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- #121
Hi there 420ians. We are at the top of a new page in the donkey diary. Change is afoot. I have taken cuttings from three of my five GSCs.
Let me show you how I do it.
We marked this special occasion by starting off with a new, sterile blade.
It is best practice to use a new blade for each plant you go to. It is good practice anyway to wipe a blunt blade with alcohol between plants.
In this case I took each of the lowest four branches.
I will strip each branch like this then stand it in water with its friends until the next step.
I only want two, maybe three small leaves to stay on. While a leaf gives a cutting some photosynthetic ability/energy it also costs the stalk moisture in transpiration. It’s all about balance.
I remove leaves entirely. This gives the cutting only one wound to heal at each leaf site. It is a common enough practice to cut fingers of a leaf back. When you think about the rationale behind that it doesn’t make sense. You give each leaf five wound sites instead of one.
(I know a hundred ways to kill cuttings and clones. I recommend this method as a low-fuss, high return process).
The longer cuttings had their lowest couple of inches taken off. I prepare the soon-to-be-buried end by gently scraping the stalk of its outer layer for the lowest inch or so.
Cutting the end to an angle increases the surface area of the tip for metabolic processes. This part happens quite fast. You have to cover that tip in a cloning gel before anything else can happen.
I prefer to use a syringe to apply the gel rather than dunking tips into the bottle. This helps to keep the gel in the bottle sterile and useful.
Cups were prepped a few days ago with dynomyco and Earth Alive inoculants. I make a vertical hole for each cutting using a nail or a piece of the training wire I use for LST.
When all the cuttings are in place the cup can be gently squeezed to ensure each cutting is nestled nicely and any void spaces have been excluded. I’ve learned not to pack the soil in tightly as too much outside pressure is enough to stop the internal hydraulics at this sensitive stage.
The cups sit on the heat pad in the nursery under a 40W LED on 18/6 and their domes will be sprayed twice a day.
I only need roots on one or two for this to be successful. It’s almost guaranteed.
To make a symmetrical canopy with six not four branches to start, you can see a slight anticlockwise placement with the lower two pairs of branches. A little gentle, discretionary stem crushing on the curves helps branches to stay where they are put.
That’s all from the Stable for now. Today is feeding day so all the Girl Scout Cookies get another top dressing. That will keep them looking fine and me happy.
I hope you’re well everyone. Thanks for reading.
Let me show you how I do it.
We marked this special occasion by starting off with a new, sterile blade.
It is best practice to use a new blade for each plant you go to. It is good practice anyway to wipe a blunt blade with alcohol between plants.
In this case I took each of the lowest four branches.
I will strip each branch like this then stand it in water with its friends until the next step.
I only want two, maybe three small leaves to stay on. While a leaf gives a cutting some photosynthetic ability/energy it also costs the stalk moisture in transpiration. It’s all about balance.
I remove leaves entirely. This gives the cutting only one wound to heal at each leaf site. It is a common enough practice to cut fingers of a leaf back. When you think about the rationale behind that it doesn’t make sense. You give each leaf five wound sites instead of one.
(I know a hundred ways to kill cuttings and clones. I recommend this method as a low-fuss, high return process).
The longer cuttings had their lowest couple of inches taken off. I prepare the soon-to-be-buried end by gently scraping the stalk of its outer layer for the lowest inch or so.
Cutting the end to an angle increases the surface area of the tip for metabolic processes. This part happens quite fast. You have to cover that tip in a cloning gel before anything else can happen.
I prefer to use a syringe to apply the gel rather than dunking tips into the bottle. This helps to keep the gel in the bottle sterile and useful.
Cups were prepped a few days ago with dynomyco and Earth Alive inoculants. I make a vertical hole for each cutting using a nail or a piece of the training wire I use for LST.
When all the cuttings are in place the cup can be gently squeezed to ensure each cutting is nestled nicely and any void spaces have been excluded. I’ve learned not to pack the soil in tightly as too much outside pressure is enough to stop the internal hydraulics at this sensitive stage.
The cups sit on the heat pad in the nursery under a 40W LED on 18/6 and their domes will be sprayed twice a day.
I only need roots on one or two for this to be successful. It’s almost guaranteed.
To make a symmetrical canopy with six not four branches to start, you can see a slight anticlockwise placement with the lower two pairs of branches. A little gentle, discretionary stem crushing on the curves helps branches to stay where they are put.
That’s all from the Stable for now. Today is feeding day so all the Girl Scout Cookies get another top dressing. That will keep them looking fine and me happy.
I hope you’re well everyone. Thanks for reading.
The multicup idea comes via you (thanks) from, I understand, your reading elsewhere on the Mag. Gotta love 420 Magazine.
for sure.
