cloning Cloning

[DocNrock]

I gave cloning a try today. Cut the stems at an angle and dipped the ends in Clonex, then popped them into moistened Rapid Rooters. The incubator has a tall lid and they will be going under lights during the daytime.

To those who know, are the cuttings trimmed properly? Any other tips?

 

[PaulG]

Way to take the leap, Doc!

You may want to cut the major leaves off, they will wilt anyway. Just play around a little. In my experience, any new growth will emerge at nodes, ant the little side branches usually turn dark and crispy! A few small leaves to keep photosynthesis going while roots are developing should suffice. All my major leaves fell off eventually, or I cut them off because they looked bad. You also don't want too much light. Let them chill for awhile in subdued light, and then be careful not to fry them like I did!

Good luck, my friend!

 

[FarmerJake]

just some tips:

guessing you made sure the rapid rooters are not over watered. to insure for faster root time (water logged cubes = longer root time). a way to prevent that is to water the cube. then shake it till it feels like its at an appropriate weight. in between fully watered and dry.

-nip water leaf tips to concentrate growth on roots. important growth in cloning is root growth, water leafs are part of the cycle to bring in new growth. important top growth comes from nodes and the terminal locations but wont occur until root growth comes.
-keep the lights on 24/7 and the dome closed fully. you do not have enough clones in that dome to have to worry about mold issues.
-every day open the lid up for 2 seconds and mist them with water.
-at day 7 in the dome. start using a regular plant veg feed at half strength in a mist bottle to promote faster roots. plants that dont have roots will take in food though the leafs until roots occur. plants take in co2 from the tops and oxygen from the roots.

lighting:
idk what kind of light you use. i recommend a T12 old school stoplight fixture with any bulb honestly. the 3200k or the 5500k will work fine for cloning, t12 fixtures are genital on plants and work great imo. t8 and t5 light fixtures are a bit to strong in my experiences. they can root clones, but they never gave me 100% on a clone dome vs 1 under a t12 (i feel the plant takes the t12 light easier)

temps:
-keep the temps of that dome around 75-80 degree. its cold out. you might need a heated temp mat to insure the plants do not chill during the night.

not really much other than that. i just stress starting to feed clones at day 7-10 because i know most all plants will start to concentrate there food from the greengage to the roots at those days. i mist them with plant food, then start feeding regular food at day 10. i expect them to clone, so im ready to feed them and not lock them out. rapid rooter cubes and most other cubes are hydroponic soiless mediums. they require specific ph and imo its important to start feeding it correct as a baby to insure future growth goes fast. if you dont feed the plant as it roots, it will yellow out indicating it rooted and is hungry.

best of luck, im sure you will do fine

-jake

 

[3/5King]

Last season I cut a plant at the stem (it was about 5" tall) and stuck it right back in the dirt....lol, it took root and kept on living, didn't lose any leaves either. Now I know this isn't necessarily the same, it still goes to show you how resilient they are. It did have a stunt period while the new roots grew but its alive and doing well as we speak. Good luck

 

[SadisticPeppers]

I'm holding out hope for my cloning attempt from yesterday. They look no worse than they did from last night, which isn't a bad thing That being said, I'm gonna leave them be for a few days and see if there's any new growth popping up

 

[Stefan_W]

Last season I cut a plant at the stem (it was about 5" tall) and stuck it right back in the dirt....lol, it took root and kept on living, didn't lose any leaves either. Now I know this isn't necessarily the same, it still goes to show you how resilient they are. It did have a stunt period while the new roots grew but its alive and doing well as we speak. Good luck

I love this story. When we garden we try to mimic what happens naturally, but really plants have been around a very long time and have adapted in particular ways. Sometimes just getting out of the way and letting them do their thing is all it takes.

 

[DocNrock]

Way to take the leap, Doc!

You may want to cut the major leaves off, they will wilt anyway. Just play around a little. In my experience, any new growth will emerge at nodes, ant the little side branches usually turn dark and crispy! A few small leaves to keep photosynthesis going while roots are developing should suffice. All my major leaves fell off eventually, or I cut them off because they looked bad. You also don't want too much light. Let them chill for awhile in subdued light, and then be careful not to fry them like I did!

Good luck, my friend!

It's all fun, Paul. I'll take a look at them again today and see if there's any more pruning I could do. I'll decrease the light intensity. See my answer below.

just some tips:

guessing you made sure the rapid rooters are not over watered. to insure for faster root time (water logged cubes = longer root time). a way to prevent that is to water the cube. then shake it till it feels like its at an appropriate weight. in between fully watered and dry.

