Azi's Cloning Adventures

[Azimuth]

Day 10, the Willow water version seems to be putting some white cells together in what could be an early attempt at roots. Nothing definitive yet though.

Going to start a parallel version tomorrow.

Day 23 and I'm calling it. The two water only cuts still had some green but were beginning go look pretty ragged, so even if they did manage to root they'd be off to a pretty rough start.

We had some hot 95+* days and the stems started to get white fuzz clinging to them so I hit them with H2O2 and, while that seemed to halt the issue, they never really got going.

Since I didn't like this process it will not be what I do going forward so it was easy call an end to this round.

So, I'm calling it a failure.

 

[Azimuth]

*** Aloe as Rooting Gel ***

Time for a new round, this time testing aloe as a rooting agent in perlite hempy's. I've had success with it cloning in soil, and in fact got roots faster that I did with cloning gel on a sister cutting at the time.

I have 3 CBD cuts and 4 Northern Lights 5. Two of each got dipped in fresh aloe gel, the others not. There are also some scraped, some not. No trimming of leaves.

I prepped them last night by cutting off the lower leaves and nodes, leaving only the top cluster on each cutting (a la @Gee64), but did not cut them off the plant. I did it this way thinking the plant would send healing hormones to the cut sites and make it easier to heal since they were still connected to the plant plumbing, but since it was just yesterday those hormones should be strongly present and still in the stem of the cuttings when I took them today.

All went into their respective perlite hempy solo cups under indirect light after I watered from the top to settle the perlite around the cuttings and clear out some of the fines.

Pretty simple and easy if it works which would fit my criteria.

 

[Gee64]

*** Aloe as Rooting Gel ***

Time for a new round, this time testing aloe. I've had success with it cloning in soil, and in fact got roots faster that I did with cloning gel on a sister cutting at the time.

I have 3 CBD cuts and 4 Northern Lights 5. Two of each got dipped in fresh aloe gel, the others not. There are also some scraped, some not. No trimming of leaves.

I prepped them last night by cutting off the lower leaves and nodes, leaving only the top cluster on each cutting (a la @Gee64), but did not cut them off the plant. I did it this way thinking the plant would send healing hormones to the cut sites but make it easier to heal since they were still connected to the plant plumbing, but since it was just yesterday those hormones should be strongly present and still in the stem of the cuttings I took today.

All went into their respective perlite hempy solo cups under indirect light, after I watered from the top to settle the perlite around the cuttings and clear out some of the fines.

Pretty simple and easy if it works which would fit my criteria.

I have never tried Aloe but have heard it works really well. I remember some guy online a few years back that would cut aloe into chunks about an inch long, stand them on end, and stick a cutting into each one. Then he would clone them in soil by pulling them out of the aloe after a few minutes and sticking them into soil. He had really nice clones in the smaller clear picnic cups. I can't remember what his soil mix was but I definitely remember his healthy green clones.

 

[Azimuth]

I have never tried Aloe but have heard it works really well. I remember some guy online a few years back that would cut aloe into chunks about an inch long, stand them on end, and stick a cutting into each one. Then he would clone them in soil by pulling them out of the aloe after a few minutes and sticking them into soil. He had really nice clones in the smaller clear picnic cups. I can't remember what his soil mix was but I definitely remember his healthy green clones.

Right, pretty much what I did. Stick it in a chunk of aloe rather than a bottle of cloning gel.

 

[Azimuth]

Here is some theory as it was explained to me on the mechanics at play and how it makes soil different than bubble cloning.

Normally, a plant has a circulatory system that draws water and food from the soil, runs it through the plant, expires the excess water out the stomata, and then uses the remaining water to push sugars back down and out the roots returning to the soil.

When you take a cutting you no longer have this. You still have a loop but there is giant holes now on intake and outflow.

The nutrients the plant will use to grow the roots are stored in the leaves and without roots you have no pump to circulate water to carry the nutes down so you must create it through gravity.

