Starting clones, Technomage method

I’ve been growing now for about 5 years and soon grew to love using clones. No more having to sprout seeds or worry about sexing plants. Plus when you’ve found a great producing plant, you don’t want to let it go. I’ve always had great luck with my clones so I thought I’d share my method. I’m not saying this is the best way, or the easiest or the cheapest. All I’m saying is that it’s worked very well for me.

You’ll need some Rapid Rooters, rooting powder, scissors/trimmers, sharp blade (I use an x-acto knife), heating pad, light, and humidity dome/tray.

First thing I do is cut open the Rapid Rooter along one side, this will make more sense later.


This is what the Rapid Rooter should like once you’ve made the cut.


Now I drop them in some water to soak for a bit.


Now go cut yourself a few clones from your mother plant. My mother is a Hashberry/Lockdown cross that I’ve been growing for about 4 years now. Every 12-18 months I take a cutting and create a new mother plant.

Here’s a fresh cutting


And here’s what it looks like once I’ve trimmed off the extra fan leaves


Now, using my x-acto knife, I make an angled cut at the bottom. I also scrape the sides and back of the bottom of the stem with the blade.


I then dip the stem into some water, and then dip into the rooting powder. I like to get a nice heavy coating of powder on the stem.


Now I fold the Rapid Rooter around the stem. This is why I make the slit in the Rapid Rooter in the first place, so I wouldn’t scrape of the rooting powder sliding the stem into a hole.


Now I stick my clone into a small holder and I’m finished with one.


I’m going to be running some experiments with this grow so I made up six clones.


For the first experiment I’m going to have different amounts of fan leaves on my clones.

These two have only the last layer of fan leaves left on.


These two have a second layer of fan leaves left on but I’ve but half the leaf off.


These two are how I usually do my clones with a full second layer of fan leaves left on.


I then put some water in the bottom of the tray so the humidity level under the dome will stay high.


And here we are finished. The tray is sitting on heating pad and I’m using two 14w T5 bulbs that put out 1,350 lumens for a total of 2,700 lumens. This is a new cab that I recently built (https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/462213-cabinet-starting-clones-vegging.html). My old cab used one 54w compact T5 that put out 4,800 lumens which I felt was too much. Right now both bulbs are 3000k because that is what they came with. I’ve got some 6500k bulbs ordered and once they arrive, I’ll run one of each spectrum.
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The clones usually take 10-14 days to develop good roots so I’ll update this thread with some new pics around then.

As I said, I’m going to be running a few experiments. If you want to follow the entire grow, check out my https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/465519-air-pot-vs-standard-pot.html grow.

Great contribution Techno! Looking forward to you continuing the experiment.

Thanks potpimp

potpimp said:

Great contribution Techno! Looking forward to you continuing the experiment.

Click to expand...

So my new bulbs actually arrived today, they were sitting by the front door. Didn't realize until I saw the delivery confirmation in my email. Here's a pic with one of the 3000k bulbs swapped out for a 6500K bulb. You can sorta see the spectrum difference at the end of the bulbs but it's washed out in the middle.

Techno: I started a new batch of clones from my killing Fields mother, I took my cuttings put them in water, then dipped them in BMO's SPT. Then put them in Jiffy Pots in a tray covered them with dome, sprayed inside with water, placed little water in the bottom of the tray. My heating pad has been on 24/hrs on Medium. Do u usually have 100% success rate with your method? What cloning powder do u use? Do u keep putting water on bottom of the tray? Do u keep the heating pad on all the time?

GHOPZZ said:

Techno: I started a new batch of clones from my killing Fields mother, I took my cuttings put them in water, then dipped them in BMO's SPT. Then put them in Jiffy Pots in a tray covered them with dome, sprayed inside with water, placed little water in the bottom of the tray. My heating pad has been on 24/hrs on Medium. Do u usually have 100% success rate with your method? What cloning powder do u use? Do u keep putting water on bottom of the tray? Do u keep the heating pad on all the time?

Click to expand...

If it's not 100% it's damn close. I don't ever remember not having a successful clone. I use Green Light Rooting Hormone, it was what they had at my local hydro store. You want enough water in the tray that the humidity stays high under the dome but you don't want your Rapid Rooters standing in water. My dome and tray are a tight fit so I usually don't have to add any extra water. Every couple of days I'll pull the top of the dome off for a few seconds to cycle some fresh air through. I keep my heating pad on 24/7.

Techno: your thread and help has saved me both time and sanity. After you realize your clones are ready, what do u transfer them to soil? Coco? Hydro. I'm just trying to figure after my clones are ready for transfer, when I can start nuting them. I have a batch of clones that I transfered to 1 gallon growbags filled with Promix-Bx. I had 8 clones, they were given superthrive after the transfer, and only water since. Four of them are looking good, just wondering if I can give them nutes this week at Low dose? It's a 80% sativa strain, want to veg for a few weeks then throw it under 12/12. What do u think?

I'm a soil grower, I started with soil because I think it's more forgiving than Hydro and it's worked well for me. Once I have roots, I transfer to soil. My personal preference is FoxFarms Ocean Forest soil and I use the trio of FF nutes (Grow Big, Big Bloom, Tiger Bloom). That's what I've been using for my current grow in my sig.

How long do u wait to nuts your clones??

I Personally leave them all together and labeled and feed them a weak solution Immediatly they need nourishment after all the stress.It depends on the strain.When I have enugh ready to start thr grow,I place them into there perspective systems and Hit them with root stimulator(Root 66),then start kicking the nutes to them.Remember High PPM-Low PH,,,,Low PPM-High Ph.

GHOPZZ said:

How long do u wait to nuts your clones??

Click to expand...

I consider FFOF to be a fairly "hot" soil so I start with straight water and then do a 1/2 strength solution until they are on their second node.

Ok, here's my last update for this thread. If you want to follow the grow further, please check out https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/465519-air-pot-vs-standard-pot.html.

Time to see how I did


Looking good


And another


All six had essentially the same amount of roots. I didn't really see any difference between the three sample groups. This may not be the fastest method but it's easy and consistent. Hopefully this will help others out there when they go to do clones.