Sorry for all the threads recently I just tend to smoke and I get really talkative so I come a read around here and think up questions but anyway, I am wondering what peoples preferences are on cloning? I have heard a lot of good things about hydro cloning but up until recently didn’t really know squat about hydro stuff. I made a cheap 12$ bubbler cloner which seems to be working, my cuttings have no rooted yet but they are also not withered up and dead. In the last week I have taken around 12 clones and put them in peat pucks and they all seem to just keep withering away and turning brown. I don’t know what I am doing wrong. I can’t watch them every day unfortunately but I don’t know what they’re trying to tell me. I’ve been keeping them with the humidity dome on, misting in the mornings and evenings with about 9 hours in between. But within a few days they just seem dead. And within hours it seems like they wilt up. I am considering getting an actual hydro mister cloner so that I can hopefully get some clones before I use all my branches on my current plant which seems to be going downhill now. IF the consensus is hydro does anyone have a recommendation of a cheap but working cloner.
I am not talking about switching over to hydro, I am simply doing the clones in a mister and then transplanting into soil. I am wondering if it is worth it to get an inexpensive cloning bucket to help with clone success rates.
I’m clueless , wasn’t being a smart , I’m just stating from my perspective . I have yet to get this all figured out and finish a grow . I been on a merry go round , I’m still trying and seeing a slight difference but by no means success to the point where I’m confident that I will even be able to pull this off . I’m not quitting yet , so hopefully at some point this becomes a normal process of knowing . I don’t have much space for as the tent , but I have the necessities to function a decent grow and yet to get it all right .
I understand where you are going with this, maybe the hydro method for cloning has merits, starting clones that way and then dropping them in soil, dunno, seems like folks doing hydro for clones don’t have a gripe about clone loss, as a beginner myself, and one who screwed up most, if not all his first clones, I wonder about a surefire method of cloning. I got me some books, etc, but I tend to think some sort of hydro, bubbler, etc whatever is more surefire than trying to use a soil, or a peat plug. Actually, I am ready to clone two of my strongest plants, seems like nothing phased them much over all the other five.
My current plant I am cloning is a clone of my very first plant which seemed to do good, I just mainly want some plants with her genetics and so that on my next harvest I can do maybe 4 or 5 rather than just one and perhaps make a little money so I can put it back into my grow and expand my strain selection.
Does anyone know the importance of leaves on clones? I know most people trim them back so they do not continue to grow but at the same time down they need to leaves to create energy to put into the roots? Or am I just making stuff up here?
You need to trim the leaves to about half their length. At first the leaves contain moisture, but give it a few days and the stem is no longer able to supply sufficient moisture to them, and the clone suffers stress. Only a small amount of leaf is all that is required for the leaf to supply enough energy for root growth. If you were to leave the large leaves on, the clone will spend valuable energy on trying to keep those leaves alive instead of putting that energy into root growth. Another point I’d like to raise is embolisms. An embolism is a bubble of air that gets trapped on the stem, preventing the uptake of water. When I take a clone from a mother, I take a clone with an extra couple of inches of stem. I then take that clone, submerge it in a Tupperware container (large enough to work in) and cut those extra couple of inches off, preventing an embolism.
Large clones with large leaves take longer to root than smaller clone with smaller leaves. Also, clones taken from the lower part of the mother contain more hormones than clones taken from the top of the plant. I recommend that you leach the soil of the mother to flush out nitrogen before you take any clones. That helps tremendously.
Do you use a heating pad under your rooting clones? I recommend it…
I left a post in the cloning section about wondering about a “clone king” aeroponic device, for “100%” cloning success. So I did buy one, for $70+$15/s/h off amazon.com on sale. Before yesterday, I hadn’t even realized there was such a thing being sold. I mean, I am desparate for a quantity of clones. Supposedly with the aeroponic system, spraying water on a 36 station coverage area(36 clone capacity), the experienced claim its better to use longer stems, like the hardened stem area can be cloned easier than normally, but short shoots don’t work, they need to be 2-3 inches long or longer…sounds good to me, my two best extremely strong white widow need some lower branches removed, and cloned of course, and seems like those branches have too many branches, now that those two are doing well. I’m hoping to clone the heck out of those two “bushes”.
I ordered mine today as well, I went with a power cloner I think. Seems like a simple setup and wasn’t too pricey. You and I should do reviews and maybe we can compare our results. I won’t have mine for about a week though so hopefully my plant will grow some more.
I have been using a razor blade and my best 45 degree cut, I took tops from my plant the first time and they never grew back, it seems like my branches are not wanting to grow back as well and I am worried my plant is doomed as it has been showing some other issues as well.
How long does it normally take for the branch to start growing again?
Imnewatthis, I think I did cover the cutting the leaves in half, here:
Half the leaf surface means less loss of moisture through the pores (stoma), it’s not really “directing” growth to other areas of the plant. And some don’t believe the practice is good, as is it does damage the plant a little and some growth will be slowed due to repair. The other way to help slow the loss of moisture through the plant’s leaves was mentioned by Latewood in that same previous post.
And products like “no wilt”, the waxy substance also kind of plugs up the stoma, doing much the same thing as halving the leaves, but with less stress to the plant.
I have seen sites call for cutting the branch off completely though as well, so are those leaves really necessary or would it be better just to take the branch off along the main stem?
Clones should be taken from a branch that has a top that is growing directly from the central meristem, and or the apical meristem can be taken as a clone when a plant in training is topped.
Haha sorry when I said branch I meant fan leaves or branches coming off branches, pretty much making the clone look like a lollipop of sorts. I’m really sorry I don’t mean to ask the same questions twice I just had a poor memory. Thanks for all the info.