dannyboy602
Well-Known Member
I see a lot of questions about cloning so I just wanted to start a thread about it and how simple it is. There's a couple ways to go about it and the main difference is how long you are prepared to wait for results. In general plants can push out new roots in as little as four days under optimum conditions or they can take a couple weeks. The methods outlined below take the longest in soil and the shortest in ez cloners.
CUTTINGS INTO SOIL: cuttings taken from the tops of the mother plant root a little faster. you can use cuttings from the tops (apical meristems) or
take cuttings from the lanky undergrowth. they'll both root. one roots a little faster. with this method use rooting gel or powder and dip your
4-5 inch cutting into the hormone. you don't have to cut at an angle or scrape the stem. its not necessary. make a small hole with a tooth pick or
pencil in the medium. insert cuttings and tamp it in. it should be noted here that for the soil method a sterile medium is best to prevent disease.
vermiculite and peat work well. about 50/50. another thing to remember with cloning is oxygen in the medium is important. if the medium is too
dense the cutting will rot or it won't root well. at this point you can put several cuttings into a wide shallow pot or tray and divide them after they
root. its not necessary to have one cutting per pot. although some growers do and that's ok too. whatever works for you. disturbing the cloned
plants root systems doesn't cause anything bad to happen and they recover quickly.
CUTTINGS INTO ROCKWOOL/COCO: a good method mainly because of sterility. remember soil has bacteria. coco and rockwool are sterile. they also
allow plenty of O2 near the area where roots will form. use this method if you're growing in a water culture setup. although growers can and do
root in soil then wash the soil off of the roots and then use it in hydro. it just takes the cutting another couple days to recover.
CUTTINGS IN AN AERO CLONER/EZCLONER: with this method O2 and water are mixed and delivered to the suspended cuttings at optimum levels and
they are never allowed to dry out. the systems come in as few as six or seven cutting sites or over a hundred. you can also make your own. here's
a link if you want to do that. https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/212657-all-one-diy-aero-cloner.html
CUTTINGS AND LIGHT: cuttings do not require a lot of light and will dry out if you put them under direct HPS, MH or too close to floros. its best to use cool light and keep the cuttings a couple feet away. i keep mine three feet away from 6500K floros. seems to work really well.
A couple hints i want to include. First. If you're using an aero cloner don't bother with the root hormone. the cutting will manufacture its own and the powder/gel clogs the manifold turning a fine spray into a coarse one. i've done this and only found out when the plants started to wilt.
also with cloning its not necessary to use any fertilizers this early. let the plants root then use a watered down fertilizer.
lastly i've read a lot about taking clones from clones ad infinitum. it does dilute the DNA over a LONG time but not much.i spent about 12 hours looking for data on mutated genes in plants being cloned this way and found almost nothing. i've read where some growers did it for a long time, even years without any change.
That's it. Cloning your own plants really is a simple way to continue getting the best bang for your buck. Please add your own method if it works well for you so we can all benefit. And add your horror stories so we can learn from them as well.
CUTTINGS INTO SOIL: cuttings taken from the tops of the mother plant root a little faster. you can use cuttings from the tops (apical meristems) or
take cuttings from the lanky undergrowth. they'll both root. one roots a little faster. with this method use rooting gel or powder and dip your
4-5 inch cutting into the hormone. you don't have to cut at an angle or scrape the stem. its not necessary. make a small hole with a tooth pick or
pencil in the medium. insert cuttings and tamp it in. it should be noted here that for the soil method a sterile medium is best to prevent disease.
vermiculite and peat work well. about 50/50. another thing to remember with cloning is oxygen in the medium is important. if the medium is too
dense the cutting will rot or it won't root well. at this point you can put several cuttings into a wide shallow pot or tray and divide them after they
root. its not necessary to have one cutting per pot. although some growers do and that's ok too. whatever works for you. disturbing the cloned
plants root systems doesn't cause anything bad to happen and they recover quickly.
CUTTINGS INTO ROCKWOOL/COCO: a good method mainly because of sterility. remember soil has bacteria. coco and rockwool are sterile. they also
allow plenty of O2 near the area where roots will form. use this method if you're growing in a water culture setup. although growers can and do
root in soil then wash the soil off of the roots and then use it in hydro. it just takes the cutting another couple days to recover.
CUTTINGS IN AN AERO CLONER/EZCLONER: with this method O2 and water are mixed and delivered to the suspended cuttings at optimum levels and
they are never allowed to dry out. the systems come in as few as six or seven cutting sites or over a hundred. you can also make your own. here's
a link if you want to do that. https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/212657-all-one-diy-aero-cloner.html
CUTTINGS AND LIGHT: cuttings do not require a lot of light and will dry out if you put them under direct HPS, MH or too close to floros. its best to use cool light and keep the cuttings a couple feet away. i keep mine three feet away from 6500K floros. seems to work really well.
A couple hints i want to include. First. If you're using an aero cloner don't bother with the root hormone. the cutting will manufacture its own and the powder/gel clogs the manifold turning a fine spray into a coarse one. i've done this and only found out when the plants started to wilt.
also with cloning its not necessary to use any fertilizers this early. let the plants root then use a watered down fertilizer.
lastly i've read a lot about taking clones from clones ad infinitum. it does dilute the DNA over a LONG time but not much.i spent about 12 hours looking for data on mutated genes in plants being cloned this way and found almost nothing. i've read where some growers did it for a long time, even years without any change.
That's it. Cloning your own plants really is a simple way to continue getting the best bang for your buck. Please add your own method if it works well for you so we can all benefit. And add your horror stories so we can learn from them as well.
