A batch of clones in rockwool

[Al B. Fuct]

Originally Posted by 4:21oops

Big Al, I was wanting to ask about the medium you have your donors in. What is it? How often do you water? Is it set up on automatic? Looks to be flakes of rockwool...Just curious. I'm getting closer to cutting day. They need to stretch some more. If I took cuttings now they would be pretty short and skinny. Peace

Everything in my op including mums runs in 8" dia plastic pots of rockwool floc, Floc is just crumbled rockwool. I am trialling Fytocell "Flake" (more like "crumbs") at the moment as a possible replacement for the floc.

The mums are in a tray like the flowering plants, albeint a much smaller one, about 250 x 800mm. The mums get flooded 2x a day for 5 mins, 12 hrs apart and are run 24/0 under a 400HPS.

I used a MH > HPS conversion lamp for a while, wasn't happy with it. Only made about 60% of the luminous output of a 400HPS and really slowed the growth.

[Mr.GoodStuff]

Awesome thread man, thanks for sharing! Now I know I need my Mazar motherplants to be big for when I SOG. Need big cuttings so I don't need any veg time. Great advice!

[pungent]

thanks for the great instruction. +rep

[Billy99]

Im looking to buy acouple of clones . I'm a beginer looking to start with clones . Help

[shooting star]

+ rep for the guy who started this thread and i wish i would of seen it before i cut my clones about 10 days ago. Man, I've been spraying pretty heavily 2x a day with ph corrected water. I've had my heating pad on the 2nd setting (not sure how warm, but it's not that hot to where you couldn't lay on it for a couple hrs. I actually found a 2ft heating pad for 15 bucks, i was pscyhed. anyways, 9 afghan clones and 9 thai stick clones. So far 4 have rooted. I'm also using a humidy dome and i'm not sure about the lights but there 24" 2 tubes i know ones a daylight something or another. Well, I was told from another member here at gc that the yellowing on my leaves was the plant feeding on itself and that it's supposed 2 happen. Well, the two that rooted first didn't really yellow at all. There's 4 now that are showing tap roots, and I moved one into rockwool last night cuz it had more than 10 roots coming out. Before I say that, let me tell you that I started with Rapid rooters and I'm not sure what there made of but the chick at the hydro shop said they had over a 90% success rate so I was game. Anybody have any good or bad info on the rapid rooters. Like I said, I haven't seen this thread so I soaked my rockwool cube and then squeezed out the extra water I can't believe this is the first time i've read this thread. So anyways I'm cutting back to one spray a day and if you guys could tell me about how warm it gets, like warm bath water warm.

[Al B. Fuct]

A heating pad for people is not the ideal heat mat for rooting your clones. They get far too hot- and they are not waterproof. You're looking for 30C, no warmer. Get a proper seedling/clone heat mat from a garden shop. Mine is moulded in silicone rubber, is fixed 30C temp (no thermostat dial). It has been in continuous use in my clonebox for at least 7 years. If you can find one like that, you're good to go. There's other sorts around but the silicone moulded ones are the very best.

Leaf yellowing in clones is indicative of overwet conditions- yes, the plant is indeed using up its own nutrients, but that's because it has taken too long to set root. Overwet media will cause lengthy rooting times. If you've done everything right, clones should have roots in 7-10 days, tops.

It's not necessary to spray clones nor even use a humidome if other conditions (esp media saturation) are right. If they can get water uptake through the stem cut, they will not wilt.

I guess you saw my notation- please don't squeeze the rockwool! Removes all the airspaces from the material and will cause a condition similar to excessive watering.

'Rapid rooters' and Jiffy Pots are similar, made from a compressed organic material. I don't use them because organic materials can support mould growth. Also, they can break into fragments which can get loose in a recirculating hydro system, fouling pumps, etc.

Keep at it, you'll get proficient if you keep practising.

[Al B. Fuct]

Originally Posted by 4:21oops

Big Al, I was wanting to ask about the medium you have your donors in. What is it? How often do you water? Is it set up on automatic? Looks to be flakes of rockwool...Just curious. I'm getting closer to cutting day. They need to stretch some more. If I took cuttings now they would be pretty short and skinny. Peace

All my plants, mums & flowering, are in pots that have had about 25mm (1") of rockwool floc tightly packed in the bottom, with the remainder of the pot filled with Fytocell 'flake'. Older pics show the pots stuffed only with RW floc.

I decided long ago that plain floc holds too much water for too long and had been looking for a better potstuffing medium. Fytocell has a high air content, so high that pots stuffed only with Fytocell, even if fully saturated, will float when watered in a flood system. Floating pots can fall over, dumping Fytocell all over the trays. Messy.

