Cuttings on the brink! Issues and questions

[PieRat]

Hey team,
I'm new to cloning and am afraid I may be running into some issues.
Six days ago I took 49 clones from a single mother plant. There was not much meat to this girl so I took stem clones apposed to node heavy clones. She seemed reasonably healthy having been vegged under a 600hps. I do not believe she had been taken off her vegging nutes. I assume canna vega A & B was being fed to it along with Cannazyme.

I took the cuttings, immediately dipped them into Clonex and placed them within rockwool. The rockwall was then placed in polystyrene tray which has holes in the bottom to allow water to sit on the bottom quarter of the rockwool. I placed the tray into 10 litres of water with a water heater set to 26Celsius(79Feinheit) and airstone. The water PH has been sitting at 6.0-6.3 the entire time. I also added 10ml of Rhizotonic to the batch from the start. The unit has a 15watt t8 bulb immediately above it. The cloning device came with two sheets of clear plastic which acts as a makeshift lid for the box with approximately half inch gaps along each side of the boxes width supposedly to allow venting.

All this is set up in a reasonably large wardrobe. Probably 1mx.4mx1.7m. I have the airstone pump running in my bedroom outside of the wardrobe pumping fresh air into the tub. I open the wardrobe to allow the air to vent regularly and there is gaps in the door which I assume provides sufficient airflow in the interim.

Now that I have summed up the setup I'll go onto my problems.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly for the first 4 days, light misting on the plastic lid and good condensation on the interior walls, I monitored the PH with my meter and kept it within range. Unfortunately on day 3 I noticed slight yellowing in 3 out of 32 of the leaves. Assuming it was a humidity issue I brought a spray bottle and began spraying the plants with 6.3 balanced water. I have continued to spray 3-4 times a day and am now on day 6. No signs of rooting yet although I have noticed more plants leaves are starting to yellow slightly and those that were originally are getting worse. I am also noticing some sagging of branches and leaves on some of the other, still green cuttings.

Here are some pictures of the worst hit cuttings in regard to the yellowing leaves. Any advice with how to restore them to health would be much appreciated!

Here is a picture of a cutting which has what looks to me to be a molding leaf tip(Might be hard to see), any advice what I should do with it and anything else that resembles it in future?

Also, I read post-op that I should not have stems poking through the bottom of my rockwool the very tips are poking out on many of the cuttings and the holes go right through on those that they aren't. Will this inhibit rooting as this will undoubtedly be putting the base of the cutting into the water irrigated into the polystyrene. Should I pull them out and place them in new rockwool or will that damage the progress they have hopefully made towards rooting?

I can upload a picture of my unit if need be, do not hesitate to ask for additional information or pictures. I monitor the computer regularly and will hopefully be able to provide additional information immediately.

Cheers,
The rat in your pies.

 

[Mats]

Re: Cuttings on the brink! Issues and questions.

Tha plant's are looking pretty wet. You haven't just simply overwaterd them?! Mold on a leaf indicates to high humidity since mold is produced when a wet or damp leaf don't get enough fresh air..

I got around 30% RH in my grow space and haven't had any problem so I think that you shouldn't be afraid to get the air to dry..

 

[PieRat]

Re: Cuttings on the brink! Issues and questions.

I had just given them a good spray with the bottle. I will stop spraying and see if they do alright with the bubbler and condensation from the heated water they rest upon

 

[Bdogg]

Re: Cuttings on the brink! Issues and questions.

Yeah. Stems shouldn't stick out the bottom. That is an issue. But your main problem is that you said the rockwool is sitting straight in the water. They are far too wet. For one the cubes need to be somewhat dry as the roots will grow to seek moisture. If the cube is always wet there is no need for the roots to seek water. Also, this level of moisture will cause, "damping off," root rot, mold and fungus issues of all kinds. Really these clones do not look that bad. Take the rockwool out of the water and keep them lightly damp but not wet. Hit them with a little water maybe every three days till you see roots. As for greening them up hit them with a daily or twice daily foliar spray of 1/8 veg fertilizer, seaweed, fulvic acid, and a delivery agent like Saturator from Dutch Masters. Also your heating the water they are sitting in to almost 80 degrees! Where did you hear water that hot was ever a good idea at any stage in a plants life? Aneorobic, i.e. bad bacteria loves water that hot. Oxygen, even with an air stone, cannot thrive at that temperature and the bad bacteria and fungus moves in.

