CLONING: to take a clone, you will need. exacto knife with new blade alcohol scissors small bowl superthrive. set up youre new cloner the day before you clone, add distelled water with 1 drop of superthrive per gallon, set ur heater and leave until the big day. wipe your exacto knife, scissors and your bowl off with alcohol, fill the bowl with water from your cloner, may want to wipe ur hands also, I do... locate the branches that will make good clones, the thicker the stem the better but any that have a min of three nodes will do. right below the 3rd node is where you will cut. sit the bowl close to your plant, then use the scissors to cut the branch from the plant cut square at this point, quickly put the cut end into the bowl of water, reach under the water with the exacto blade and cut a 45 degree angle on the bottom, making sure the end never leaves the water.(very important as an air embolism will kill ur cut.( repeat this step until you have all clones your taking) just make sure none come out of the water.. leave that soak in the water for 15 minutes. now you can remove it from the water and trim off lower branches if necessary, scrape up one side of the stem using the blade perpendicular to the stem lightly as to only rub off one layer of the stem skin.. then insert the clone into the neoprene disc trying to leave and inch or so under the neporene, place that into your netpot and insert into your cloner. 1 hour after you have put the new clones into the cloner, go back and check, if any of them has to much of a gap between the cut end and the water they will wilt,(1/4") just slide them deeper into the netpot and they will recover quickly. check the water level every other day or so, you may have to add some back (distelled water) do to evaporation.. no spraying necessary and no dome. 5-7 seven days roots will start to form, if you notice any leaf discolor the leafs can be cut back 50%. I used to do that at the beginning, but have found with superthrive you dont have to. Thats prety much it. the 15 minute waiting period works with all types of cloning, it really does help. Cleaninig your blade in between cuts is a good practice also.
Thank you Mr. Budslinger, you tha man! You have answered all my questions and made it all so clear now. I'm sure I will succeed next time I attempt to clone. Thanks again.
So sometimes a pic says a thousand words... here is the neoprene insert and the netcup with the bottom cut out... A likely canidate, as you see i dont always have three nodes, but they do work better when they have three . inserted into the neiprene disc. now just install into cloner...
So..now what to do when they are ready, i have found small 1 1/2 cubes to fit great with my system, as I dont always have a dwc ready for them its nice to throw them into cubes and give the roots a nice head start before they go into my dwc rigs, or my flood tables. To do this I take a nice rooted clone Break a dry cube apart carefully (i use grodan and find they do not have to be soaked) insert he clone gently trying to make sure all the roots are in the cube, if you have to spiral them around to achieve this. Tie a string around the cube to keep it closed Put into a small dish of water, I use a 10% mix of nutes at this point. whallah a few days later....
yeah i think i'll try a bubble and see how it goes. if it works with cubes it should work with rapid rooters also imo. if not i'll just buy a different pump and some pvc to convert it to aero. i was gonna just use superthrive instead of rhizotonic for my roots this harvest but after reading more on supert a lot of people say it stunts growth after the clone and very early veg growth phases. most of those peoples problems were probably just caused by over exposure to all that b1 but idk.. my space is too small to risk it so i just pay 40 bucks for the rhizo because i've seen the results of using compared to not using rhizo and when not using it our plants just don't develop as well in any fashion. they especially explode if i soak my soil in 15ml/gal rhizo on transplants. it also helps the plant regenerate if its been injured so i always feed after i do a topping session or sometimes a cloning session depending on how many get cut. rhizos some good shit but superthrive has been better for cloning. i also water with supert for the first watering or two with clones then switch to rhizo to avoid a b1 overdose. but yeah i'm gonna make one of these bubble cloners in about a month. maybe two. thx for the info.
Great step by step Slinger... and perfect timing. I had already built my cloner but just getting ready to take cuts.
here's a few pics in case some of you are wondering what clones may look like using Budslinger's cloning and rooting method Strain is white berry and a pic from when my clones went into cubes
I'm running the same strain currently, just went into my cloner on Sunday. We should compare progress.
I had a pump failure which set me back a few days. I've lost all but three (of 40), but the three are real survivors (12 hours with no sprayers). If the remaining plants look good after another 2 days we're going into the 5 gals and under the Metal Halide. Unfortunately I'll have to dice one up for the next batch of clones but I'll pass pics of em as they veg. I'm just hoping they aren't hermaphrodites after the dry season.
WOW. I wish I'd seen your cloning tutorial earlier. I've been taking clones and just screwing them up. I've wasted killed and improperly prepared 4 clones now, two are in bubble buckets and living, but not rooting. How necessary is it that I have the superthrive? I don't have any and would like to take clones tonight
Nice pics Doin. The Slinger's ROCK! LGM, it's a good thing to have, but i have successfully taken clones without it. If you are keen to get going, go for it! Patience shmatience.
I don't use anything. I just cut the plants, trim to the correct angle with a razor and then into the cloner you go. Just fresh water, nothing extra. It appears to me that clone gel and clone powder are probably more to prevent air embolisms than to encourage root growth. I had problems with clones at first because I gave them too much light. I tried everything but the solution was to move the fixtuire further away.
I under-estimated the strength of aquarium reflectors and set up 90 watts of t5 light 2 feet away. Problem was I didn't realize the fixture I had was pushing 90% of the light straight down. I bumped it up another 2 feet and that fixed my issues.
This is new to me, I like this idea! +rep Have you ever left the clones in the container? Just remove the heater & add another stone & you got a bubbler you could veg in with out moving.