Water is heavy and flows down. So in soil cloning you need 2 things to be successful.

You need water on the leaves (misting) to permeate the leaves and flow down, and your wet soil needs to be less wet than the water on the leaves so it can enter and flow down.

If your soil is too wet then the water pressure in the soil resists the water pressure of the misting above and the nutes in the leaves can't flow down or ate greatly reduced.

So damp soil and wet leaves is what you want. Plus a very humid environment so the less wet soil can't suck all the moisture out of the leaves. The humidity keeps the leaves wet.

For bubble cloning you use the puck to isolate the cut end from the plant and the mist sprays onto the stalks, runs down, and drips off. The weight of the drips pulls the fluids down and out the giant outflow wound at the cut, but while that is happening fresh water is being sucked in through the giant gaping hole of the intake so you create inflow and outflow beneath the puck and mo misting or humidity is required above the puck. The circulation allows nutes to be grabbed and used on their way out the outflow.

If that makes sense to you and you keep that principle in mind for soil or bubble cloning and cater to it you will get roots far quicker and your success rate wil soar. Don't fight the physics, use it in your favor.

Then there is rooting hormone. This is vital here. Don't use very much. Its extremely powerful.

I use powder and it comes in a pill bottle. Its half full when new and I have cut hundreds or more likely 1000+ clones and my bottle is still half there of the original amount.

All the hormone is, is a chemical signal that tells the plant to grow roots here please.

If you use no hormone the plant will create its own at the bottom end where its dark and signal itself. Think about that for a second. Does the plant create a quarter teaspoon of rooting gel hormone or does it create a microscopically small amount just to send the signal?

Too much hormone will fry your cuttings fast. I tap all excess off until there is only a light dusty look left, no blobs or cakes.

The instructions on the hormone indicate this too.

Make sure you buy the right hormone too.

Small delicate cuttings work best with softwood cutting hormones, larger cuts like the ones I prefer use the hormone mix for semi-hardwood/semi-softwood cuttings (marketing created semi-hardwood and semi-softwood, they mean the same thing here), and trees, shrubs, berry bushes, etc use the hormone made for hardwood cuttings. What they are is different strengths of hormone.

I find smaller cuttings root better in soil vs bubble cloning, and larger ones root better in the bubble cloner.

I prefer bubble cloning because there is no hardening off period, you just plant and water, and you have opportunity to dust the brand new roots with myco before planting.

The paper towel tube method allows the root to stay long and not be all balled up like when you only dig a small hole and drop your roots into it all piled up.

Also let your roots in the bubble cloner get as long as your pot is tall before planting. If you have roots long enough to reach the bottom of a 5gal pot then use a 5 gal pot. I prefer 10gals but everyone has their own preference here.

Its not like you have to spoon feed a sproutling to get its roots to chase water to the bottom, you are already there, so you can immediately treat it like a plant, not a baby. No coddling needed.

I start with soil that is a bit too wet so the roots don't shock, overwater to run-off once or twice (I suppose you could consider this hardening off), and a week later its a regular plant with root tips starting to poke out and vegging nicely.

In soil you need to greatly slow photosynthesis as there is no pump so the nutes in the leaves will photosynthesize into sugars and you don't want that. So cutting the leaves back to about a third of their normal size really works well.

With bubble clones you have a circulatory system and leaf nutes do get pumped out the bottom so you need more nutes. Don't trim the leaves or you won't have enough nutes.

I determine where to cut the cutting by going down the stalk until I have at least 1 set of large fans in the cutting.

I hope that helps a bit more. Cloning looks easy, and it is, but you MUST pay attention to details here.

You have inflicted life threatening wounds to the cutting so every little bit helps. Add up all the details and success soars.

If your mother is sexually mature remove all preflowers and their calyxes from the leaves and branches you trimmed off at the cut site, you want roots not seeds down there.