 

[PieRat]

Re: Cuttings on the brink! Issues and questions.

All directions excluding the stems sticking out of the bottom came with the cloning device. Including the water temp. I took the time to go through and gently pull any stems sticking out up into the rock wool. I noticed very beginning of rooting (little white bumps) rooting on about 4/6 of the ones that were sticking out the bottom. I am hoping that that hit rate is similar in those that do not have the tips exposed. Since it is day 7 I am thinking I will keep the operation going for another week closely monitored to ensure that there is no algae, mold or fungus issues. Failing that I will go buy a conventional humidity dome and heatpad!

 

[Bdogg]

Re: Cuttings on the brink! Issues and questions.

Go for it. Your clones don't look horrible and if you have calusses (those little white bumps) then your on your way to rooting but I'm telling you I have been doing this a long time and I haven't lost a single clone in a long time. I have used all the fancy cloning machines, Turbo Clone, Easy Clone, you name it. What your describing is more of a seed propagator. I really do clone at just about 100% I lose maybe 1 clone out of 500. I have never gotten better strike rates than with a simple Mondi tray, a humidity dome, a heat pad set in the high seventies (the clones and the rockwool may like that temp but i stand by what I said about water that hot, aerobic (oxygen loving) bacteria shuts down at those temps and anerobic (bad bacteria) begins to form, and simple cool white T12 flourescent shoplights about 6 inches above the plant, and the foliar regimen I described. If you don't want to spend the money on the foliar seriously consider at least picking up a liter bottle of InstaGreen by Grotek and spraying that on once a week or so. Its only about 12 bucks a bottle and it will green your cuttings up a bit. If you insist on using that propagator make sure that the rockwool cube is just barely touching the water to give the roots some incentive to stretch towards moisture. And bring the water temps down to more like 75 degrees. I just re-read your post and see your using Rhizotonic. This has been your saving grace. It has kept the bad bacteria from forming at the high water temps your running. But I still cannot recommend those temps.

 

[PieRat]

Re: Cuttings on the brink! Issues and questions.

If I lower the water temp to 75 degrees do you think that will provide enough evaporation to condensate the cuttings sufficiently or should I spray to make up for it? I am going to use that spray solution it sounds like a good one but there is none of the Saturator available to me. Is there a Canna or House and Garden replacement as those two brands seem readily available at my hydroponics store and are internationally known. I can get the rest of the ingredients no problem locally
The rockwool sits about 2-3mm into the water.

 

[Bdogg]

Re: Cuttings on the brink! Issues and questions.

I say always spray. I love foliars I use them halfway through flower. However in clones foliar feeding is especially important. Think about it. Your cutting a clone off a mother. That clone is used to getting a healthy vegative feeding when it is attached to the mom. All of a sudden it is cut off from the mother and from its nutrient. A clone has no roots to suck up nutrients so you have to make up for that fact by feeding through the leaves. A wetting makes water wetter and creates more surface area for the leaves to absorb. Saturator is a deliver agent. Which actually help the leaves stomata absorb the nutrient. I am pretty sure that neither Canna nor House and Garden has anything like a wetting agent or a delivery agent but Advanced Nutrients has Wet Betty. Double check that they do not have Saturator it is made by Dutch Master. They are relatively popular. In fact 15 years ago they were the best. It shouldn't be a problem to get your hands on some Saturator. Dutch Master is marketed by Sun Systems and Hydrofarm so your hydro store should be able to order it. It is pretty cheap and works so well you can literally spray with the lights on when using it. (I wouldn't though) You know how foliars usually sit on the leaves and bead this product causes the water to almost instantly sink into the plant tissue. Also a company called Optic Foliar makes their version of Saturator called Transport. Other than that ask your hydro store what they recommend. Sitting about 2mm into the water isn't to0 bad I guess. Although again I wouldn't.