In honor of the new cloning forum that will be coming and to help all the people who are having a hard time cloning i have made a short simple guide for taking clones.
step one, gather your materials. you will need. some potting mix preferably with no fertilizers in it. im using here a mixture of miracle fro brand seed starting mix and jiffy brand seed starting mix. they are exactly the same, mostly peat, with some coco and perlite added. i just put them both into this miracle gro bag since the jiffy mix bag doesnt come with a convenient zip locking top. hint hint jiffy dudes.
you will also need a tray or something like some dixie cups or something to hold the seed starting/potting mix, a humidity dome, or just some sort of thing you can cover the plants with that will keep 90% of the air inside the area directly around the plants. and you will also need water. plain old water. for my example i am using tap water that has been sitting out for like 5 minutes after i took it from the tap in my bath tub. i didn't pH this time, but i pHed it the day before when i watered my flowring plants. it was around 7.0-7.5 for my flowering plants i usually adjust to 6 before i water.
Step one ....oh wait, you will also need a plant to cut clones from.
i chose this (these) grapefruit d-lite im growing for the beer cup challenge. i like the super (sickening almost) sweet smell of the buds and the frost coverage at only 4 weeks since flowers started. plus they overgrow my cab and i wan't to to a better show for the guy who gifted me these with a second clone run.
this is today, you can see where i took the clones from by their bare...legs.
Step One: wet the potting mix, this particular mix is a little hard to wet so i suggest you let it soak up some water before you start.
STEP 2: select where you will cut from. the buds up top already started developing and i want my buds so i can smoke them. so for these clones we will be taking from the bottom. i wanted to show you you can clone any part of the plant as long as it's not woody. the growing tips are best for this. and since the bottom branches have only just started throwing pistils that AGE (plant age) of the plant is roughly week one of flower. if i took a clone from the top it would be week 4 of flowering and take a lot more time before the branches and leaves grown enough to throw back into the box.
confusing i know. what i mean is that when the clones root, they will take a while before they start growing leaves again. for a week one clone it will be fast, for a week 4 clone it will keep making buds and single leaves for a longer while before it goes back to making just regular leaves. Reveg i think is the common term.
Step Three: take the cutting, slice the stem at a 45 degree angle or so, you want the steepest cut you can get, you want a large cross section of exposed cells.
Step FOUR: remove all excess leaves, and scrape the stem slightly with the edge of your scissors or blade or possibly even your fingernail if it is sharp enough. all along the stem all the parts that will be under the soil, lightly scrape. LIGHTLY SCRAPE, just enough to see some scarring to the flesh of the stem.
Step Fi5e: stick it into the premoistened soil into a pre dug hole. put the cutting into the soil, and then press the soil around it nice and tight.
after you have finished sticking your clones in the soil and tamping it down nice and tight, you will label them like i have done with color coded toothpicks or whatever you choose to do for multiple varieties. next we water again. the reason we are watering and tamping the soil around the stem tightly is because we need the stem to stay moist in the first few days. and as the soil dries out the cells will be teased into searching for more moisture as that is how roots operate. they seek moisture.
Step SiX: cover with dome and place under medium to moderate lighting under at least 14 hours of light to keep them from going back to flower mode.
Step Se7eN: THIS IS THE MOST CRUCIAL AND MOST OFTEN FUCKED UP STEP IN THE PROCESS.
you wait....
yep... now we wait.
keep monitoring every day or two to make sure its not too hot and moist, this will lead to rot and mold. look at the humidity dome and if it is ALL COMPLETELY FOGGY or all dripping with BEADED UP WATER on the ceiling and side walls take the dome OFF.
IF IT IS NOT FOGGY AT ALL EVER- then your environment is too cold or your media is dry. you want to keep it warm and moist. your media should NOT be SOGGY ALL THE TIME, nor should it DRY OUT. just moist, and warm enough to fog up the dome.
Step 8: after some time if you keep everything in the right zone, you will notice new growth, or the leaves will start to TURN YELLOW. this means you have roots and they are starting to use nutrients again.
exactly 10 days later we have ...um i think i double potted some of them so between 9 and 18 new cones. and as you can see we even have roots coming out the bottom. you can keep growing them in this tray for a while, maybe another week , 2 tops. before they start crowding each other and some start dying from lack of light.
