Flora foam for rooting

I posted something a few day ago about using wet floral foam blocks to cut root cubes out of and now I have found that it's important to make the holes for the cutting stems larger than the stems themselves so that air can get around them. I made them too tight and what happened was that the part of the stems inside the cubes rotted and roots only grew out of the stem just above the cubes. I had to take them out, cut off the dead stem under the roots and plant them in perlite. Actually I'm just going to use perlite from now on but someone else might want to use DIY cubes sometime so I thought I should give a tip on it. The floral foam is a lot finer textured than the specially made root-cubes so it can smother a stem pretty easily if you just stick it into the cube.

I use dirt - works great

innerG said:

I use dirt - works great

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Yeah dirt will work. I grow in perlite though so can't really mix the two. Now here's another tip, the DIY root-cubes hold more water than might be good for cuttings so I found a convenient solution. I took an empty DVD case and wrapped a square of paper towel around it so the sides were tucked under when I sat it in the cloning container and added water to wet it and leave a layer of water in the bottom of the container below the level of the top of the DVD case. I sat the cubes on that wicking platform. It worked perfectly, no excess water in the cubes now but a constant water supply.

Regarding sticking the cuttings, I took a Robertson screwdriver and stuck it in the cubes to about 2/3 the way down and then stuck the cuttings into the bottoms of the holes so that only about 1/8" actually sticks into the foam. The rest just sits in the screwdriver hole with plenty of breathing room, since the stems are only about half the width of the holes. These tricks are the key to success with DIY root-cubes.

You may ask why use root-cubes? Well, they do help to hold transplants upright in the medium later, by their square shape and solidness, whereas bare stalks will flop over easier.

I've found rockwool/root cubes to be a hassle if you're going to another medium.

They often hold water differently than the soil/medium and are prone to algae and whatnot. You can try to tear them open and remove the clone/roots but its a hassle and can easily damage the plant.

I've found plain old solo cups with soil and $4 root hormone powder from Walmart work 95+% of the time in my setup, even when taking clones from flowering plants.

I don't even use a humidity dome - I just put a 1 gal ziplock bag over the cup for the first 24-48 hours and that's all they need. A couple spritzes of water after that for the first few days, then I can usually see roots in 7-14 days.

I think putting dirt a little further up the stalk when transplanting will do just as much for stability as any cube would.

innerG said:

I've found rockwool/root cubes to be a hassle if you're going to another medium.

They often hold water differently than the soil/medium and are prone to algae and whatnot. You can try to tear them open and remove the clone/roots but its a hassle and can easily damage the plant.

I've found plain old solo cups with soil and $4 root hormone powder from Walmart work 95+% of the time in my setup, even when taking clones from flowering plants.

I don't even use a humidity dome - I just put a 1 gal ziplock bag over the cup for the first 24-48 hours and that's all they need. A couple spritzes of water after that for the first few days, then I can usually see roots in 7-14 days.

I think putting dirt a little further up the stalk when transplanting will do just as much for stability as any cube would.

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Good points. The cubes are hardly worth messing with unless you're going to transplant into rockwool. However they are somewhat cleaner to work with than putting medium in pots and somewhat more compact. It's just another option.