Fytocell has some drawbacks. Aside from pots filled only with the stuff floating, it does not clump together and will escape the pots' drain holes. Packing some floc in the bottom of the pots does two things- 25mm of wet floc will stop the pots floating and also prevents the Fytocell crumbs from escaping the pot drain holes.

My first go with Fytocell was done by putting a knee-hi nylon stocking over the bottom of each pot. This kept the Fytocell within the pots but did not do anything about buoyancy. The Fytocell crumbs that escaped the pot wound up in the stocking, but outside the pot. Roots would happily grow into this lump of Fytocell which accumulated in the stocking underneath the pot, making them easy to damage and thus cause a condition similar to transplant shock when they were damaged.

My suspicions about floc being too absorbent were confirmed when my first batch of plants in floc/Fytocell stuffed pots came out for harvest. Roots threaded fully through the Fytocell material. When roots get down to the floc, they simply grow around it instead of through. This tells me that there's not enough O2 available in the wet floc for good root formation.

My flowering plants which previously ran in pots stuffed only with floc were only watered 1x/day- very small plants, those in wk1-2 of flowering, could be watered just 1x every 2-3 days because of the high water holding capacity of floc. Nute soln in the floc would lose all its dissolved O2 before the small plants could use up the water.

Now that everything is in Fytocell with only a little floc in the pot bottoms, all my flowering plants are flooded 2x/day, once at lights-on and again 2 hours before lights-off. Mother plants are under 24/7 light. They are watered 2x per 24hours, once every 12 hours.

Watering of flowering and mother plants is automated by timers. Clones in the clonebox must be hand watered. It is necessary to water these by hand to get the watering absolutely right. Each one only wants about 10ml, 2x per day, at 12 hour intervals. While one could measure water for clones with a syringe, I water clones by feel; I have come to learn how heavy the RW cubes should be when they are properly just damp and not saturated. I dip only one corner of the RW cubes in a bucket of pH 5.5-5.8 water and flick out any excess with a snap of the wrist.

[barrelhse]

Originally Posted by Al B. Fuct

Thanks much willydog & rollinfatty.

I wanted to post the info that I was needing badly some years ago.

Took me a while to get it right when first working with rockwool cubes. Like everyone, I overwatered my first few batches and made them really slow (like 3 weeks...).

I think I have it down pat now, but as soon as I say that, clone-eating fucteria from the planet Gorgonzola will invade earth and teach me a thing or two.

Yeah, that seems normal. Richard Nixon had to watch Deep-Throat 3 times before he could get it down Pat.

[Al B. Fuct]

Originally Posted by barrelhse

Yeah, that seems normal. Richard Nixon had to watch Deep-Throat 3 times before he could get it down Pat.

I wouldn't have needed lessons to get it down Pat... but a burlap bag on her head sure would have helped a lot.

[Al B. Fuct]

Originally Posted by 4:21oops

Big Al, I was wanting to ask about the medium you have your donors in. What is it? How often do you water? Is it set up on automatic? Looks to be flakes of rockwool...Just curious. I'm getting closer to cutting day. They need to stretch some more. If I took cuttings now they would be pretty short and skinny. Peace

The mums run in pots of Fytocell with about 50mm of floc packed tightly in the pot bottoms, just like the plants in the flowering area. This is done because Fytocell crumbs will go straight out the pot's drain holes unless the floc is there to keep it from doing so.

Fytocell also has a very high air content and pots of the stuff tend to float. The floc absorbs a lot more water than the Fytocell and weights down the pots, stipping them from floating and tipping over when the trays are flooded.

Yes, the mums also run in a flood system, albeit much smaller than the flowering systems. Mums are under 24/7 lighting and get watered 2x/day for about 5 mins at 12 hour intervals.

Yep, let your mums veg a bit longer. Thicker stems root faster and more profusely. Use stems larger than 5mm for cuttings for best results.

[chuq6]

Hey Al I read your cloning technique, seems simple. Know anything about cloning outdoors? I should be ready to take some cuts in a week or two. I have green light powder root hormone from lowes. It would be fatass If you could help me since you obviously know what your doing.

[Al B. Fuct]

The only thing I can tell you about cloning outdoors is that it will dramatically lower your success rate. Your plants will not be on a heat mat and won't be in a temp controlled environment, both critical for consistent, reliable cloning.

[AugustWest]

best cloning guide on the internets.... sticky imho

Al, thanx again dude.

[sneakers]

Hey Al, how does hydroton work in the flood method that you use and what kind of pump would you suggest?

[doob3r]

Originally Posted by AugustWest

best cloning guide on the internets.... sticky imho

Al, thanx again dude.

agreed, i was for rockwool and then against it and then for it then against it, with your shared info AL ive gotten very comfy with it