Big Clones.....and air layers.....

Budley Doright · Jul 12, 2015

I was checking out the main cloning threads here....and find almost all use very small clones.....

I wanted to play with much larger clones....... and airlayering.....

whichever method gives the best results....

Since I have a few experiments completed....and plan others I thought a thread would be a good place for this.....

I invite pics of your experience with large clones or air layers.....

Yesterday I posted pics in my cloning thread of some very large clones..... Ive also done some initial work with air layering....

Im hoping I can get this sorted .....which method I plan to use for Big Clones..... but Im not going back to the scant little things Ive done in the past......

Budley Doright · Jul 12, 2015

I want to say that grocery bag this plant is on....is very important to maintaining this plant to reduce transpiration..... I did not trim any leaves.....

I think one thing which is critical to success is scarification....

I simply scraped on opposite sides of the stem.....

As you can see from the pics.... the roots are on opposite sides.... and the part which was not scraped no rooting.....

Ive used this method before...... 2 scrapes on opposite sides.....

make sure you remove enough material to expose the cambium layer.....

I believe on older clones the woody exterior may slow success considerably......

Budley Doright · Jul 12, 2015

I will continue playing with these large clones.... however I plan to focus most of my efforts on air layering......

Im convinced that with some experiments I will move from cloning entirely.... to air layering.....but Im keeping my options open.....

I have a bloody fantastic experiment with air layering that I plan to post here....... when my mother plant has grown large enough to do what I want to do......

I have done 3 different airlayering experiments over some years...... but Im more focused on what I want to do with them....

What I have found..... is that airlayering has a much higher probability of rooting if you follow the right technique.....

I recently did my first experiment in some years...... I was delighted with the results.....

I did 7 airlayers from my disposable mom.... 7 branches ....and all 7 rooted....

But my pics sucked....and that experiment was only my proof of principle.....

It tells me my stem preparation is good...

It was enough for me to want to take the experiment one step farther....maybe two steps....

Budley Doright · Jul 12, 2015

So growers.... post 1 is also a challenge.....

Post your biggest clones..... and lets see whos is bigger????

They say size dont matter........ so lets see em......

By default..... the clone in post 1 is the threads champion clone....

Its 12 inches more or less......

I will show you mine.....if you show me yours.....

lol

Lets see those roots.....

Budley Doright · Jul 12, 2015

Since there seems to be very little on this topic.....Im unsure why???

The use of larger clones..... obviously it would be to save time....

If you arent saving time ....the time required to veg .....there is no point...

But I have a hard time believing that large clones wont outgrow dinky little clones....

But thats where I will be heading with this thread.....

Since most of what people have said about large clones....seems to be false.......

I intend to go to the next step.... does it save you time.....

So in an upcoming episode I plan to do the experiment.....

does using large clones save you time in veg.....

I dont really have to flower these plants to resolve the veg question.....

I intend to follow the plants until the end of veg.....

I will be using gorilla glue as the strain....

So I will compare a day one air layer..... with a day 1 clone......

Let me define exactly what that is....

For the air layer ....day 1 is when the airlayer is cut from the mother plant.....

Day 1 for the clone...... will be the first day I see roots in the cloner......

stoned-trout · Jul 12, 2015

I hate tiny clones .. I use big party cups and my stem goes all the way to bottom with a few nodes buried atleast 1 , and a few nodes above soil ..about 10 inch clones overall approxamitely... works good for me ., ...yeehaw...they say smaller clones root faster well I don't really see that and its still a tiny clone even if rooted.. mine have a head start already being big.. next run I will do a few tiny ones to compare and take a few pics...

Budley Doright · Jul 12, 2015

stoned-trout said:
I hate tiny clones .. I use big party cups and my stem goes all the way to bottom with a few nodes buried atleast 1 , and a few nodes above soil ..about 10 inch clones overall approxamitely... works good for me ., ...yeehaw...they say smaller clones root faster well I don't really see that and its still a tiny clone even if rooted.. mine have a head start already being big.. next run I will do a few tiny ones to compare and take a few pics...

Thats interesting..... I didnt do the nodes thing really..... I wanted a long stem with nothing to do the scrape In.....

I wonder if stripping the stem doesnt accomplish the same thing????

Two really opposite techniques.....

My friend trout buries nodes..... very traditional thinking..

I didnt....If you look at the root pics in post 2...... you will see that there is clear stem all the way to the top where the first node is.....

You might actually say....that stripping the stem is one form of scarification.....to expose cambium tissue....

In my case I exposed cambium along a stem free of nodes.....

I would guess ....its the exposure of cambium....not the nodes per se..... which helps rooting......

the nodes were unimportant in my technique.... with scarification....

Budley Doright · Jul 12, 2015

I want everyone to know..... this is only my first entry....

I use a popcycle mold to clone in.....

