PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME WITH CLONING

I'm cloned over 50 clones over past 3 months and only 9 have lived. I've tried everything that I've read and know. I've read Cloning 101 and try to follow that but it hasn't helped. The bottom of the stems have been turning to mush and clone dies. I've tried letting tip of clone go thru rapid rooter, I've tried leaving tip into RR. Tried rock wool, coco fiber, hydroton. I've also used peat pellets. They have little light. I've steralized everything before cutting.

I just lost 5 this morning. I can do 12 clones at a time in my bubbler. I 've used distilled water, city water after it's sat for 24 hours. I use Hydro Peroxide in water.

I am currently using a bubbler, with water 2 in. below rapid rooters. Using Superthrive and Cal Mag. I also use anti wilt, dip clones and spray every 3 days; using Clonex, insuring I don't contaminate. Water temp 75 degrees. Ph is kept @ 5.8-6; Water is changed every 2 - 3 days.

Sometimes water gets cloudy and foams at the top. I change immediately when this happens.

My mothers are doing great in coco fiber. I just can't get clones to root. Once rooted, I'm fine.

Please help me.

Peace, PIF:(

I think clones turn to much like that when that part sits water to long and doesnt get proper oxygen. I have found the best way to clone is to create an environment that has a warm root zone (75-80 degrees) and humid while at the same time getting fresh air. Like with a humidity dome with holes cut on the top. Maintaining these conditions and being patient will lead to rooted clones.

Here are some pointers when taking clones.
1)Cut them at a 45 degree with a razor that was just cleaned with an alcohol moistent paper towel. Repeat for each clone taken to ensure a clean cut.
2) Dip each clone in cloning solution or gel and place in medium. In your case the bubbler. Make sure its light proof so alge doesnt grow. Heat water to about 76 degrees. Give them a spray of water and then just sit back and wait. If thye dont perk up after you cut them put them in a humidity dome with some holes for air.
3) be patient. dont poke at them 3 times a day every day.

http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=95103

^ thats a post I made detailing a cheap wick cloner that I have had excellent results with. Give it a try, can't hurt and don't cost hardly anything. You can even put em in Rapid Rooters like you are, then put the rapid rooters in the perlite - it'll keep them moist the same way


I think one of the main things is not messing with them, let them do their thing. I used to check them constantly, now I try to forget about them, and just check water level evry 5 days or so

Iknow this will sound crazy but the best way to make a clone grow roots is tough love. I learned this from a old grower if you foliar feed your clones they drink that water screw that if they want a drink they will grow roots. Thats what roots are madr for, if a clone thinks its going to die its only natural for it to do everything it can to survive. i never use a dome or foliar feed and i get 99% clone rate.heres what i do
1 i only use clonex products alwasys has worked 4 me
2 soak rockwool overnite in clonex @ 5.1 ph
3 take rockwool out and shake a bit just a little, u do not want it water logged
4 new razor blade cleaned with iso ,45 deg cuts dip in clonex gel a.s.a.p
5 put clones in rockwool and put under flouro in room 70-75 deg.
6 wait until rockwool is almost dry about 4-5 days mix sol of clonex @ 5.8 ph in small container dip rockwool cube by hand only letting the bottom third of the cube to get wet. this will tease the plant and poof roots!! remember you have to keep dipping rockwool every 2 days or so do not let get bone dry at 8-9 days check 4 roots goodluck

I like maynards process. that is a tried and true process. however these days I find no reason to deal with annoying Rockwool, hence the bubblers. The one thing I will disagree with is tough love. For me, consistently the clones that look the best and recieve the least amount of stress are the ones that grow the fastest and produce the most. Dont confuse this with whether the clone is large or small, in the end I have found it really makes no difference whatsoever.

I think you need to mention what strain you are trying to clone, because you might just be working with a bastard. Big Bud for instance is absolutely notorious for never cloning or having a horrible success rate. But if its an easily cloned strained...well something is godaweful wrong because you really should have a 99% success rate.

