Cleanliness, you got that right Ranger. Keep a spray bottle of isopropal around your work area & clean your tools often. Nothing like prevention. While most plant diseases are fungal in nature, nothing will close the capillaries in a cutting faster than bacteria. & absolutely sterile medium, regardless of what it is. Here's a little something worth passing on. WHERE YOU GET YOUR GROWING MEDIUM! All packaged planting medium is sterilized where it's processed & packaged. But it can become seriously contaminated between there & your grow. Places like walmarts & hardware stores are retail stores, not horticulturalist. Most mediums are packaged in bags with tiny little holes to keep moist medium from going sour. I've seen both home depot & walmart have their bags outside sitting on the ground. The process of 'wicking action' will draw moisture from the ground into the bags, bring with it bacteria & a host of soil bourn plant diseases & if it rains while these bags are on the ground, that speeds up & multiplies greatly. Nurseries, florist & grow stores, however, ARE horticulturalist. They know about plant pathogens & will place their bags on pallets, or some other means to prevent contact with raw soil. So where you get your growing medium is very important. I know it cost more, but this is an instance where you get what you pay for. The same for nutes, but that another topic
---- So many posts have mentioned the importance of keeping cloning/grow areas clean, but not once have I seen mentioned how to avoid contaminated medium, & it's so VERY important. ~~~ PEACE! ~~~


P.S. Shame on you Ranger! We don't use dirt! We use SOIL! LOL! just playing with you !
catbuds Reviewed by catbuds on . Adventures in Cloning.... help please? Hi guys! I am trying to clone some plants from my (large and bushy) new babies who are 3 wks. old. I've followed cloning instructions, did the cuts, the scraping, dipped in Clonex and put in pots to root. I'm a real cheapskate, so what I've done is put the clones in coco in solo cups, and am using plastic baggies over the tops as domes (they fit pretty good) with a stick in the cup to hold the bag off the plant (read about this method on another site). I have four little clones and Rating: 5