I intend to buy another of those things.....about a buck.....

and cut them into individuals....instead of a group of 6.....

And work with single plants....

stoned-trout · Jul 12, 2015

yup I always bury atleast a node I think it helps seal somehow and I get super high clone success rates.. when I just scrape and bury smooth stem no nodes my success ratio is lower...works for me anyhow no scraping anymore...yeehaw 100 percent last run ..I only did 10 tho ..usually do 24..per tray

Witheridge · Jul 13, 2015

Ive started to use soil for cloning and am hitting my intended cut location a week or two before with clone gel. You can see the affected part start to ready itself for throwing outroots so its kinda like the start of layering without the medium attached. So far so good and I seem to get a better success rate. Ive also layered before but just found it to be a bit much dicking around.

Tbh big clones - smaller clones are all the same to me.. I just find it more of a challenge to clone into soil hence the layering can be useful.

All the best

Budley Doright · Jul 13, 2015

Witheridge said:
Ive started to use soil for cloning and am hitting my intended cut location a week or two before with clone gel. You can see the affected part start to ready itself for throwing outroots so its kinda like the start of layering without the medium attached. So far so good and I seem to get a better success rate. Ive also layered before but just found it to be a bit much dicking around.

Tbh big clones - smaller clones are all the same to me.. I just find it more of a challenge to clone into soil hence the layering can be useful.

All the best

Actually that was one of the things I was looking at when I did the experiment......

I took the layers before I should have.....they werent fully rooted.....

But I wanted to see if the pretreated clones would root even if they were removed from the mom prior to rooting.....

They did...... all ended up rooting..... whether they were rooted or not......

The next step.....all layers will be given sufficient time to root well before removal from the plant.....

You may also want to look at wounding...... and ringing the future clone....to cause callus tissue...... or prerooting tissue....

Drekoushranada · Jul 16, 2015

I think I may give this a try this weekend. It looks promising.

oti$ · Jul 16, 2015

What do you mean by air layering? I've read the thread a couple times over and I am not getting something.

stoned-trout · Jul 16, 2015

scrape area ,apply rooting hormone whatever... add moist moss or similar,wrap in saran wrap or similar ,wait for roots and keep moist.. a syringe is handy for adding moisture if needed...yeehaw .. that's it in a nutshell..could be handy for those with numbers limits that actually obey them..

Budley Doright · Jul 16, 2015

limits that actually obey them..

fish humor.....

I almost peed meself......

Budley Doright · Jul 16, 2015

The pictures are about large clones....but I was doing some work with airlayering as well

but my flash didnt go off....operator error.....

Here is what I did....

I did what is called ringing the plant.....

that means to take the bark off.....

you take the layer under that off.....the green layer.... ( I was fairly anal about this)

leaving the area in the ring white.....

I happened to have rapid rooter plugs...

clonex....

I split the plug to slip over the wound....then actually sewed it back up with needle and thread.... about 6 stitches.....

Then some plastic wrap to keep the moisture in.......

and very tight twist ties top and bottom.....

I did in fact use a syringe after several days....

The intent of the thread...to figure out which way for me to go to get large clones....

airlayers....

or large clones babied in a plastic bag or something....controlled humidity to prevent wilting...

If Im guessing.... I put my money on air layering....

To clarify....the experiment I plan to do...is not to compare large clones with large air layers....

it will compare large air layers with typical sized clones most folks use....

Elev8 · Jul 16, 2015

very interesting. wots air layering then

HerBnGorE(illa) · Jul 16, 2015

Air layering is making a shoot of a mother plant grow roots while still attatched to the mother. Basically instead of cutting a clone then rooting it, u root it and then cut it.

HerBnGorE(illa) · Jul 16, 2015

Btw, looking forward to some good info in this thread. When I'm cloning "normally" I have a high success rate, but often times the clone looks pretty crappy by the time they are rooted. it also seems to take me a lot longer than some of the people on here, which may be part of the problem.

I'm quite interested in the air layering as a way to keep the "clones" healthier. Plus it would free up space in my veg/clone area.

Curious about how long air layering takes in comparison to standard cloning practices. Maybe ill just try it out and see for myself, in my own situation.

I read a thread a while back of some lady on here using kyjelly mixed with rooting hormone to "prepare" the clone to be taken, but she was chopping once the "nubs" were visible.

Ill be keeping an eye on this thread! Hopefully ill be able to contribute something valuable in a couple weeks!

Budley Doright · Jul 16, 2015

The reason I say that Im anal about scraping the outside layers off leaving the white tissue only.....

when you do that.... whatever the plant gets thru the leaves....can no longer make it to the roots.....

That food builds up in some way.... and the air layer roots.... quite vigorously usually...

There are two techniques in horticulture.....

layering...and air layering....

layering is done under the ground.... air layer above the ground in the air....

Big Clones.....and air layers.....

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