What's new
  • ICMag with help from Landrace Warden and The Vault is running a NEW contest in November! You can check it here. Prizes are seeds & forum premium access. Come join in!

Cloning in plain water under fluoros

Freakazoid44

Active member
Why does speed matter in cloning ?

Because you can't start growing the plant until the clone has developed roots, I'd imagine. In terms of whether it works, doesn't work, it doesn't matter, but if you have something you want to do with those clones, I assume you want to get on with it.
 

I wood

Well-known member
Veteran
Why does speed matter in cloning ?

The longer they sit unrooted the less healthy they tend to be, giving pathogens a chance to get established.
Once they root they usually bounce back quickly but if something bad got going in the down time that clone is not worth it.
To save a favorite plant sure, however long it takes to root is ok, but in general it is good to dump the slow ones and start again with a fresh vigorous cutting.
That and plant counts have me tossing the unrooted cuts after about three weeks or so.
 

Sampas92

Just newbin
I must say, every cut that i get from my skunk has rooted, in 7 to 9 days with a bubbler..the best thing for me is since i dont have space for them all i can just leave them there..i have one with 1 month old since rooted, roots enormous and is healthy like the same day i cutted it..
some times i mix a bit of honey in the water and sometimes a bit of aloe.
i guess we need to use the best tools for the job and if there are a lot of tools, better, this one works 100% success for me.
thanks for the original poster
 

...CR500AF...

Active member
Plain well water see through glass under T5, Usually a week to root then into the beer cup they go.
I always go for the keep it simple rule, I have planted cuts with just bumps on the stem and they rooted just fine,they where a little behind but nothing to worry about.
just my two cents.🙂
 
Has anyone ever considered using a brown bottle to block the sunlight coming into the glass? Ive put cut flowers like zinnias into vintage beer bottles on the window sill and had a pretty good success at rooting them not even trying. Way back they would pigment glass to keep sunlight out. I think my next cuttings I am going to give it a try and report back. usually the zinnias only last 5 days or so but they will live for weeks in the brown glass with very long roots in the end.
 
Im giving it a go. I took some cuts and saw how you guys used bags to keep the moisture in, il change the water every 2 days and keep you up on whats happening. How many days til roots etc. just plain tap water under the t5 fluro 8 tube with only the center 4 on for now. How far from the lights do you guys usually keep them?
 

Attachments

  • photo2047634.jpg
    photo2047634.jpg
    55.1 KB · Views: 62

Swamp Thang

Well-known member
Veteran
Hands down this guide has got to be by far the most informative and SIMPLE cloning technique I have encountered in all my online research going back years. Using plain water I have for the first time seen long trailing roots of the sort I never saw in all my previous cloning experiments that used far more complicated methods entailing air pumps, rooter plugs, misting regimes, humidity domes, and the copious application of various rooting compounds.

I've just started out over 30 plain water clones with cuttings taken off Ace seeds Malawi, Golden Tiger, and Zamaldelica mother plants. Set up on window sills for indirect muted lighting some of the solo cups are doubled up to exclude all light and covered with black plastic bags sealed tight over the cup rims using rubber bands, with the cuttings poked through the plastic covers. Others have the cuttings floating on styrofoam plugs from my defunct bubble cloner, with a loose piece of black plastic bag draped over the cup to exclude light but allow air in for better oxygenation.

In a couple of weeks, I will write back to this topic with my findings from this comparative study when I have a better idea as to whether hermetically sealing the solo cups with black plastic bags proves better or worse for the rooting process than allowing free air exchange with the water. Just for the heck of it, I intend to skip bothering with any water changes in all my samples, just to see if I can get away with the bare minimum effort and hassle yet still see adequate root development.
 

Swamp Thang

Well-known member
Veteran
Since this thread was created, I've moved to a new area and found some unusual negative results with water cloning. I put it down to a different water supply because I have no idea what elsse to blame.

Most of my water clones do not root and form a whiteish translucent cloud around the cut in the water. This eventually leads to a rubbery stem and death of the cutting.

Water cloning has been successful for me in a bunch of geographic areas, but not the place I'm currently living, so I'm kind of at a loss. I wish I could get my Caprichoso account back and edit this info into the thread at the beginning...
Good to see that the legend is alive and well. I doff my hat to you for this educative tutorial on how to keep things simple, and I hope you are able to resolve the water problem you've encountered in your new location. Perhaps it might be worth buying Arrowhead water from the store to test the hypothesis that water quality is the culprit?
 
Top