Clones - When do you give up??

[Jimson]

I have had 8 clones in a clone bucket for over a month and only ONE has rooted. This is a 8-site bucket, 3 Himalaya Gold, 3 Barneys LSD, 1 Big Bang & 1 G13 s-Skunk.

ONLY the G-13 has rooted and it's was cut 13 days ago. The other stems are bare, soft & mushy. The leaves are green but that's got to be the daily foliar feeding with fish emulsion.

The veg tent is on 24 hours light. The ph in the bucket is 5.7. I use Olivia's cloning nutes. The EC was started at .4 - it's is now .8. (nutes changed 10 days ago).

I have mothers for the HG & LSD so I can start all over. But, I am wondering if I should dump the bucket. Before I started using the clone bucket, my cloning in perlite and rapid-rooters was hit or miss but inside of 2 weeks I knew whether each was a hit - or not.

I had good results with the 1st use of the clone bucket, about 75% the second round (change your rubber pucks between clonings) and less than 15% success this time!
The sprayers are all working -btw.

My grow site (rented) is cooler (down to 64 at night) than last summer but daylight temps are 74-76. Humidity is rock solid at 55%.

Thanks - JW

 

[Jalisco Kid]

My BP takes 3-5 weeks. JK

 

[TrailerTrash]

Too long.

CLONE BUCKET?

Ive noticed that getting the water up to at least 73 degrees helped a lot with spray airo sysytems.

Always clean the neoprene puck real good.

using an aquarium heater in mine.

sometimes i use a clear plastic cake dome over my home brew cloner.

5 gallon bucket with lid 12 holes drilled and a full spray sprinkler on a 5 in riser and a 190 gallon pump..

always soak cuts for 24 hours before putting in.


When do i give up?

WHen I walk into a collective and the clones have a faint white collar on the stem and brown edge leaves..

that means the downy mildew has gone systemic.

phenospora humilli ...its everywere.

waited 3 weeks and used agri-fos on some green ice and g-13 from 1 love collective in long beach.

tossed 2 days ago..they used to have great clones..now this downey mildew is spreading like wildfire at almost all the collectives.

 

[sky high]

My guesses:

Too cool. 64 at night is too cold for makin roots on clones. yer water MIGHT warm to 73-6 in lights on...but I'll guess it's below 70 most of the time. this will add WEEKS on to the root time.

I never mist or foliar feed my clones. my belief it that "food" from above gives them no reason to make roots below. Hell..they're getting water, light and food...what else do they need? Why make roots?

I also think misting increases the chances of seeing the mush. 'nuff said.

I use a 400 gph pump in my system..which is also a bucket /2"net pots up top I assembled myself. More misters and more pump means more O2, IMO....

dunno anyhting about PM.... and wanna keep it that way. Never saw iit here in CO til folks started bringing clones in from the Left Coast.....

good luck

s h

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

id say chuck em and start over. dont foliar feed them this time. cleane the bucket out. and the pucks real good. take some nice cuts and you should be good. i dont even use nutes, its just water and easy cloner. i am starting to add nutes now tho as i root all differnt strains and some stay in the cloner longer then others and with no food they yellow pretty bad. but with 8 plants i wouldnt bother. most strains show roots 6-14 days.

 

[vertstyle]

By clone bucket I assume you mean bubble cloner?
This is what has so far given me the best results. Roots in under 14 days, sometimes in 3-5 days.

75f water
75-80f air
70% humidity
Light nutrient mix in water, 100 ppm or so.
Mist twice a day, every other day a foliar feed, I just sometimes use a less than 100 ppm nutrient mix as the foliar.
Hydrogen peroxide to avoid slime and rot

As far as when to give up...
I usually toss them once the stem goes mushy. I've never had one root after that point. I have a few right now with mushy stems and some root bumps so I'm going to let them go until they root or die just to see what happens, although it's been almost 4 weeks already.

 

[CAPO]

I feel ya bro....after 10 years of gardening my weak spot is still cloning. Sometimes it's great...sometimes it ain't!

I think I am gonna park my Botanicare cloner and pick up some RR's and powder cloner, keep it cool and use a heat mat.

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

clones also depend on what shape your mom is in and how you feed her. to much nitrogen inhibits root growth, its best to take cuts off you mom after a plain watering not after a feeding. and give her enough nitrogen to stay healthy don't just dump the nutes in her water and feed her every week weather she needs it or not.

 

[DoubleDub]

first time i ever used nutes was about a week ago and i will forever use nutes. i used a 4ml 4ml 4ml gh solution during the first watering and then refilled with ro from there. All yellowing that i normally see on the little fan leaves disappeared. no need to clip them or remove them. saw roots in 5-6 days. healthy as can be. used rapid rooters with a hood and a 5x dip n grow solution.