What I used to do (worked great) is different from what I do now (also works just as great). I used to be sterile, sometimes cut underwater, Clonex cloning gel, the works. Now? I snip with some scissors, 45 degree angle cut HAS NOT shown any advantage to a normal straight chop. I repeat that I have seen no difference over and over, its merely habit for me. Roots like to come from nodes and cutting at too much of a 45 degree angle can exposure to much of the center of the stem or create an area that dies and can lead to virus/mushy stems. Always include atleast one node below the surface near the bottom. It is also good to have a node right at the surface. So I snip a bunch, maybe 50-60 at a time. Each time I snip them, I strip them of lower leaves/branches and toss em in a bowl of water until Im done. Then I collar them with neoprene collars (nice and soft but secure) and drop them into the aerocloner or bubbler cloner. No Clonex dipping or rooting hormone. If I am in a hurry, I will use Root Accelerator (or Excelerator or something). Its a heart breaking $70 for a small bottle, but this stuff is the best in the entire business and it barely takes a teaspoon or 2. It will last for atleast a few hundred clones so its a small price. I never spray them. They look wilty for the first day and then perk right back up.

I use 5.5-5.8pH water, out of the tap. Water about 70-74 F. I leave the water about 1" from the bottom of the lowest clone stem with bubblers. More airstones means more bubbles. Some strains I grow root in under 1 week! In 2 weeks they have roots 6-7" long which is not good, to much shock. You want to plant RIGHT when the roots start to poke out, this has the best success rate (although Ive never personally had a plant fail because the roots were too long during transplantation). Some strains like Trainwreck take up to 2 weeks to root. But ive never come across one that didnt clone, although some had a 95% success rate instead of 99% or the typical 100%. This is not to make you feel bad, Ive been doing this for awhile and have a method down. Youll figure out whats wrong soon enough. I dont keep anything sterile and I change the water every 1-2 weeks. I get no algae or bacteria or anything but pearly white roots. This is just under a CFL or grabbing the side light from a metal halide.

Good luck, PIF.....know nothing about cloning myself:(

My favorite cloning method... you need:
HEALTHY mothers that have been deprived of nitrogen for the previous week.
-Water them well
-Spray them with WiltPruf, Anti-Wilt, or a leaf shine anti-transpirant spray. Let dry.

Your MEDIA:
Rapid rooter bark grow plugs. Peat pellets are NOT a substitute as they have shitty pH.

Your clones new HOME:
-A propagation tray with a 6-8 inch high dome over it, or a clear plastic box... they need about 8" of space to avoid touching the roof of the dome and rotting.
-under this tray there is a HEAT MAT.. US $25 at a garden store. Worth every penny.
-Lit by FLOURESCENT LIGHTS

Then your TOOLS:
-A NEW UNUSED RAZOR BLADE.
-a small container to pour CLONEX GEL into. Do not dip into the bottle, it will get contaminated.
-A SPRAY BOTTLE of plain city tap water.

-Cut off a growing tip that is at least 4-5" long and has the tip with new leaves, plus at least a pair of nodes lower down the stem.
-Take your razor and slice the lower leaves off carefully.
-Now cut the end of the stem diagonally and dip it immediately into the clonex.
-Let sit for 30 seconds in Clonex, covering the nodes where you cut off a pair of leaves.
-Now stick it into the hole in the rapid rooter.
-Make sure that the nodes that you cut hte leaves off are covered. This is the first site of root growth as there are more undifferentiated cells in this region.
-Make as many clones as you like and make sure they are not crowding each other in the tray.
-Mist them again with Wilt-Pruf.
-Pour a little water in the outer tray so that there is a source of humidity under the dome.
-Put the dome on and place the whol ething on the heat mat about 10-12" from a pair of 40w tube flouros.
-Lift the lid morning and night and mist. They need moisture and fresh air.
-Enjoy! Should take less than 10 days.

yes i good part to the cloning knowlege is knowing which strains actually clone, and which ones do not.

how do c99 clone? or should i concider northern lights. i need a short plant.

