Just discovered that my Clonex gel has gone bad. Has the consistancy of water even after being stored in the fridge. This has never happened in 25 years or so of using Clonex. Whatever. But, time and money are working against me here, mainly time, since everything else is ready, like the clones have been cut and trimmed ready. Seems I remember someone who just stuck the cut ends into an aloe leaf with decent success for cloning, but not 100% sure on my memory and am asking for experiences. Am doing the cup in a cup with some used mix that was used for last years Thai basil. Was a really nice mix and really healthy plant so it got saved for clones and seeds rather than getting dumped with the other used mix. A local Publix has aloe leaves for $1.99 each, ~18" long and a 5 min drive. That would be quick and easy, if it actually works. So, if anyone has a yea or nay experience I'd love to hear it. Thanks! Wet
i did just that, dip in the gel from the fresh leaf and it worked. i remember reading on the old NT thread that you could even dip clones in x200 powder for even better results.
Watch this video on YouTube . . 100% organic no till garden (no bottled nutrients ) tales of a doper 7.5 Great info on cloning with aloe The future is soil , not oil
Coots Stupid Easy Cloning Gel. Almost organic even. Close enough for many. Buy RapidRooters or one of the knock-offs. Doesn't matter 'cause they're all made at a single factory in Springfield, Oregon. They're made from cellulose from the wood products industry. "Waste not - want not" - Grandma Dawgz Make a kelp & alfalfa meal tea. On this one either dilute the standard recipe by 50% with pure water or, more logically perhaps, start with 1/2 the material for usual recipe that makes 5 gallons. To each gallon of diluted tea, add 1/4 cup of aloe vera juice/extract/gel/whatever, 1 tsp. of Dyna-Gro Pro-TeKt and soak the RapidRooters in this for a few minutes. Remove and you want to press out the excess water/tea. You want it a bit more hydrated than they were when they arrived at your home. You'll figure that part out. As far as rooting gel, liquid, powder, water, honey - whatever (redux) just use what you're comfortable with. It's a discussion I can't do any more. Put in a tray with the 8" dome, spray the inside of the dome, leave the cuttings alone, spray the inside on a regular basis when needed. You want a solid beading of water on as much of the surface of the dome. You're looking for high humidity on this part. Dat's it. LD (and for further explanation.....) Here are the components and why they're used: 1. Aloe Vera: Salicylic acid is a plant compound which has been used as a rooting agent for over 120 years in the nursery industry. This is the compound that's found in Willow trees which you might have run across in posts on rooting a cutting 2. Kelp: Kelp contains all 3 natural forms of rooting compounds that you find in commercial products, compounds like Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), Indole-3-butyric acid (IBA), 4-Chloroindole-3-acetic acid and Phenylacetic acid which are auxins (hormones - all auxins are hormones but not all hormones are auxins). These compounds perform different functions as far as facilitating root development, i.e. IAA creates the actual root sites on the cutting's shaft whereas IBA causes root elongation. All of these are in soluble form and are in an organic form vs. the versions found in Clonex, Dip-n-Grow, Olivia's, whatever. 3. Honey: Honey contains a slew of enzymes, amino acids and also contain compounds which function as a biofungicide exactly like Aloe Vera extracts. So there's the basic mix but you'll need to go one step further to get this into a gel. For that you can go to Dip-n-Grow and purchase a product that they call Dip Gel which is simply an inert carboxmethly cellulose product. When it's mixed with water it becomes very thick, i.e. a gel. The price was around $16.00 for a pound and you mixed it something like 10 grams to a quart of water and shake it and then let it sit overnight and the next morning you have gel. So you would use the kelp, aloe vera to create a rooting compound to the strength you want, add the Dip Gel powder and the next morning you'll have a quart (32oz)of organic, effective rooting compound. The versions used in some of the commercialrooting compounds are registered pesticides (NAA in particular which is the one in Clonex if I remember correctly). Add some BioAg Fulvic Acid and increase the effectiveness even more. HTH
well its some pretty cool tech, effective, has three hormones for rooting and a fungicide to help with dampening off. you can use it without the gel but to make it a gel costs a couple pennies. i suspect this would cost less than 10 cents and its mixed fresh every time because fresh is always best IMO. heres some old quotes from some of our finest members; i can't quote from the original no till thread so you'll have to settle for c/p. Gimik: you do not want to mix aloe vera until youre ready to water the solution in, as it's time sensitive. The compounds degrade in about 30 minutes after mixing into the water. The potassium silicate should be just fine to use, the only reason we advise avoiding the hydro stores is the price tag and unbelievable marketing schemes involved in most places. Chunk: You guys should look in to getting some 200x Aloe Vera powder. Reconstitute it with water ( 199 parts water to 1 part powder) to use as needed rather than worry about preservatives.......just sayin'! response to chunk: sold! thanks chunk makes the shelf life issues go away too.. this way your stuff doesn't go bad because of a limited shelf life. But the best way is to use 200XX Aloe vera powder - 1 gram of 200XX mixed with 199 grams of water gives you 200 grams of pure, preservative-free Aloe vera extract. Plus you save big, big money - it costs a lot to ship water & liquids around the world CC
Ya, I remember all of those. I have a simplified version that always gave me 100% success. As soon as I figure out the pics here I will post it up.