The lower the branch/cutting is (the closer to the roots), the more rooting hormone/nutes contained in the cutting. Cuts from the top of the plant are loaded with growth hormones/nutes, not rooting ones.

On plants grown from seed the 2nd set of branches are called "clone branches" and definitely work the best.

And how do you think this theory applies to perlite hempy?

 

[Gee64]

I would spray the tops and cut the leaves back, just like soil cloning, and after about 8 days if there are no roots I would start incrementally lowering the moisture level of the perlite, but I think it will work well.

I predict a much better success rate on this try .

Spray at least 3 times a day and keep them domed with minimal or no venting.

You will get air exchange when you spray.

A heating pad set to 78 may help too.

Keep them a couple feet from the light source. You don't need much photosynthesis for this. More is a detriment.

Treat it as a soil clone not a bubble clone. You need to push water down thru the leaves and out the cut at the bottom.

Watering the leaves lets gravity do that plus it dilutes the nutes and allows better mobility.

Smaller clones with a diameter about half to 3/4 of a pencil width, still soft and delicate and un-barked will likely root better than larger clones like the ones I bubble clone.
Maybe 4" tall from tip to cut, give or take, but I would try a couple larger 6" to 8" tall ones too just to see, if you have them to cut.

The tricky part here may be getting the soil/perlite to sit tight to the clone stalk, so repack the stalk gently but firmly around the stalk every spraying and try to never move the clones, bring the spray to the cups, don't pick the cups up if you can help it.

After repacking the stalks, a teaspoon or 2 of water down the stalk will help to firm the connection.

About day 8 you could also give them a small myco drench. Just 2 or 3 teaspoons each dribbled down the stalks. Then as roots pop they will immediately find the myco and by day 12-13 they will be linking up and leaf cannabalization will stop.

Maybe right about when you see the 1st root nubs starting.

Soil rooting is all about the difference in water pressure between the clone and the substrate.

The substrate must be slightly drier to pull the leaf spray down, but still damp enough to support roots. It shouldnt be sopping wet.

If you could pop the soil out of the cup, squeeze it, and have water come oozing and dripping out quite a bit, its too wet. If you squeezed it hard and only a few drips come out its perfect.

Get the soil moisture right and spray adequately and I predict a viable success rate and a grin from Azi.

Heating pads at 78 vastly improve soil cloning success. It keeps it steamy under the domes.

I actually prefer a clear plastic bag tied up but good domes with the vents closed work just fine.

No cracked domes here, you need to keep that moisture in. If it can escape the system reverses and water from below starts coming up through the cutting to vent to atmosphere. That will sabotage you. You need the flow to go down to the root sites.

Your tray/dome is the closed loop until cuts heal and roots start. This detail is vital to success. More vital than the hormone agents you try. It will actually work well with no hormone. It may take a try or 2 to get the right moisture level in the substrate. Aloe is proven to work so if it fails your substrate is likely too wet or if you are sure it isn't then set your heat mat to 80.

7-10 days should have roots finding vent holes at the cup bottoms on at least 1, if not many.

 

[Azimuth]

Thanks for this ^^^^.

Since I'm already several days in on the newest batch I'm going to let it play out the way I started and, if successful, I'll use it as a baseline to try out some of your suggestions.

I did get roots in 8-9 days on one of the water only cuts so I'm optimistic I'll see better than usual results on this new aloe round, but I'm going to let them go 21 days before I float them out to see what I (might) have for roots.

I will probably float out the prior willow water round this weekend to see if the root I saw last weekend on the water only cut is still intact after taking it out and then stuffing it back in the cup, and also to see if there is anything happening on the willow water cuts. Those are on day 13 currently.

 

[Azimuth]

I started a parallel experiment using the willow water vs rain water, but this time instead of using glass jars to hold the cuttings I'm using small, perlite Hempy, solo cups. The reason is that I got about a dozen willow cuttings to root in a jar of water but only one or two survived the pot up into soil.

