I thought I would do little grow log on my current EZ Cloner experiment. I'm far from experienced with cloning, but seem to be having pretty good success. My last run went like this: Pulled 25 clones (angle cut with a razor blade), let sit in rooting powder for a minute or two, clip the fan leaves by half, lightly scrape the stem with a clean razor blade, and place in the cloner. I ran tap water, straight, for the first seven days. Then I added 1/2 gallon of tap water with 300 ppm's of GH's Bloom. At day 20 I had excellent roots on 24 of the 25 clones. So, on the 9th, as I was getting ready to start a new batch of clones, I decided to see how much of a difference I could make by preparing the clones differently. This is what I decided to do: 5 varieties, 5 clones each: Northern Lights Big Bud XXL Pineapple Express Chocolope Cotton Candy Each clone sat in cloning powder for about a minute. I know, the powder washes right off once they are put in the cloner. I figure the dissolved powder can only do good things in my reservoir. Each group of five got the following stem treatments (prior to being dipped in the powder): #1. No treatment #2. Lightly scraped with a razor blade #3. Aggressively scraped with a razor blade (took off much of the green) #4. Sliced stem in half #5. Cut slits in the stem with a razor blade I used tap water in a clean cloner, with new collars and baskets. The cloner sits off to the side of a 600 watt HID and a 4 bulb T5 that are both on an 18/6 schedule, and the pump runs 24/7.
Quickie update. Yesterday I added 1 gallon of tap water, pH'd to 5.8 and 250 ppm's of GH's bloom. Clones look fine, but there are no roots yet. This is always the part where I start worrying about not getting any roots. One thing I didn't mention was that I'm fighting a spider mite infestation in that tent. The clones had them, and have been treated three times with Neem oil. It doesn't seem to have hurt them at all.
You are getting way too in to it. I have an ez cloner type setup as well. All I do is make a clean cut at 45 angle, trim bottom leaves off stem, dip in clonex gel (actually does speed it up from my experience, even tho it seems to wash right off), turn it on! 4 days later I have first root growth, day 10 I have nice roots. You are going far beyond what is necessary IMO. A good lighting source and schedule, and RO water in the reservoir are what I use as well. Keep the water temp as close to room temp as possible and you should get clones ready for soil or whatever media in two weeks or less! You also take bigger cuts than I do also. I take the "suckers", the growth that grows at a 45 in between the stem and a branch. You are holding one in your picture. That part of the plant seems to root best in my experience. Good luck with your experiment. Sent from my VS980 4G using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Well, ya. I'm getting into it just for the sake of experimenting. What is there is a better way than my other way? I agree, and listed the success I had doing basically the same as you. I just enjoy running experiments. I have 4 varieties in the bud room now for the same reason.
Needed to update this several days ago. This picture is four days old. The Northern Lights girls have all popped roots. I ranked the root development on the 5 northern light clones as follows: #1. Lightly scraped #2. Slits cut in stem #3. Split stem #4. Heavily scraped stem #5. Nothing done to stem I'm getting roots on some of the other clones, but not enough to evaluate. I will check again tonight.
You should try using some clone solution in your reservoir. I have roughly the same set up as this except mine runs on a timer. 5 mins on 55 mins off. PH the water at 5.4, clone x rooting gel, life cloning solution by rx green solutions, I also have the clone x rooting solution, they seem to work the same. Awesome to see somebody trying different ways and posting results. Do you give your cuttings 24 hrs of dark after they are taken? I did really well my first round of taking clones, my 2nd round went higher on plant harder to root. You taking from low on vegger?
Also why use bloom ferts? I maybe showing my ignorance here but I thought that with holding ferts helped force the cutting grow roots? I am Der. Up for learning what works just confused on this one. I know holding back nitrogen is important, I always make sure that I haven't given them nutes for a few days whenever I take cuttings. Starving the cutting I thought would force it to grow roots after it used up any nutes still available in leaves. I am new to all this so any reading you know of that tells the science of giving bloom nutes to clones would be awesome.
I kinda forgot to finish this thread, didn't I? Final update...the lightly scraped stems seemed to root faster than others. I also really liked the root development on the split stems; it seemed like they sprouted roots from more spots on the stem. By far the worst, on all five varieties, was the untreated stem. Two of those never did pop roots. Now, to your questions. I don't run any clone solution because it has never been necessary. However, I looked up what you are running and it has...wait for it...phosphorous and potassium! Which, not coincidentally, is exactly what the bloom nutrient that I use has. So, I think we are both doing the same thing, but we are getting there in different ways. My solution is more concentrated, but as long as I limit it to 200-300 PPM's, it works just as well as the cloning solution. I don't pH my initial water, and the cloner runs 24/7. I started it that way based off advice on here, and it has always worked. I don't do a dark period either, and my clones generally come off of a mother plant, pretty high up on the plant. In my experience, the first round in a new cloner goes better than rounds after that. I went with new collars this time, and that seemed to help some. As far as fertilizer...as I mentioned earlier, your solution is simply fertilizer. Phos helps root development; that's why I started adding Bloom nutrients in the first place. They will root in nothing but tap water well also, generally speaking, but I think a little phos added after a week makes the roots pop a little quicker.
That makes a lot of sense. Being new to this I haven't paid much attention to what's behind clone solutions, but your right we are basically getting there the same way. I have heard a lot of people saying the same thing after first run rooting slows down. I think the answer is new collars as you have said. Also taking the pump apart and cleaning it the best u can. Running a little bleach or some other cleaning agent through the spray nozzles and everything. Than obviously running plain water through to mae sure to get rid of all bleach. Makes sense don't know if it will work in real world application. Hydro growers sometimes use small amounts of peroxide in their reservoir? Are you soil growing after you get your plants to root? That was something that appealed to me about aeroponic clones, no added stress to clone whatever medium you chose to grow in after rooted.
The collars are the only thing I changed, and I thought my roots popped quicker than the old ones. The clones I have now popped fast too, though, and they are the same ones. I don't know. I always run hot water with bleach for several hours, then rinse it and run it, then rinse it and run it again. So I know it's clean. It's the collars. I'm in hydro exclusively. RDWC for my mothers and ebb and flow for my grow.
I understand bleach leave a residue, may want to try h2o2 to clean IMO...straight tap water is the way to go in an aero. cut, set in puk, non PH'd tap water plug in, come back in 10 days day 14, ready to go View attachment 147132