I confess to having neglected this baby. She's 10 weeks old. When I took the cutting I didn't use rooting hormone, I put it straight in dirt, and when she rooted I didn't give her enough light. The first couple of nodes are rather far apart because she was light deprived. She's suffered some deficiencies and has some brown leaf ends, and yellowing at the bottom 2 nodes. She's been under 82W of CFLs for the past month or so, and the newer growth looks good. But, her root system is not very good. When I transplanted her a couple of weeks ago there weren't a lot of roots. I can tell by how slowly she's drinking that her root system is still not great. Can it get better? I'm thinking of repotting her and burying the bottom node to encourage roots to grow from there. What's the best way of doing this? Should I get cloning gel and put it on the nodes? How far down should the bottom nodes go? Should I bury two sets of nodes instead of one? If I do this, how long should I wait before flowering her? She's about 5" - 6" tall now. I don't know if I can bring myself to toss her, but I do have a Grapefruit seed and a Widowrella seed that I could start, if y'all think that would be a better option. (I only have room for one plant.) This clone is from a Diesel plant that I'll be harvesting soon (link in my sig). Thanks, GC!
Other than the Nitrogen deficiency, it looks very healthy. Now is when I would consider pruning and topping. You should figure out how many tops / branches you want in the end, and if you want to top it. Then remove the bottom growth up to the branches that you want to keep. I don't think burying nodes will help much. As far as the roots go, watering only when it is dry is a good start, and adding mycorrhizae and root stimulators will help. Also making sure your temps and humidity are on point is crucial. Check out Foxfarm's Microbe Brew and Kangaroots to help with the roots...
Thanks, KingH. I'm glad you think the plant looks good enough to keep. It would be really hard to get rid of her. I decided not to top this one because I want to try a non-level canopy with it. I know that sounds wacky and maybe it is stupid, but it's mother has an even canopy, and my cab is so narrow there isn't really enough room for all the leaves, so only the top leaves get light. If I let this plant go "natural", the leaves will be at different levels and they might get more light overall. I've got 6 medium tops now and I kinda want to try for one big cola and a few smaller ones on this plant. I've been looking at the foxfarms products and the Kangaroots looks good. I've been using something called Super Plant Tonic from Blue Mountain Organics and it has microbes but I'm not sure if they're really active. Super Plant Tonic I think microbes help the roots take up nutrients, but they don't make the plant grow new roots. I think this plant has only one or two skinny roots. Do you think she'll grow roots from the bottom nodes if I bury them?
I have buried clones like you are talking.Put some rooting hormone on the new part you are putting under ground.Will help with height.
Oh, I forgot to say, the temps are very low at the root zone -- about 60. Sometimes as low as 55, sometimes up to 65. Is that too low? Humidity is also very low and I always forget to mist her.
Thanks Maulcoy. I don't have a height restriction really. I just want more roots. How far down should I bury the node? Roots don't grow in the top inch or so, so I guess deeper than that. Then I'm at the next node so I guess I should bury that too. I'll get some cloning gel.
It will eventually grow without gel.I like root tone for this case because of the anti-fungus additive.Just leave an inch between bottom node you keep and the dirt.Don't worry about the hormone if you don't have it.
I don't know if there's an inch between the 2nd and 3rd nodes, so the 2nd node will barely be covered by dirt.