cloning -- what did I do wrong?

Hi all,

I'm growing some Lemon Skunk and tried to take some clones. It's been just over 2 weeks now and I'm getting nowhere with them, and am wondering if I've done something wrong. I've outlined my process below along with the things that I know aren't quite ideal, and am hoping someone can offer some suggestions on what to do next time, as I'm guessing these are a lost cause and it's too late to take new clones from my main plants.

I took the cuttings about 2 weeks after putting the plants into flower, just as they were starting to show their sex. I didn't have the space to take cuttings from all my plants while they were in a vegatative state and then toss the ones that turned out to be from male plants. I put them into neoprene sleeves in a litte DWC bubbler setup. I put a 4 inch airstone directly under the cuttings so they've been getting lots of bubbles. The stems have 1 or 2 nodes under the sleeve, and the stems are about 1 inch in the water. They've stayed nice and green through this whole time, with no wilting of leaves, so I'm guessing they're not stressed for water at all.

I did the cuttings as fast as I could to prevent any air bubbles getting up into the stem. Snip, then straight into a cup of water, out of the cup of water into liquid rooting hormone for about 10 seconds, then into the neoprene sleeve and into the bubbler setup. I put a 2nd clear tupperware tub over the cuttings to act as a humidity dome. The temp in the dome has ranged from 70-77 degrees.

One cutting is definately dying off, the others have started to show brown tips on the leaves in the last couple of days. I cut off the largest fan leaves and left a few small leaves and the growing tips. I tried cutting the stem at a 45 degree angle, but going back and looking some are 45 and others are more like 90 degrees, not ideal.

I've got some pics:

01 - the setup -- 2 tupperware tubs, one for the DWC setup and the other as the humidity dome
02 - the clones in the setup (also some seedlings, Nirvana White Widow in the front and Mandala Seeds #1 in the back)
03 - a closeup of the worst looking of the clones
04 - the stems -- no roots! (sorry for the blurry pic)






Any tips or ideas on what went wrong? I've done cloning using this same method a few years ago and had similar poor results-- maybe 1 in 15 cuttings would actually root. I read about others having such great success taking clones, so what am I doing wrong? All I can think of is that the cutting angles weren't 45 degrees and the cuttings weren't taken while the plants were vegging. I understand that it's easier to take clones while in vegetative mode, but they weren't that far into flower, just enough to show the plant's sex. Is a bubbler not the right way to do this? Should the stems not actually be in the water, just getting splashed with water from the air stone? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking a look.

when u cut a clone it should be in veg.. if its in flower stage it will take alot longer and most of the time it wont work.. hope this helps

i havent had good results with a bubbler either. the fact that your plants were in flower should not affected root growth. in fact if you have fed you plants flower food prior to taking the cuttings, they would root faster but take longer to re-veg. the cutting angles probably wouldnt matter to much but the bubble cloner idea is to have the bubbles splash the stems but i gotta tell you i have seen someone let there stems sit in the water and get roots. if you want to use a cloner, you might want to check this out.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=40055

cowasaki said:

when u cut a clone it should be in veg.. if its in flower stage it will take alot longer and most of the time it wont work.. hope this helps

Click to expand...

this is not true. if your flowering plants have been given flower food prior to taking the cuttings, the high p levels help the cutting root faster and the only thing that takes longer is for the rooted cutting to re-veg.

My homemade bubble cloner works 100%.. Blackjack took 7 days to show roots.. I had some GrapeKush clones that took 1 month before roots... I just cloned some white widow.. it took 5 days! Funny thin is I have a 12 site bubble cloner. I had it filled with 6 white widow clones.. when I topped the cloned (uncle ben style) Just put the small tops in the 6 remaining clone holes with neoprene plugs.... just for the heck of it.. see what would happen.. the solution was 1/2 strength also... they say not to use nutes.. well whatever.. roots in 5 days... no spraying no humidity dome... all I do is just cut at 45 degrees right across the node junction.. split the tip about 1/4 to 1/2 inch and dip in Cloning gel (clonex)... I really didn't even care if they took.. I was just playing around... BANG 5 days later roots on all of em.. fastest I have seen...

YOu can make a real cheap bubble cloner... just dont put the tips in the water.. let the bursting bubbles mist the tips.... works everytime... without even trying I should add.

I will add.. some strains take longer than others.. thats a FACT... I have tested it under all the same conditions... it is strain dependent.

Hi all,

thanks very much for the help.

Maybe Lemon Skunk is one of those 'hard to clone' strains. It's the only strain I've ever grown so far and the only strain I've tried cloning. Like I said, I have cloned them before years ago in a very similar DWC bubbler setup, but had MANY failures for each success. I just now have some other strains to start growing and am really hoping I can take cuttings from those when the time is right, especially some of the feminized freebie seeds from the Attitude, as I only have 1 seed of those. Not growing it yet, but really excited to try the Kandy Kush I got last order. Gotta love free seeds.

The plants had flower nutes for almost 4 weeks before I took the clones, so they should have had lots of P to start those roots. No love though.

The other seedlings in my dwc bubbler setup have grown roots down into the water so I can lower the water level now to try to keep the stems from being directly in the water, I'll try that tonight and see if that will help any. Maybe there's still hope for the 3 cuttings that aren't looking mostly dead yet. I'm thinking about buying an ultrasonic mister for future attempts to turn my setup into an aeroponic gig to see if that helps. The fish tank bubbler seems easier, but maybe aeroponics will help my clones more, as it seems like there are a lot of aeroponic cloning systems on the market.

Man I wish I had the luck you all have had with your clones. I have lots of Lemon Skunk seeds at least, so I can start over, but it would sure be nice to have a mother plant to take clones from. This grow 7 out of 10 plants were male and cut down, that just leaves me with 3 females, shitty odds!

I've looked at the spray nozzle style aero cloners (DIY of course) but don't have room for an 18 gallon rubbermaid tote for my cloning/seedling setup. My current setup is only 3 gallons and my seedling space is pretty small, which is why I'm considering an ultrasonic fogger instead. Less space needed. I'll definately have something like that set up for my next attempt at cloning in a month or so.

Thanks again everyone! Any additional comments or suggestions are of course welcome. I'll keep everyone posted on my future failures or (hopefully) successes as I try again later.

they just look a little "old growth" it takes longer (i hear) to clone from bigger branches. if their not dead yet it's probably fine, just keep waiting.

Score! One of my cuttings has kicked out a 1/4 inch long root. Humble beginnings, but I'll take what I can get. I'm hoping to grow out a mother plant for future clones. It took about 20 days from taking the cutting to this root. I lowered the water in my bubbler reservoir a couple days ago so that the cutting stems weren't directly in the water, just getting splashed with water from the bubbler. Next day the root showed up. Not a day too soon, either, all the clones had started to go yellow, probably showing their nitrogen deficiency. I put nutes into the water at about 400 ppm, mixed for seedlings (using basic General Hydro stuff). Hopefully the other cuttings will root also -- I only need one mother, but I'm still happy to grow out any other clones for bud! Thanks everyone for the feedback and encouragement.

with the buble systems ive noticed that you want to put the water just about to the bottom of the cutting thats how i got them to work better

also cut all your big fan leaves tips off so it will focus on root development