I hope you have found this thread useful and informative. I made it to help everyone who seems to be having trouble making clones and wasting their time buying snake oils and magic cloners and etc.
i just wanted to show and prove to you that cloning is as easy as dirt.
literally.
step one, gather your materials. you will need. some potting mix preferably with no fertilizers in it. im using here a mixture of miracle fro brand seed starting mix and jiffy brand seed starting mix. they are exactly the same, mostly peat, with some coco and perlite added. i just put them both into this miracle gro bag since the jiffy mix bag doesnt come with a convenient zip locking top. hint hint jiffy dudes.
you will also need a tray or something like some dixie cups or something to hold the seed starting/potting mix, a humidity dome, or just some sort of thing you can cover the plants with that will keep 90% of the air inside the area directly around the plants. and you will also need water. plain old water. for my example i am using tap water that has been sitting out for like 5 minutes after i took it from the tap in my bath tub. i didn't pH this time, but i pHed it the day before when i watered my flowring plants. it was around 7.0-7.5 for my flowering plants i usually adjust to 6 before i water.
Step one ....oh wait, you will also need a plant to cut clones from.
i chose this (these) grapefruit d-lite im growing for the beer cup challenge. i like the super (sickening almost) sweet smell of the buds and the frost coverage at only 4 weeks since flowers started. plus they overgrow my cab and i wan't to to a better show for the guy who gifted me these with a second clone run.
this is today, you can see where i took the clones from by their bare...legs.
Step One: wet the potting mix, this particular mix is a little hard to wet so i suggest you let it soak up some water before you start.
STEP 2: select where you will cut from. the buds up top already started developing and i want my buds so i can smoke them. so for these clones we will be taking from the bottom. i wanted to show you you can clone any part of the plant as long as it's not woody. the growing tips are best for this. and since the bottom branches have only just started throwing pistils that AGE (plant age) of the plant is roughly week one of flower. if i took a clone from the top it would be week 4 of flowering and take a lot more time before the branches and leaves grown enough to throw back into the box.
confusing i know. what i mean is that when the clones root, they will take a while before they start growing leaves again. for a week one clone it will be fast, for a week 4 clone it will keep making buds and single leaves for a longer while before it goes back to making just regular leaves. Reveg i think is the common term.
Step Three: take the cutting, slice the stem at a 45 degree angle or so, you want the steepest cut you can get, you want a large cross section of exposed cells.
Step FOUR: remove all excess leaves, and scrape the stem slightly with the edge of your scissors or blade or possibly even your fingernail if it is sharp enough. all along the stem all the parts that will be under the soil, lightly scrape. LIGHTLY SCRAPE, just enough to see some scarring to the flesh of the stem.
Step Fi5e: stick it into the premoistened soil into a pre dug hole. put the cutting into the soil, and then press the soil around it nice and tight.
after you have finished sticking your clones in the soil and tamping it down nice and tight, you will label them like i have done with color coded toothpicks or whatever you choose to do for multiple varieties. next we water again. the reason we are watering and tamping the soil around the stem tightly is because we need the stem to stay moist in the first few days. and as the soil dries out the cells will be teased into searching for more moisture as that is how roots operate. they seek moisture.
Step SiX: cover with dome and place under medium to moderate lighting under at least 14 hours of light to keep them from going back to flower mode.
Step Se7eN: THIS IS THE MOST CRUCIAL AND MOST OFTEN FUCKED UP STEP IN THE PROCESS.
you wait....
yep... now we wait.
keep monitoring every day or two to make sure its not too hot and moist, this will lead to rot and mold. look at the humidity dome and if it is ALL COMPLETELY FOGGY or all dripping with BEADED UP WATER on the ceiling and side walls take the dome OFF.
IF IT IS NOT FOGGY AT ALL EVER- then your environment is too cold or your media is dry. you want to keep it warm and moist. your media should NOT be SOGGY ALL THE TIME, nor should it DRY OUT. just moist, and warm enough to fog up the dome.
Step 8: after some time if you keep everything in the right zone, you will notice new growth, or the leaves will start to TURN YELLOW. this means you have roots and they are starting to use nutrients again.
exactly 10 days later we have ...um i think i double potted some of them so between 9 and 18 new cones. and as you can see we even have roots coming out the bottom. you can keep growing them in this tray for a while, maybe another week , 2 tops. before they start crowding each other and some start dying from lack of light.
I hope you have found this thread useful and informative. I made it to help everyone who seems to be having trouble making clones and wasting their time buying snake oils and magic cloners and etc.
i just wanted to show and prove to you that cloning is as easy as dirt.
literally.
