Seems like a nice idea you've introduced here. I have a couple questions for you -How long did it take for that seciton to root? -How much growth did that section actually experience? -Is there and increased susceptibility to disease for the mother due to the shaven section stem? +rep for the post
I'm still experimenting on different techniques, so I can't really answer too well. The rockwool dries out pretty quickly, I'm going to wrap them in plastic wrap or aluminum foil to keep them from drying out. I'd imagine the open wound would be susceptible to disease, which is why you want to use sterilized blades and such.
after the cut was made and root hormone was applied we soaked some propagation media or however you spell it. It was pretty damp and then wraped around the cut. We cut some BLACK plastic and sprayed it with a little mist then tied it on the stem at both ends. We were able to remove the clone from the mother then plant in a little over a weeks time.
i cut the rockwool cube clones off of the mother yesterday, roots were poking through the cubes. i set them aside under their own cfl in my room, we'll see if they survive the cut.
It seems many people overlook the advantage of air layering. Its nice to have your "clone" growing WHILE rooting on the plant. Not to mention this means u can take bigger clones off a plant. Ive heard of people just having mothers and air layering some big branches and cutting them and basically switching them to budding. and for medical growers i dont think it should effect plant limit even though im not 100% sure but is a huge benifit So benifits: growth during cloning stage ability to take a bigger clone
I think a huge benefit of this tech is that it may allow for controllable cultivation of the giant sativas. I've decided to experiment with some East Asian landraces and would not have without this tech. These things can get 25 feet. Once the moms are mature (6 feet or so after 120 days and a little trimming I'm guessing) I plan to trim all the nodes from 3 sides of each branch, then after she reovers air layer 24" branches and pot them on their sides (like they fell over) in custom pots. The remaining nodes and the top can grow for another 4 months without overrunning my room. I hope! I figure that 2/3's of the growth these things experience is in flower but if their only 6 inches tall laying down it should work. Even though it will take forever it is all happening in a veg room under cfl's. I really only loose a few weeks in the flower area and I get some crazy old skool Thai.
Nice! I'm definitely going to have to try this out on one of my mother plants. I like that the clone doesnt lose any growth during the rooting process like the cutting technique does! Simply fantastic, I'll let you guys know how it goes in a few weeks
The idea seems soo "possibly futuristic" lets hope the double ended clone is the new technique for a huge yield... haha
Great post zpyro. A method of air layering I have used in bonsai is to wrap a wire around the stem so that it is tight then above the wire wrap your growing medium. As the tree grows the wire cuts off the flow of carbohydrates from the leaves and the stem above the wire will thicken and form roots. I use this method mostly for pines because it takes them so long to grow roots. I wonder if this method would also work for mj.
Same concept as the technique illustrated above, except instead of using some wire as a tourniquet I just removed the phloem from around the stem.
Yeah I bet your way is alot faster since with a wire you have to wait for the plant to grow before it even takes effect. I might try both ways next time I take clones just to see how much faster it is.
What is I air layered two branches in my DWC then put them in the hydroton with the main plant and never cut them would that give the main plant more roots to work with? I have been thinking about this for some time now but just started to look up how to air layer.
i was thinking that using one of those tiny peat cups (wrapped in plastic wrap to keep moist) to wrap around the focused spot developing the new roots would be ideal for this if you could rig it up. that way you could just cut below it and not even have to transplant just place the peat cup in a new container.
More roots never hurt any plant. Some people will make arches with them outside and root them like that, same idea as air layering but more like....ground layering hah
really sick idea man but a lil too much work for me, i would much rather chop the shit out of 1 mother plant than have a couple clones at a time like this . . . cool idea though, good job !
That's why I said this in the OP It's not meant for plants you can chop the shit out of and get roots easily, it's for when all your cuttings keep drying out or otherwise dying. That, and when you want a much larger clone than you would otherwise normally get to start out, since the foliage continues to grow along with the roots and you don't have to chop it until those roots are fully established and are able to support the larger cutting.
haha.. I was thinking of trying this once, before I knew it was an actuall thing called "air layering" Cool to see that it can be done, great post.
ive done it many times. i don't go through all of that though. i have just cut at a node then wrapped a cube around the exposed cut. dabbed a little gel on it with a q tip. then wrapped the moist cube with aluminum foil. roots show in 5 days. every time. then just cut the branch off just under the root. works every time....no matter what size the branch. never get any rot this way either. this method is all over you tube as well. works great on strains that have trouble rooting well.
I love air layering, I can take much larger clones, I use damp spagnum moss as the medium with saran wrap wrapped around then a lil tape on both ends. HUGE clones everytime. Great tutorial!!