-nip water leaf tips to concentrate growth on roots. important growth in cloning is root growth, water leafs are part of the cycle to bring in new growth. important top growth comes from nodes and the terminal locations but wont occur until root growth comes.
-keep the lights on 24/7 and the dome closed fully. you do not have enough clones in that dome to have to worry about mold issues.
-every day open the lid up for 2 seconds and mist them with water.
-at day 7 in the dome. start using a regular plant veg feed at half strength in a mist bottle to promote faster roots. plants that dont have roots will take in food though the leafs until roots occur. plants take in co2 from the tops and oxygen from the roots.

lighting:
idk what kind of light you use. i recommend a T12 old school stoplight fixture with any bulb honestly. the 3200k or the 5500k will work fine for cloning, t12 fixtures are genital on plants and work great imo. t8 and t5 light fixtures are a bit to strong in my experiences. they can root clones, but they never gave me 100% on a clone dome vs 1 under a t12 (i feel the plant takes the t12 light easier)

temps:
-keep the temps of that dome around 75-80 degree. its cold out. you might need a heated temp mat to insure the plants do not chill during the night.

not really much other than that. i just stress starting to feed clones at day 7-10 because i know most all plants will start to concentrate there food from the greengage to the roots at those days. i mist them with plant food, then start feeding regular food at day 10. i expect them to clone, so im ready to feed them and not lock them out. rapid rooter cubes and most other cubes are hydroponic soiless mediums. they require specific ph and imo its important to start feeding it correct as a baby to insure future growth goes fast. if you dont feed the plant as it roots, it will yellow out indicating it rooted and is hungry.

best of luck, im sure you will do fine

-jake

Thanks for the detailed reply, Jake. Yeah, the Rapid Rooters are just moist, not soaked nor dry. I cut off most of the lower leaves and the larger ones near the tip I cut down to the size of the remaining smaller leaves. Is this what you mean by "water leaves?" Mist daily with water, check. Regarding the lights, they are T8's, and the tray to the right of the dome has my new seedlings, so the light is pulling "double duty," so to speak. I just don't have the indoor space right now to set up a different T12-lit space. I can swap out the current T8 light for another I have that has two bulbs instead of four, then go back to the four-bulb unit after they've rooted. I guess my seedlings will do OK with 24 hour light for a while. Regarding temps, this is indoors, and our house is pretty much around 76 to 82 all the time. Great tip about mist feeding. I did not know about this. Since I am focusing on root growth right now, should I use something higher in P and K, and less in N? In any event, if this attempt goes bust, I still have plenty of time for further attempts. Worse case, I can just sprout seeds for these varieties. Thanks!

Last season I cut a plant at the stem (it was about 5" tall) and stuck it right back in the dirt....lol, it took root and kept on living, didn't lose any leaves either. Now I know this isn't necessarily the same, it still goes to show you how resilient they are. It did have a stunt period while the new roots grew but its alive and doing well as we speak. Good luck

That's awesome! Just shows that these things WANT to live, despite our best efforts to keep them alive. Ha!

I'm holding out hope for my cloning attempt from yesterday. They look no worse than they did from last night, which isn't a bad thing That being said, I'm gonna leave them be for a few days and see if there's any new growth popping up

Good luck! What varities are you cloning?

I love this story. When we garden we try to mimic what happens naturally, but really plants have been around a very long time and have adapted in particular ways. Sometimes just getting out of the way and letting them do their thing is all it takes.

Exactly. Sometimes these things live despite our best efforts to keep them alive or help them grow!

 

[PaulG]

Okay, Brent, looks like you are all set up!

+1 Jake - I forgot to mention misting them; my bad

 

[SadisticPeppers]

Naga Morich, Butch T, Bhuts and Trinidad Moruga

 

[DocNrock]

Naga Morich, Butch T, Bhuts and Trinidad Moruga

Face smashers! Nice choices.

 

[SadisticPeppers]

Thank you sir. The cuttings thus far are looking so-so, so as a "Plan B" I used some of the extra rockwool I had, planted two of each kind I mentioned, and made sure the pH of the water was exactly in the middle of what they need to germinate (~6.3 pH)

 

[Spice 8]

Yeah they look fine. Looks like your ready to hit the ground runnin. Rapid Rooters work wonders.

I love hydro though, no trimming just cut and pop in, roots in no time. Just gotta have room.

 

[Jeff H]

My cloning attempt for this year is only batting .500. I had two clipping of basil I stuck in a glass of water and put it on the window sill for a couple of weeks until roots sprouted. one died, one sprouted roots.

The one that lived now is in soil doing well in the grow room for the winter. It doesn't really have much of any new growth yet, I presume it is spending most of its energy on creating roots. Been in the soil for about two weeks now.

I never tried cloning peppers. I'll have to try that some time.

 

[SadisticPeppers]

That beats me. My first attempt went 0-fer. I just started a second attempt today, and changed one or two items (replaced rockwool with a shaped soil, putting it in a small germination tray), so we'll see how it goes. I've also got enough piping and stuff to do another indoor growhouse. I had a wonderful amount of success germinating things in a covered growhouse, so in the next day or two, I'll assemble it and put the cuttings in there to help

 

[SadisticPeppers]

Update: I just finished moving the cuttings into a newly reconstituted indoor vertical growhouse, covered so that it can trap the humidity inside and under a small fluorescent light. I also put the seeds I planed the other day in there too, since I'd like to have a Plan B going as well. And on top of dipping the cuttings in Clonex, I put a couple drops of the Clonex into the medium where I was placing it, just to make sure it took.