I made a mini bubbler from a plastic coffee can and a 3 inch netpot and a 1inch airstone. Snipped, trimmed lowest node leaves, root hormone, jammed it through a rapid rooter, backfilled with hydroton and waited about 10 days and it worked under a weak cfl 18/6.

I thought it didnt work because the stalk got really fat at the bottom, upper stalk turned purple (normal I guess) and the lowest leaves that I'd left on shriveled right up as the top sucked out the stored nutes in them I suppose. I was about to pull the plug on it but then I saw all of the roots starting to poke out of the netpot.

So whatever you try, let it go a nice long while. If it's green, it's not dead yet.

Some people just use the old method which is slice at an angle and plop it right into a glass of plain water and wait.

Hey Stinkyattic,

I'm in the cloning process now too and using rapid rooters with dip and grow. I was wondering if you do anything to prepare the rapid rooters. What water content should these plugs have when putting in your clone? Any tips on this?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JackdaWack

yes i good part to the cloning knowlege is knowing which strains actually clone, and which ones do not.

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All strains clone.

Some clone kinda hard and take extra time... you have to be careful to make sure they don't rot first.

Some are pointless to clone, Lowryder or any autoflowering ones being in that category

Where do you get your information?


Dr. Bud-

I don't prep them at all. Just a light spritz with tap water. The moisture content right out of the package is close to perfect... you'll just need to keep it at that level or a touch higher. That's one of the reasons they are so great! No boring prep work or soaking!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stinkyattic

My favorite cloning method... you need:
HEALTHY mothers that have been deprived of nitrogen for the previous week.
-Water them well
-Spray them with WiltPruf, Anti-Wilt, or a leaf shine anti-transpirant spray. Let dry.

Your MEDIA:
Rapid rooter bark grow plugs. Peat pellets are NOT a substitute as they have shitty pH.

Your clones new HOME:
-A propagation tray with a 6-8 inch high dome over it, or a clear plastic box... they need about 8" of space to avoid touching the roof of the dome and rotting.
-under this tray there is a HEAT MAT.. US $25 at a garden store. Worth every penny.
-Lit by FLOURESCENT LIGHTS

Then your TOOLS:
-A NEW UNUSED RAZOR BLADE.
-a small container to pour CLONEX GEL into. Do not dip into the bottle, it will get contaminated.
-A SPRAY BOTTLE of plain city tap water.

-Cut off a growing tip that is at least 4-5" long and has the tip with new leaves, plus at least a pair of nodes lower down the stem.
-Take your razor and slice the lower leaves off carefully.
-Now cut the end of the stem diagonally and dip it immediately into the clonex.
-Let sit for 30 seconds in Clonex, covering the nodes where you cut off a pair of leaves.
-Now stick it into the hole in the rapid rooter.
-Make sure that the nodes that you cut hte leaves off are covered. This is the first site of root growth as there are more undifferentiated cells in this region.
-Make as many clones as you like and make sure they are not crowding each other in the tray.
-Mist them again with Wilt-Pruf.
-Pour a little water in the outer tray so that there is a source of humidity under the dome.
-Put the dome on and place the whol ething on the heat mat about 10-12" from a pair of 40w tube flouros.
-Lift the lid morning and night and mist. They need moisture and fresh air.
-Enjoy! Should take less than 10 days.

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there you go as simple as that:S5:

after you make your cut you can scrape the sides of the stem with your razor blade at the bottom about a half an inch and then dip it in the clone gel/powder you use and then put it in the rock wool.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MrDank

after you make your cut you can scrape the sides of the stem with your razor blade at the bottom about a half an inch and then dip it in the clone gel/powder you use and then put it in the rock wool.

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That's good for a cut that has a tougher almost bark on it.
If you make sure to include a node in the original dipped portion, it is unneccessary.
I have found that scraping the sides is an invitation to fungal growth.
You'll be able to make that call when you get to know the strain (s) you are working with.