It's quite possible I didn't let the roots get long enough nor well enough developed, but still, that's a pretty poor percentage to make the transition after successfully throwing roots.

Years ago when I first started cloning I used a swick version of the perlite hempy, essentially a wide bed of perlite in an upper container with polypropylene wicks connecting it to a water container below, and had decent success so I figured I'd see how that will work for me now. I've recommended perlite hempy's as cloning tools to others, so figured I'd take my own advice.

I had early bug signs on the mother plant so I treated it with a new bug spray I'm trialing and it burned the new growth so I'm not off to a great start.

I trimmed the lower nodes off the 4 clones while they were still attached to the mother (a la @Gee64 ) , scraped the stem on one of each pair, and trimmed leaves also on one of each pair. The next day, the 4 got cut from the mother and soaked overnight, 2 in rain water, 2 in the willow water from the previous round. Then they were potted up in their respective perlite hempy's, two to a cup.

I figure the Hempy approach should be a good match for the transition into my SIPs since it is a reasonably close approximation to the SIP environment just with perlite above rather than soil, but I found the SIP structure with soil kept the medium too wet to successfully root clones.

So, a decent middle ground perhaps?

Onward we go.

* Willow Water / Perlite Hempy Update *

The water-only rooted cut survived my last week stuff-job. The root was still only about an inch long but had several branches coming off the main so I'm transitioning it into a 9oz SIP so I can get it vegging for the next round. It got topped with worm castings and then a layer of compost which was misted in.

I filled the SIP reservoir from the bottom to start the wicking process but I'll drain it as best I can after a bit since I seem to not have as good success if I try to ramp them up right from the start.

In the willow water container, the clipped leaves cut has failed and will join the worm bin, and the other still looks ok but no roots yet (day 15). It'll go back in place and I'll check it again in a week.

Interesting that the two cuts with clipped leaves both failed and the two with leaves left whole both still look fine. Too small a sample size to be determinate but that's something I'll probably try a few more times going forward to see if it's a consistent thing. I  am glad I didn't trim the leaves on any of the current aloe round.

I should know in a few days if the CBD cut survives the up-pot. I tried to be quite delicate with the process so we'll see.

 

[Azimuth]

The CBD plant showed some leg today indicating she survived the up-pot so I'm beginning to raise her closer to the light to get her growing and minimize the nodal spacing.

The mother plant now has one limb that is longer than all of the others and I don't want to wait another week or two when the others are ready so I'm going to try to clone it now. Since I don't have any results yet from the aloe round I'll do it the way I think will maximize its chances.

This will give me a chance to test out Gee's technique of spraying the cut daily. I'll only be able to mist it twice a day rather than thrice, but well see how that works.

So, a question for @Gee64 . I assume you mist your cuts with RO water to help push the internal nutrients from the plant down to help kick off new roots, but I'm wondering if a weak foliar would be beneficial, adding to the nutes we're trying to push down.

I'm thinking of changing the rain water mist to a very diluted worm castings JLF mist maybe when I first start seeing deficiencies popping up since that's said to be about the time the cuts is supposed to be creating roots.

I know The Rev recommends giving his cuts some cal/Mag or something about 5 days in I believe which he says speeds up the rooting process.

So, I'll only have the one cut, but don't mind experimenting.

My initial thought is rain water mist twice a day for the first week or so, and then add a 1/3rd strength worm castings JLF from then until either roots or rot.

Thoughts?

 

[Gee64]

The CBD plant showed some leg today indicating she survived the up-pot so I'm beginning to raise her closer to the light to get her growing and minimize the nodal space.

The mother plant now has one limb that is longer than all of the others and I don't want to wait another week or two when the others are ready so I'm going to try to clone it now. Since I don't have any results yet from the aloe round I'll do it the way I think will maximize its chances.

This will give me a chance to test out Gee 's technique of spraying the cut daily. I'll only be able to mist it twice a day rather than thrice, but well see how that works.

