M
mikkif19
- 2
- 3
Hey All,
I run a big nursery that pushes out about 5-6k clones per month. We have been using Root Riot cubes to root our clones for the last several years, and we have mostly had great results. We have not changed anything in our SOPs and have had great success with our method.s However, we cannot get more than a 30% success rate on our clones since beginning of January. Our mother stock is SUPER healthy and we have no pest or pathogen pressure at our grow. Our mothers are in 1 gal pots with a 70/30 Coco/Perlite mix (Plagron brand) and are super vigorous, lush, and perfectly fed. We took ~1,500 clones on Jan. 3, and we are typically used to seeing about 80% of our trays rooted in 6-8 days, with about an 85%-90% rooting success rate. However, we started to get super concerned when we saw absolutely zero roots in any of the trays by Day 12. We run our clone room at 75 degrees, 75% humidity. We run the clones on a 24 hour cycle and there are no temperature/humidity swings in our room. We actually bumped the temperature up to 80 degrees and humidity down to 65 degrees as one of the first changes we made in an effort to figure out wtf is going on with these clones. After running numerous experiments (temp/humidity parameters, water temp, testing our clones for hops, etc.), we concluded that the reason the clones are not rooting is because the Root Riot cubes are hot. We figured this out because the clones that go into the trays are super vigorous, lush, perfectly green in coloration, green stems, etc. when they go into the trays. Then, two weeks later, the stems are mostly a super deep purple and the leaves are super dark green (with almost a grey cast), and the clones that do root (3-4 weeks after initial dip/stick into the cubes) end up rooting with nutrient burn at the tips. This doesn't make any sense because they don't go into the trays overfed, so there is no way they should be looking like they have nitrogen toxicity/some type of lockout after being in the trays for 2 weeks. I took several cubes out of a fresh bag of Root Riots and soaked them in 0 EC RO water for 5 mins. After squeezing the water out of them into a shot glass, I found that my EC was reading at 1-2 EC! Apparently, the cubes are loaded with an unknown nutrient/chemical mixture. I called Root Riot and they said "You know the cubes are pre-inoculated with 0.8 EC, right?" HOW TF AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT? NOWHERE ON THE BAG/ON THEIR WEBSITE DOES IT STATE THAT THESE CUBES ARE INOCULATED WITH ANYTHING. As far as I know, they are supposed to be inert. Furthermore, they're unable to tell me what exactly they're inoculated with, though it's obvious that whatever it is is preventing the clones from rooting. I also gave about 60 cuts of one of my strains to my friend to root in rock wool at her facility, and they rooted just fine 9 days later - the same strain that came from the exact same mother is still not rooted over at my facility - another way I know that there's nothing wrong with my plants.
Does anyone have any further information on this or has anyone experienced this anomaly? Please let me know!
I run a big nursery that pushes out about 5-6k clones per month. We have been using Root Riot cubes to root our clones for the last several years, and we have mostly had great results. We have not changed anything in our SOPs and have had great success with our method.s However, we cannot get more than a 30% success rate on our clones since beginning of January. Our mother stock is SUPER healthy and we have no pest or pathogen pressure at our grow. Our mothers are in 1 gal pots with a 70/30 Coco/Perlite mix (Plagron brand) and are super vigorous, lush, and perfectly fed. We took ~1,500 clones on Jan. 3, and we are typically used to seeing about 80% of our trays rooted in 6-8 days, with about an 85%-90% rooting success rate. However, we started to get super concerned when we saw absolutely zero roots in any of the trays by Day 12. We run our clone room at 75 degrees, 75% humidity. We run the clones on a 24 hour cycle and there are no temperature/humidity swings in our room. We actually bumped the temperature up to 80 degrees and humidity down to 65 degrees as one of the first changes we made in an effort to figure out wtf is going on with these clones. After running numerous experiments (temp/humidity parameters, water temp, testing our clones for hops, etc.), we concluded that the reason the clones are not rooting is because the Root Riot cubes are hot. We figured this out because the clones that go into the trays are super vigorous, lush, perfectly green in coloration, green stems, etc. when they go into the trays. Then, two weeks later, the stems are mostly a super deep purple and the leaves are super dark green (with almost a grey cast), and the clones that do root (3-4 weeks after initial dip/stick into the cubes) end up rooting with nutrient burn at the tips. This doesn't make any sense because they don't go into the trays overfed, so there is no way they should be looking like they have nitrogen toxicity/some type of lockout after being in the trays for 2 weeks. I took several cubes out of a fresh bag of Root Riots and soaked them in 0 EC RO water for 5 mins. After squeezing the water out of them into a shot glass, I found that my EC was reading at 1-2 EC! Apparently, the cubes are loaded with an unknown nutrient/chemical mixture. I called Root Riot and they said "You know the cubes are pre-inoculated with 0.8 EC, right?" HOW TF AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT? NOWHERE ON THE BAG/ON THEIR WEBSITE DOES IT STATE THAT THESE CUBES ARE INOCULATED WITH ANYTHING. As far as I know, they are supposed to be inert. Furthermore, they're unable to tell me what exactly they're inoculated with, though it's obvious that whatever it is is preventing the clones from rooting. I also gave about 60 cuts of one of my strains to my friend to root in rock wool at her facility, and they rooted just fine 9 days later - the same strain that came from the exact same mother is still not rooted over at my facility - another way I know that there's nothing wrong with my plants.
Does anyone have any further information on this or has anyone experienced this anomaly? Please let me know!
