

Dee

[Aad 25]

As I recall, Dequelo included a tutorial on building a little bubble cloner in his "Dequelo grows some weed" thread.

He did indeed : Dequelo's bubble cloner's tutorial(first page,post Mar 5 2008, 19:14).

Having no experience with cloning whatsoever myself,i'm afraid i can't help in other ways.

 

Grtz. Aad

[Military 7]

Thanks both of you very much :-D

 

DrDee: I have personally (hehe rule...phhff ) grown some plants in soil and just rinsed off the roots and turned them into hydro plants.

 

Come to think of it, I happened to have done that with all of my grows..( the 2 i have had so far) I didnt see any harm done at all, besides the fact

that once I put the plant into the DWC the growth rate was about 3-4x faster :-D

 

But anyways, yes indeed Im going to have to make myself a good cloner for sure, like actually go out and pick up the perfect container, instead of working with what i got around the house :-D Always trying to keep it cheap you know heeh

 

 

Thanks again guys

[DrDee 0]

Hi Military and Crew,

Ya, I've done that too. The horticultural people call that bare-rooting a plant. I started in peat because it was working good for me, then into a beer cup of coco (washes off easy) and once big enough I bare-rooted them and put them into hydroton and ebb and flow. I feel that the roots were traumatized and there's a growth delay while the plant heals and grow new roots. (that's my thinking) When I was doing it like that, out of 24 plants I'd always get 3 or 4 that ended up not doing well and when I inspected the roots, They hadn't grown many new ones. It just seems a stressful thing to do to a plant and I'm not going to do it anymore. I bought a water cloner and all my hydro plants are going to be rooted in that.

 

Dequelo's plans are easy to follow and I'll bet you could build that one for little. Good luck to you.

Dee

[texasgrass 4]

hey military. do not dip the medium in the clone solution. especially dipngrow. dipngrow recomend putting cutting in solution for 5 seconds. any more and it can be too much and kill off the cutting.

i use dipngrow and rapid rooters with the best success. the concentrated liquid is the best in my eyes.

another thing you could try is mist them daily to give them some moisture and fresh air. goin 5 days without looking is not good in my eyes, 2 days is a day too long in my book.

 

good luck on more cloning experiences

[Guest Big V]

Hey Military,

 

I just want to quickly say that I have found the most success in takeing cuttings straight from the plant into clone X rooting gel and then I put them into Rappid Rooter Cubes that have been presoaked in R/O water with the PH @ 6.5 (distilled water also will work if R/O is not available). I have close to a 100% success rate. The rapid rooter cubes are completely inert and can go into either soil or hydro after rooting takes place. I place them into a humidity dome and check them at least once a day. At that time I remove the hood and let the air inside the dome be refreshed and I mist them with R/O water ph'd @ 6.5. I open the air vents a little each day until about the 8th day when I remove it completely. If the cuttings droop after a few hours or overnight I replce the hood for a few more days. Then I check them twice a day to make sure the cubes aren't getting too dry (probably overkill but I have the time). I generally start seeing a few roots in 7 to 10 days and after 14 they usually all have some roots. I can go into 4 inch cups filled with potting mix in about 21 days.

[shaman priestess 1]

you can do your clones a variety of ways.....

 

my favorite are the netpot bubble cloners, next are clones in coco, water bottle clones, rockwool cubes in flats.....

you don't need to use anything fancy, you can use willow water or aspirin(one per gallon)plain water works just fine....

 

scarifying will help with more woody clones

 

if you must, you can use cloning gels or powder

[X-Dog 0]

hi ,

 

very important thing for nearly 100%+- sucess rate it's the temperature of soil** and humidity !

 

i use mini-greenhouse with a Heating cable , the cable is re-covered by perlite, and i puts the pipot on the perlite .

i use only the pitpot or the fleximix (fleximix it's a french pitpot) for cuttings .. this is the best medium for cloning !

with them no problem of Ph , no rot on stem etc etc

 

well , if you have a good temperature of soil , a good humidity, and some very good cuttings the cloning is at 95% done .

 

 

salut

 

XD

 

 

** or the temperature of water if you use a cloning box

[shaman priestess 1]

since i have no pitpots and have not tried them yet..............will be interesting to compare them to the many other ways to clone

[webeblzr 2,206]

I clone like everyone else does.

Covered tray, rapid rooters, Olivias, heat mat @ 71 degrees F, snip at a branch, shave bottom end about 1/2" or 12mm's, dip cut in gel, poke into rr's. I mist inside my cover once, and like my rr's to be wet, even dripping a bit.

 

I always had roots by 10 days, maybe not a full tray, but some.

My SJF5's I cut on the 11/24, had roots pushing out, on 11/30!!

My first 6 day roots!! I was delerious with joy!!

 

Just another reason to purchase great genitics for very small prices, for such hardy strains!!

[dequelo 196]

will be interesting to compare them to the many other ways to clone

 

truth to that many a way to root a cutting

[Maverick 278]

@Webeblzr

You say you keep your temps at 71 degrees? I thought I had read to keep the temps around 78 to 80 degrees. I am just asking as I am trying to figure out what it is that I am doing wrong.

[webeblzr 2,206]

Hey Mav, yeah my numbers went way up, when I was *urged* to try 71F, a few years ago. The only time I use 80's is to crack some seeds.

I just checked and another cut to rooted clone!!! This one at 7 days!!

 

 

EDIT:

I checked my old notes, and when I used a bubble cloner...maybe 10K's, from OverGrow, I used 78F-85F. But I was using an aquarium heater, as heat source.

[texasgrass 4]

ive had good luck with most temps, but i think best results with higher seventies to lower eighties. i have a heat pad but dont use it, i thought about it but i usually see roots inbetween 1-2 weeks, usually massive long roots by 3 weeks.

what medium do you use to clone mav?

maybe you should try to add some mycro and bacto to your process