So, a question for @Gee64 . I assume you mist your cuts with RO water to help push the internal nutrients from the plant down to help kick off new roots, but I'm wondering if a weak foliar would be beneficial, adding to the nutes we're trying to push down.

I'm thinking of changing the rain water mist to a very diluted worm castings JLF mist maybe when I first start seeing deficiencies popping up since that's said to be about the time the cuts is supposed to be creating roots.

I know The Rev recommends giving his cuts some cal/Mag or something about 5 days in I believe which he says speeds up the rooting process.

So, I'll only have the one plant, but don't mind experimenting.

My initial thought is rain water mist twice a day for the first week or so, and then add a 1/3rd strength worm castings JLF from then until either roots or rot.

Thoughts?

I always only use RO water but I fully endorse trying. Myself I would do that with a 2nd clone getting RO water only to compare but you do have me curious

Is your mother healthy and established? If you really need this clone to root to protect the lineage I would use water only as it's proven, but if you can afford to experiment with it them I am all in to watch.

Well actually.....listen to you tell us about it.

Draw some pics with crayons and post those you cheap SOB

 

[Azimuth]

I don't need the clone since I have at least one successful one going now, and the mother is very healthy now, recovering from a bit of overwatering.

I'm thinking the foliar might be a good way to get some nutes in the plant since it may not have roots to absorb anything.

The last of the willow water plants is showing deficiencies in the fan leaves so maybe I'll try it on that one too.

And I'll try to save up for a box of crayons. No promises.

 

[Pondwater]

Yeah slow nickle the calcium king has giant roots and seared by calcium for rooting
I can see the logic with ca relations with other Npks

do you cut leaves ? Seems if I do they yellow faster n fall off or mould up before rooting

they say trim for transparency or something but I have better results not trimmed , like bow I trimmed all but 1 and that’s one rooted the others 3 day on and no roots bloody annoying as I am in flower now so this is my last hope for cuts

 

[Azimuth]

do you cut leaves ? Seems if I do they yellow faster n fall off or mould up before rooting

For the Willow water round I trimmed leaves on two and left two untrimmed. The trimmed cuts both failed, one of the others rooted and still waiting on the other.

For the next round I didn't trim any and all 7 look quite good at day 8.

 

[Pondwater]

For the Willow water round I trimmed leaves on two and left two untrimmed. The trimmed cuts both failed, one of the others rooted and still waiting on the other.

For the next round I didn't trim any and all 7 look quite good at day 8.

Just what I saw too glad the observation was correct , every guide says trim leaves I half feel like pullin the cut leaves off now for hope lol

 

[Azimuth]

I think the theory is that by trimming back the leaves the plant transpires less and there's not as good a chance for it drying out before it can make roots to absorb moisture. It also allows you to get more cuts in a smaller space without overlapping leaves which can lead to other issues.

It may depend on cloning style and medium, though. Gee has recommended both trimming and not trimming depending on soil vs aeroponics.

All I know is that in my small sample size so far, that trimming the leaves back in a perlite hempy cloning set-up hasn't worked at all. All of those cuts died and did so pretty early in the game.

But that's why I'm doing the experiments - to find what works and what doesn't for me in my environment. So far I'm mostly finding what  doesn't work.

 

[Azimuth]

The CBD plant showed some leg today indicating she survived the up-pot so I'm beginning to raise her closer to the light to get her growing and minimize the nodal spacing.

The mother plant now has one limb that is longer than all of the others and I don't want to wait another week or two when the others are ready so I'm going to try to clone it now. Since I don't have any results yet from the aloe round I'll do it the way I think will maximize its chances.

This will give me a chance to test out Gee's technique of spraying the cut daily. I'll only be able to mist it twice a day rather than thrice, but well see how that works.

So, a question for @Gee64 . I assume you mist your cuts with RO water to help push the internal nutrients from the plant down to help kick off new roots, but I'm wondering if a weak foliar would be beneficial, adding to the nutes we're trying to push down.