That's exactly what I did, just stuck the cuts right in a section of leaf. Total cost was $1.99 and 15 min to the store and back. Lots of good info given (props to LLB for that great post), but all involved something I was short on, time, due to shipping. Money also, but mainly time, since the clones were cut and trimmed. We'll see how well it works. If it does, I doubt if I'll be ordering any of that stuff, Clonex included, not when I can get a 1 1/2' leaf for $2. May or may not run it through the blender and store the gel in the fridge. Used to do this in SoFl with 3 big patches that were growing around the house. Used it as a hair conditioner back when it was long. Worked great, just be sure to apply it BEFORE you wash your hair. Will update as it goes along. Not only the aloe gel, but also the used mix as a rooting medium. Thanks all! Wet
Hap, If you're posting from a PC, there's a couple of different ways to post pics. The quickest way is to hit the upload a file button on the post window and browse your hard drive for the image you want. Once uploaded, you have the option to present the the picture as a thumbnail or full sized. I always use full sized because it resizes the image to fit the post window. You can also click on the Media tab at the top and create an album of your images. Once uploaded to your gallery, you can click on the image to open it up, then copy the image url. Then click on the image icon on the post reply window and paste the url into the drop down window and click the insert image button. If you get an error message uploading from your hard drive, over your mouse over your avatar in the upper right, then go to preferences and click. In the drop down, uncheck the 11th option (use flash based uploader) and you're good to go.
well, i just leave mine out. it kinda scabs over but the filet is so big the juice farther in the filet looks fine. gooey just like the fresh. thats why i grow my own. i use my soil mix with added perlite. i grow them in my room and all over the house. the one in the greenhouse is beautiful!! they multiply quickly once you get a few of them. after a while, it is more than enough and i am now selling them for $5 each. so i'm kinda getting paid to grow this way in some sense. they sell immediately and i have a little sign for all the uses and show it's organic grown. next spring since its done so well, i'll get a bigger section of the store. already got some grow lights down there. draws them right in like flies. lol
Thanks Chunk! So my method was to get my sashimi knife ragingly sharp with a water stone, break off some fresh aloe, remove the skin, then toss the clear filet into the blender with water. After that I would take the cuts from the mother plant and get them into the water as fast as possible to prevent air from entering the xylem or phloem. After they sat for a couple hours I would then cut the stem on a very heavy bias and cover the cut with aloe gel, then drop them into peat moss that was hydrated with aloe water and place the dome on. Cheap, easy, and it always worked.
I haven't either, but with those big globules of gel and such, I don't think it would take well to freezing. Of course it would be easy to find out, one way or the other. Wet
No. I dropped off the face of the planet for a while. They saved my spot, but there was no point in leaving me as a mod.
I've found the quickest way of rooting cuttings, ime, is to soak in a coconut/aloe/kelp tea solution before dipping into aloe powder (200x) and setting into the pot/rooter cube or whatever media you use to hold them. A little fulvic acid in the soaking solution speeds things up a bit more if desired. Ksil isn't necessary though it can help with dampening off issues, should you have a need for it. For my lazy periods I simply soak the cuttings in an aloe solution for an hour or so then dip into the aloe powder before setting them. HTH