I was concerned about the hormone rubbing off when the cutting gets “spiked”. I had some rock cubes hanging around, so I took 4 of those and cut them in half vertically, through their hole. Soaked them, took cuttings, made diagonal cut, dipped in hormone, then laid the cutting on top of half the cube, placed other half on top of that, like a sandwich. Then I just grabbed a few smaller sized rubber bands from the junk drawer and wrapped them around the two halves, holding them together.
Easy-peasy.
I know their probably is a great thread some place here on cloning but this is been a pain in my ass but more pain in my reputation of being a decent old time indoor farmer but of recently using a new product it’s time to get schooled and refreshed with tips and technics better then these shitty Rapid Rooters…
I have clipped 4 5 & 6 inch clones dipped them in CloneX and placed them in Rapid rooters to watch them Die…
I use to use rockwool cubes , any help suggestions???
Wow that sounds frustrating. I actually use both of those products you listed. CloneX as well as rapid rooters for cloning. I use one more product, a rooting powder. I do the “double dip” First into the cloneX gel, then the powder, and finally into the rapid rooter.
When I take my clones I try to shoot for 5-6 inches and I cut the stem at a 45 degree angle, and then scratch the stem up a bit with my sissors before dipping them in the solution.
Once I have all the clones I want I put them into a 10x20 gardening tray. I mist the bottom of the tray, the clones, and the dome to the tray with water. I then put under a low watt LED light (I use a 30w cheap chinese blurple) … I hope the dome up once a day to re-mist the clones/dome/bottom to maintain high RH, I leave it on 18/6 and usually within 10 days I have roots on most everything.
My temperatures also typically stay pretty low compared to what’s recommended for cloning. I’d say they probably stay in the low to mid 70s and a lot of cloning articles recommend 80s I think…
The few times I had issues with clones it was using too powerful of a light and it just created too hot/bright of an environment before killing the clones completely. Hopefully you get some good advice, and are able to find success. Good luck!!
I’m using an adapted version of this, with a 12g tote from Lowes rather than a bucket and a bit of kelp powder rather than hydro nutrients. It seems to be working fairly well as far as keeping the cuts alive; some strains have had 100% success very quickly, others still haven’t gone anywhere after a month. I probably did some damage by moving them into my veg tent though, far too much light in there. Kelp has naturally-occurring IAA, the active ingredient in most rooting gels, so it’ll keep them reasonably well fed and should promote rooting just as well, but not if they’re busy eating themselves trying to keep up with the lights.
What makes me think it was probably user error (too much light) is that the cuttings are even still alive after a month or more. Here’s the latest picture; the GG4 in the back of the center row looks perfectly healthy, but it’s been in there since New Year’s Eve and still doesn’t have roots. The other GG4 cutting had roots after 2 weeks, but then I moved them into the veg tent… at that point I think the one with roots continued to grow them while using them to uptake nutrients, while the one without roots struggled to keep up with the nutrient demands from the powerful light.
Oh I forgot to mention that I pre-soak my rapid rooters as well! I use two quarts of water with 20ml of clonex (the solution, not gel) and I let those rapid rooters presoak in there for a while before taking and plugging cuts. It’s important to note that you do not went them soaked before putting cuts in them so basically I let them presoak, and before putting a clone into one I squeeze the excess water out of them. Anyway man I hope you have some good luck with the next round! Don’t beat yourself up about it!!
See how they are yellowing? That is an indication that there is indeed too much light. They are trying to grow instead of root. Less lught will encourage them to root instead of grow. I use no additional lights for my clones. Just ambient light in the corner of the veg room works well for me.
That was from ambient light in the corner of the veg room. They’ve started recovering a bit since I moved them under a regular 100(16)w light bulb, about 4 feet away. Maybe these 230w lights are stronger than I think and I shouldn’t have moved them down… starting to get some faded leaves on the tops of my vegging plants as well, and my autos have pretty much given up. I’m getting too used to the light rails in my flower room - with the lights constantly moving, my flowering plants are happy enough being 2 inches away. So yeah, user error indeed.
For the cloner? It’s about 71 now, outside of the veg tent. In the tent, it’s also 81-84 with the lights on, though I’m sure not as elegantly done as yours; that range’ll probably break down once summer comes and require additional work to keep steady. Lights off is about 73-75.
The clones that did root did it in the same environment they’re in now, then once I moved them under the more powerful growroom lights the unrooted ones started shutting down. I moved them out of the growroom a week ago, and they seem to have started recovering - one of the Blueberry cuts has a few roots now, actually. Ideally, they should probably have it a few degrees hotter, but I’m not willing to heat the whole house that much more just for clones to root quicker… I don’t even have anywhere close to the room for all of them anyway, if they all root.
Permission to add guys >>> Cloning is easy Top 5 fundamentals
I’m simple … Big clear plastic box > 260ml cups > Vermiculite only sub > Some Led Some Sun Some Shadow Half Open … Lot’s of prayer (CO2 ) . Aloe arborencens deep
Best time by Biodynamics > Wanning moons > The sap is concentrate in the roots > The cuts don’t bleed
Donor must be well hydrated
DON’T CUT THE END OF THE LEAFS , Heard from some ggs ( grower geeks )
Here’s the latest picture; the GG4 in the back of the center row looks perfectly healthy, but it’s been in there since New Year’s Eve and still doesn’t have roots. The other GG4 cutting had roots after 2 weeks, but then I moved them into the veg tent… at that point I think the one with roots continued to grow them while using them to uptake nutrients, while the one without roots struggled to keep up with the nutrient demands from the powerful light.
They’ve started recovering a bit since I moved them under a regular 100(16)w light bulb, about 4 feet away. Maybe these 230w lights are stronger than I think and I shouldn’t have moved them down… starting to get some faded leaves on the tops of my vegging plants as well, and my autos have pretty much given up. I’m getting too used to the light rails in my flower room - with the lights constantly moving, my flowering plants are happy enough being 2 inches away. So yeah, user error indeed.