I'm thinking of changing the rain water mist to a very diluted worm castings JLF mist maybe when I first start seeing deficiencies popping up since that's said to be about the time the cuts is supposed to be creating roots.

I know The Rev recommends giving his cuts some cal/Mag or something about 5 days in I believe which he says speeds up the rooting process.

So, I'll only have the one cut, but don't mind experimenting.

My initial thought is rain water mist twice a day for the first week or so, and then add a 1/3rd strength worm castings JLF from then until either roots or rot.

Thoughts?

Prepped the cut yesterday and took it today and sprayed it with water which I'll plan to do twice a day.

Also sprayed the willow water cut with very diluted (1:100) worm casting JLF. Mostly want to see if there are any adverse effects for a few days. If not I'll spray the aloe cuts once they start showing deficiencies, and the latest cut after 5 days which I think is when The Rev gives his a shot of cal/Mag.

I looked for the passage in his book but didn't find it easily so I'll look in more detail in a bit.

 

[Pondwater]

I think the theory is that by trimming back the leaves the plant transpires less and there's not as good a chance for it drying out before it can make roots to absorb moisture. It also allows you to get more cuts in a smaller space without overlapping leaves which can lead to other issues.

It may depend on cloning style and medium, though. Gee has recommended both trimming and not trimming depending on soil vs aeroponics.

All I know is that in my small sample size so far, that trimming the leaves back in a perlite hempy cloning set-up hasn't worked at all. All of those cuts died and did so pretty early in the game.

But that's why I'm doing the experiments - to find what works and what doesn't for me in my environment. So far I'm mostly finding what  doesn't work.

Haha yeah but a wise man told me you never fail you just find 1000 ways it doesn’t work as predicted
another said only from failing experiments have we been able to find other elements to make more experiments fail and so on


just had 1 root trimmed a single root though its sister hit 10 roots
orhers stil waiting pfft spraying kelp as they yellowing now

 

[Azimuth]

Day 21 for the Willow water cut. Floated it out to take a look and still no roots.

I'll keep it going mostly because I'm now spritizing it twice a day with a weak foliar and I want to see how that goes before spraying the other plants with it, but I think we can say, at least in this small sample, that willow water didn't bring any positive impact to the process and so will be dropped from future rounds.

The seven aloe cuts all look great at Day 11, but I'm still going to wait until Day 21 before checking for roots, and the one new cbd misted cut still looks good after it's third plain water spritz.

Assuming the weak foliar is handled well by the test subject, I'll plan to apply it to the other cuts when they start showing leaf deficiencies as well.

 

[Danishoes21]

On my most recent experience; still to strong on my foliar spray, I toasted my 3 clones. Cant seem to make it work. I might have to go back to water.

 

[Gee64]

On my most recent experience; still to strong on my foliar spray, I toasted my 3 clones. Cant seem to make it work. I might have to go back to water.

The best way to get roots that I have found is to starve them into existing.

If the plant can eat it doesn't need roots.

The water on the leaves enters the leaves and flows down and out the cut at the bottom. That water dilutes nutes and takes it down with it to the location where it is needed to grow roots.

Once you cut a clone it has no closed loop circulatory system so you need to cram water down from the top to flow the nutes down. Its a race to get roots started before the leaves run out of nutes.

I have found that if you feed clones before they root they just sit there for 3-4 weeks and then quickly turn to rotten mush.

You also want to dial photosynthesis way back so you don't photosynthesize the nutes in the leaves before enough can be relocated to root sites.

If you follow that principle you don't even need hormones. Hormones do speed things up if you apply them very lightly. Too much fries the cutting.

Do you like your spouse when there are too many hormones circulating?

They are extremely powerful. They are designed to send signals and if needed they can yell over the crowd to get the signal through. They have the loudest voice in the plant. Very powerful, you don't need much.