Homemade bubble cloner to soil=clones wilting!

[Holmes Slice]

have tried every mainstream and some downright silly additives over the years with nothing really gained.

Never a truer word has been spoken; you wouldn't believe all the crap I used to add to my clones when I was brand new at this!!! Alas, back to plain ol' water. I don't even use rooting powder any more.

I am going to try to roughing up a clone or two on my next batch and see if that helps. Nice roots and many thanks for all your input; you helped me quite a bit!

 

[Holmes Slice]

I was very frustrated last week--had about 8 clones with great roots--ALL shriveled and died within a day of transplant. Tried dome/no dome, tried wet media, dry media, moderately watered, etc.

The best results I've had are as follows:
-Reducing light during first 2 days. They bubble under about 46w of CFL, I back them down to 23w and that seems to help
-When transplanting I put about 2/3 of the soil in the red cups and water as normally until there's some drainage. I then place my clone gently and top off with dry soil which I compact lightly with my fingertips. No more watering until 2 days have passed. This seems to help ALOT. The capillary action of the dry soil on top draws some of the moisture from the lower, wetter media toward the roots and seems to give me good balance between wetness and air exchange. So far, so good...Placed another 10 clones about 3-4 days ago and only lost one.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

I was very frustrated last week--had about 8 clones with great roots--ALL shriveled and died within a day of transplant. Tried dome/no dome, tried wet media, dry media, moderately watered, etc.

The best results I've had are as follows:
-Reducing light during first 2 days. They bubble under about 46w of CFL, I back them down to 23w and that seems to help
-When transplanting I put about 2/3 of the soil in the red cups and water as normally until there's some drainage. I then place my clone gently and top off with dry soil which I compact lightly with my fingertips. No more watering until 2 days have passed. This seems to help ALOT. The capillary action of the dry soil on top draws some of the moisture from the lower, wetter media toward the roots and seems to give me good balance between wetness and air exchange. So far, so good...Placed another 10 clones about 3-4 days ago and only lost one.

Try watering a container of your soil... let it sit for about 10 minutes.

Now... take handfuls and squeeze the excess water out.

- Crumble each handful and gently pack it into your cup/container.
- Take some super-fine dry soil (Dust from bag bottom) and completely coat the roots while wet. No roots should be showing... just dirty dangly things
- Crumble another handful or two of squeezed out soil and gently pack it in around the clone.
- Don't water it!

You should be fine.

What I'm pretty sure is happening is your plants are suffering from lack of dissolved oxygen. Though they came from a pure water environment... they don't need/want it in soil.

Stay Safe!

edit: Thanks for posting your exact methods though... really helps to pinpoint where to look for the source of issues. Rock on!

 

[foomar]

Would do an autopsy on ones that die off , 10x or better loupe should reveal if they rotted , dried out or were damaged by something in the soil , have found commercial compost to be infested on more than one occasion.

Worth getting a fresh bag and trying that , something wrong here as once theres a good flush of roots they usually take some effort to kill , your clones rooted fast and were not yellowed out and should have took even under poor conditions.

Over many years and many species , have seen more problems due to overwatering than anything else , most are far more demanding than canna in this respect.

We tend to forget this is a seed distributed plant and not one based on root division or runners , cloneing just exploits a survival factor and happens to work quite well , trying for 100% is pushing nature a bit.

 

[Holmes Slice]

Anecdotally, I've also noticed that the existing of secondary roots/branching seems to be a good indicator of survival as well. When bubble cloning, it seems you get several primary roots that develop to varying degrees, after a few more days these begin to branch out a bit. The best developed root systems start growing quickly, the more immature ones wither and die.

This probably has the most to do with dissolved O2 in the bubbler and my apparent overwatering at transplant. Again, I am very new to bubble cloners but have been growing for years so I could be talking out my arse here....

 

[SouthernSmoker]

Home slice can you post a pic of the clone roots that you are transplanting please ?

 

[Holmes Slice]

Hydro-Soil and foomar, must really thank you guys for all the info. Always helps to have details like this...you are both awesome ICMAGers! Rep given...

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Hydro-Soil again."


Not the best pic as the roots are blurry, but hopefully you get the idea. This one has a single primary and quite a few secondaries--they do not appear to be rhizoids/root hairs. This one only has one primary but went nuts on the secondaries. I already buried a few in soil yesterday, but this one will probably be given another day or so. I've been transplanting them as soon as they hit the water line in any case. Going to try using foomar's tactics on the next batch to see if I can promote more root growth.

 

[SouthernSmoker]

Thanks for posting that pic ! My two cents is this . Let them stay in the cloner for a few more days get a little mop on the end and have enough root to sustain the size of the clone . imho that is not enough root to sustain life in that size plant give them more time to get bigger root system . peace
they should look more like this at transplant time http://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=26684&pictureid=594609 Mrwags has it down to an art

 

[Holmes Slice]

Is it just me, or do they develop more side roots when the main rootlet actually hits the water line? Again---VERY new to this--but it would seem to make sense. In nature a root tip that's submerged in water probably can't go much further down, so the plant sends out side roots to run along the water source for the best conditions.

In any case, another week...another ten clones---this is now getting easy. Anyone want some grodan blocks? I am SOOOO done with those....

 

[Hydro-Soil]

another week...another ten clones---this is now getting easy.

Glad to hear it.

Cloning becomes much easier as soon as you have a basic understanding of either a proven method.... or the plant mechanism itself that you're working with.

Stay Safe!

 

[foomar]

do they develop more side roots when the main rootlet actually hits the water line?

When i puncture the stem over a couple of inches , first roots usually appear at the bubble line .
Did try once adding different soaps and detergents to maintain a thick layer of bursting bubbles , the right amount allows the cloner to act more like an aero system which is generally faster.

Slightest overdose of detergent however makes the stems soften and rot , fun to experiment but not reliable to risk for the day or two saved.

 

[Leroy Brown]

I use a home made ez cloner, but I've also had great results cloning in promix with no domes in my growrooms between 35-55% RH.

Take cut, dip in powder, stick it in the dirt, put it underneath the canopy of a vegging or blooming plant (so it doesn't get blasted with light)- viola.