10/19/09

Transplanting mothers to Rockwool:

2 cuttings were taken on 10/11/09 from the 4 plants I want to use as mother plants, making them 8 day old clones as of today. Today they showed enough yellowing of the leaves, white root bumps & one or two small root branches to convince me it was time to move them to the rockwool cubes.

Some of the cuttings had to be taken further up the plant - predictably the plants that had less available matter towards the bottom (C99 'grapefruit' & 'pineapple') showed less advanced development than the plants with cuttings taken closer to the base - C99 X BB being the standout.

For the guidance & confidence to embark on this latest phase: credit must be paid to Al B. Fuct and his Rockwool Cloning Guide for providing a reference for me to work from as an earlier test run on clones I had taken & put directly into rockwool didn't take b/c, I believe I left too much leaf surface. I've been trimming off & cutting large leaves in halved ever since.

The rockwool starter plugs were soaked in plain PH 5.5 water & shaken out to remove excess water. Then they were placed on a tray of wetted perlite underneath the fluorescents (T-12s) in the unit previously used to nurture the seedlings and kept under 24 hour lighting on a heat mat. Prior to placement in the cubes, they were dipped in Olivia's cloning gel for good measure.

The mother plants chosen were C99 'grapefruit', C99 'pineapple', C99 X A11 'alpha', C99 X BB 'bravo'

Additionally, I took 2 cuttings each from the most desirable Blueberry plant & Sugar Blossom as they have a clear stand out in each case, as for the Blue Apollo, Sugar Berry & Apollo 11, I'm still waiting for one to catch my eye above the others and waiting on the results of the cloning for sex. I also took two back-up cuttings from each of the plants I ad moved into rockwool cubes, plus one other C99 X BB I had not cloned before: 'echo' she was a runner up to 'bravo' & since I had the space I thought, what the hell, why not? Maybe her smoke/yield/wahtever will be better than the one originally selected. These were placed in the aerocloner where the clones I just removed came from. I changed the water to 150 ml Clonex & adjusted the PH to approximately 5.8 (my PH meter finally became so unreliable I had to break out the old color drops - a new meter is on it's way) to see if the addition of a small amount of seedling fertilizer impeded the sprouting of roots at all.

I will be watching them like a hawk in the coming days. Fingers crossed here, people. The mamas have just entered flowering, even though C99 & C99 crosses tend to clone well, even from flowering plants, I'd prefer not having that extra, difficult complication.

Update 10/20/09: Rockwool clones look no worse for wear, but the cubes had become dry - I soaked them in PH adjusted water (5.8) - a little less than I normally do, but still wet. And the watch continues, albeit with less anxiety as there are backups in deck should it turns out I loused up this batch.