First Time Cloning - Suggestions Welcome

Today is my first attempt at cloning. Below are some pics.

I followed all of the standard cloning practices that I found here. So, for the clones themselves it's a wait and see thing. But I do have a couple of questions.

The foliar spray for the clones - should it have anything else in the spray or just pure H2O?

My dining room has a large window facing north = lots of indirect sunlight. Will the clones be good on the d/r table with lots of indirect sunlight?

How does the mother plant look? As you can see I took quite a bit of foliage off of her. Should she be trimmed back even more? Should I put her on 1/4 nutes right away?

Damn - I'm gonna end up with way too many clones. I've got 20 already and 3 plants left to trim. I only need 12.

damn man those clones are pretty big, i ussually take ones that are about 3 inches long.

ive taken over 60 clones so far and havnt lost any yet, im sure i just doomed myself by saying that. but my advice-

indirect sunlight is best, as long as you have a humidity dome

the mother looks fine to me, i always use the same strength nutes afterwards but your probably on the safer side with 1/4

as for the foliar spray i always had problems with nitrogen definciencys after the clones took to rooting because they immediately started growing so fast. i think you could easily get away with adding liquid karma or whatever your preffered kelp/guano/castings spray is.

looks good from here!

now to let someone whos taken 60,000 clones successfully answer.... :)

they are very large and may be difficult to root with that many leaves you really only need the growth tip and maybe one more set of leaves thats usually only around 3 inches long and even then its not a bad idea to clip the larger leaves in half.

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Originally Posted by bejay

they are very large and may be difficult to root with that many leaves you really only need the growth tip and maybe one more set of leaves thats usually only around 3 inches long and even then its not a bad idea to clip the larger leaves in half.

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Thanks bjay! I trimmed the foliage way back.

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Originally Posted by criom

now to let someone whos taken 60,000 clones successfully answer.... :)

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Sorry man, I can only account for about 6,480 clones in the last 8 years. :D

I am the heretical proponent of the Big Clone Theoryâ?¢. Please see the link in my sig to 'A batch of clones in rockwool.'

I've found that fat stemmed clones root faster and more profusely than tiny cuttings. See the stem thickness comparison img in the cloning photoessay.

Taller cuttings become bigger plants faster- particularly useful in SoG where clones are flowered as soon as they set root- no veg time.

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Originally Posted by PharmaCan

The foliar spray for the clones - should it have anything else in the spray or just pure H2O?

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Don't mist unless you see wilting- and don't presume wilting is caused by low humidity. If the rooting media is kept too wet, the stem tip can rot and block water uptake.

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My dining room has a large window facing north = lots of indirect sunlight. Will the clones be good on the d/r table with lots of indirect sunlight?

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Your clones would be much better off in a clonebox, built to control all conditions. Fluoro lighting 18/6 to 24/0, a seedling/clone horticultural heatmat (pref fixed temp 30C), small (4") exhaust fan connected to a thermostat set to kick on the fan at 26.5C and off at 25.5C.

Building stuff is definitely your bag- get to it. :)

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How does the mother plant look? As you can see I took quite a bit of foliage off of her. Should she be trimmed back even more? Should I put her on 1/4 nutes right away?

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Looks great. You can turn the nutes down if you don't intend to take clones for a while (a few weeks). Crank them back up to the usual about 7-10 days before you need cuttings.

You can cut back the stems down to the next intact node. When you cut all the leaves off at a node, the stem will die back to the next node with intact leaves. Growth will then divide for your next pass of cuttings.

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Damn - I'm gonna end up with way too many clones. I've got 20 already and 3 plants left to trim. I only need 12.

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Flower the best, use extras for mothers, compost the rest. Gotta be fairly ruthless!

PC you will find that your success rate will increase if you use a product called Anti-Wilt. This is a food grade wax, you dip the whole cutting in the mixture and it will coat the whole plant and help seal in the moisture.
With out if you will need to have a humidity dome or cut larger clones with many leafs.

Pure water is OK with clones because they are not under intense lights so the spotting is not a problem, make sure it's Ph though 5.8 to 6.0.

48" fluorescents lights work great for starting seedlings and clones. I always had great success with 4-48" ones, 2 cool white and on the inside bulbs 2 of the grow bulbs make for a good mixture of the light spectrum.

Mothers should be held at about 1000ppm to 1200 ppm of a balanced NPK mix. Using a foil spray right after cutting is also OK.