 

[mal]

i agree with a couple of things already stated, you need to add an aquarium heater to the bucket, and quit the foliar feeding, they are being watered below constantly. use the olivia's at 1/4 recommended strength, and all you need is 1 flourescent light. i also agree with CAPO cloning can be a pain in the ass. i would add the aquarium heater and see what the clones do.



mal

 

[CAPO]

first time i ever used nutes was about a week ago and i will forever use nutes. i used a 4ml 4ml 4ml gh solution during the first watering and then refilled with ro from there. All yellowing that i normally see on the little fan leaves disappeared. no need to clip them or remove them. saw roots in 5-6 days. healthy as can be. used rapid rooters with a hood and a 5x dip n grow solution.

This sounds interesting........GH Grow, Micro, and Bloom?

 

[PureSugar]

I find cloning to be the easiest part of growing. I don't use any fancy devices or expensive cloning solutions and no nutes.

Step 1 get Rockwool, Superthrive, a humidity dome, and any brand of powdered rooting hormone. (I find it's much cheaper at a regular nursery than a hydro shop, I've taken over 100 clones with a $10 bottle of cloning powder and it doesn't even look like I've used any yet!)
I used to used to buy the small Rockwool cubes and use those but I have a box of the Hugos that I don't use for growing anymore so I just cut the big ones into pieces. I can probably get 30 clones from 1 Hugo.

Step 2 Soak cubes in pH 5.5 water with 1 drop per gallon of Superthrive. They only need to soak for a few mins.

Step 3 Take cuttings from the bottom of the plant or thin branches. Thinner cuttings root much faster.

Step 4 Use clean sharp scissors and make a 45 degree angle cut at the base of the cutting, make sure you get a clean cut and that you don't crush the stem. If you get a bad cut just cut it again til you get a clean one.

Step 5 Very lightly scrape about 1/2" of the plants dermal tissue (the plant's skin) away to expose more area for roots to grow from.

Step 6 Dip the cutting in the rooting powder and dont be shy with it.

Step 7 Push the cutting into the cube. Approx 3/4" deep. As long as it stands on its own that good.

Step 8 Thats it put the cutting in the humidity dome and keep dome in a warm area very little light is needed. Now just make sure there is always moisture covering the dome. Sometimes if I have a real weak veg solution mixed for something else I'll drop it in the bottom of the dome but it's not necessary.

6-12 days for roots depending on strain and environment. Cold REALLY slows things down!

Sounds like a lot more work than it is. Once the cubes are soaked each one takes less than a minute. Using this technique I've gotta be have about a 99% success rates.

For about $20 you should be have enough cloning supplies for years of clones.

EDIT: WOW I TYPE SLOW AND DIDN'T REALIZE I WROTE A BOOK ON CLONING...lol I'm not sure if there have been 4 or 5 responses 2nd EDIT 7 Posts! oh man since I started typing...I guess I need to take it easy on the CC gear :RastaBong:

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

no offense pure suger although your advice is right on that just seems like of steps. with an ez cloner you just cut em and put them inside the pucks and come back in a week or 2 and transplant them into soil.

 

[PureSugar]

no offense pure suger although your advice is right on that just seems like of steps. with an ez cloner you just cut em and put them inside the pucks and come back in a week or 2 and transplant them into soil.

I know it sounds like a bitch but I'm telling you i can do it so fast and I don't need any special equipment. There are certainly lots of ways to take cuttings. I guess one of the reasons I use the method I do is that I used to need a lot of clones for a SOG setup and you can put a lot of clones in a $5 dome. I guess I just stuck with what worked. Once they are in the dome you pretty much just check for roots.

 

[CAPO]

At what temps would I need a heating mat ?

 

[PureSugar]

At what temps would I need a heating mat ?

Need? or benefit? I would say ideally you want the medium your cuttings are in between 75-80F (24-25C)

Below 70F (21C) things slow way down.

I would say need below 60F (15C) ..if not a heating mat a lot patients. :sleepy

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

yeah im not knocking it in anyway puresugar. you got it nailed and if it works it works. 1 plus to cubes is they are wicked easy to transplant like you said about the sog

 

[audius]

i have no green thumb but,,been having great sucess with rr & clonex,,i do use a heat pad cuz i grow in the basement,i keep my temps at 75 to 80,no folar feeding ,,i just wet thr rr,,i get roots in about a week & a half,,ive looked at the bubbels,but im the type that if it works,dont fix it,,i would keep it simpel,,pitc the bubbeler& get some rr

 

[sky high]

LOL, audius. Just shows how differently we all approach things.... cus I just tossed the rr's and went back to my old homemade aerocloner!

but yeah...whatever works. I think TEMPS are the most important parameter...but it all must work in sync to make the magic happen.

as a noob I just took 3x the clones i wanted and things usually came out OK. LOL

be well, all

s h

 

[Desertboy]

I had a grapefruit plant that used to take 4 weeks to clone in an aero cloner, in the same cloner I've done BC clones in 4 days.

I almost binned the grapefruit, so glad I didn't was one of the nicest smokes I've grown.