One more thing, when you cut the others leave a little stem on the mother and don't ever cut a mother back to the main stock. That will invite future problems, but if you leave a little stem attached it will seal up on it's own or you can even use a little clone powder or clone gel (my favorite) applied to the end of the tip you leave. This will make mother feel better and no shock (unless you cut it to bare bones)

I to am a California medical user as you but if you have more then you are allowed you can always give some away to other medical users.

Happy growing.

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Originally Posted by PharmaCan

Today is my first attempt at cloning. Below are some pics.

I followed all of the standard cloning practices that I found here. So, for the clones themselves it's a wait and see thing. But I do have a couple of questions.

The foliar spray for the clones - should it have anything else in the spray or just pure H2O?

My dining room has a large window facing north = lots of indirect sunlight. Will the clones be good on the d/r table with lots of indirect sunlight?

How does the mother plant look? As you can see I took quite a bit of foliage off of her. Should she be trimmed back even more? Should I put her on 1/4 nutes right away?

Damn - I'm gonna end up with way too many clones. I've got 20 already and 3 plants left to trim. I only need 12.

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Thanks for all the tips everyone!!!!

Well, I put the clones in a humidity dome and put them under flouros that I can leave on 24/7. If I put the clones under 24/7 and then switch to 18/6 after they root, are the plants going to want to flower because of the shorter light interval?

Zandor - I looked everywhere for the wilt-pruf and couldn't find any, which is really kind of weird because there's real farmer's supplies near my home and none of them carried any kind of anti-wilt product.. I didn't have time to order online so, what I've got is what I've got.

The MMJ co-op I frequent sells clones for $20, which is about as close to giving them away as you can get. Probably I'll just sell the excess clones to the co-op. I'd be happy to give some away for free to other mmj patients/growers, but I don't know any.

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Originally Posted by PharmaCan

If I put the clones under 24/7 and then switch to 18/6 after they root, are the plants going to want to flower because of the shorter light interval?

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Flowering behaviors do begin to appear as you lengthen the dark period. You can induce different amounts of either veg or flowering growth behaviour as you adjust the dark period length.

The plant grows in full flowering mode at 12hrs dark or more and full veg mode at 6 hours dark or less. Dark periods in between 6-12 hours produce mixed growing habits which are not of much use to the cannabis grower.

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The MMJ co-op I frequent sells clones for $20, which is about as close to giving them away as you can get. Probably I'll just sell the excess clones to the co-op. I'd be happy to give some away for free to other mmj patients/growers, but I don't know any.

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Damn good arrangement. Once you get really good at cloning- no yellow leaves, etc- you may find yourself doing a bunch of them of the mmj club. Cloning is tricky, but once you master it, it's a good bit of fun, too. :)

Well, it's five days since I cut the clones and they all seem to be doing well - all standing up straight with no wilting or yellow leaves.

I'm using the rapid rooters - or whatever you call them. (They're a spoungy bark cube that goes in a plastic tray.) How do you know when the girls have roots? Will they start growing out the holes in the bottom of the plastic tray or what?

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Will they start growing out the holes in the bottom of the plastic tray or what?

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Yes. Well, out of the rockwool.

Don't tell anyone I said this but Miracle grow has a product you can use called leaf shine. Its sold at most grocery stores like Ralph's or Von's and is sometime they have other brands but they all do the same thing. Its just a food grade wax and theirs is either a pump bottle or a spray can.

It's the same basic product but with out the anti-bacteria additives is all.

They would not use something like that on the farm unless they were processing fruit but then they would buy it in 55 gallon drums. That is where I first found that product over 25 years ago, they were spraying it on apples and other fruits of an convoy belt just before they were packed. It made them shine and look pretty and I was told then it was just a food grade wax spray that held in the moisture while the fruit was in transit to your table.

I know of a lot of medical growers in California who can use clones, but giving them to the local club for clone credit when you are better is a great idea for you. When I was growing (before the show) my self and a few others would always give away about 30 clones a month that we did not use so yours is a good idea. Plus a little karma goes a long way :hippy:

PC, I'm afraid that your humidome is keeping things too humid. If there's water condensing on the inside of the dome, the humidity in the dome is 100%. Doesn't need to be quite that high- 60-80% max. In fact, if you can remove the dome and nothing wilts, leave it off. Excess humidity can cause you some serious grief.

Humidomes are really only useful for the first 1-2 days after cutting until water uptake through the stem cut is established- and even then I'd debate their usefulness. I haven't used one in many years- my clonebox even has an exhaust fan. The humidity in my clonebox runs about 60% max.

I see some of your stems purpling. Mine did that until I started adding a little nutrient to the water I give the clones, shooting for a weak 400ppm @ pH 5.5 or so. With Canna (Vega) nutes, that's 5ml "A" and 5ml "B" in 10L water.