My clones are dying...

[lotusfalls]

I've got a healthy set of 9 Blueberry and 8 Chocolate Diesels vegging under a pair of 600W lamps, they're right at two months old. I cloned them for sex about 8-9 days ago. I used a new, sterilized razor blade to cut the clones, I know enough to know that they were of proper size and age. After cutting I placed them directly in a cup with a mild mix of Olivia's Cloning Solution with R/O'd water. I removed the bottom sets of of leaves, sliced the branch at a 45 degree between nodes, immediately dipped them in Rootech cloning gel and placed them in 1 inch rockwool cubes that were pre-soaked with the mild solution. They've been under 24 hour light from two 45W florescents in a seedling tray with a vented humidity dome and a heating mat under it. Out of 34 clones taken, only nine are still there and only one has shown any inclination of rooting. The rest have either completely withered to nothing, or fallen over with a bruised look on the cut site. I found out yesterday that the pH of my solution is 7.4. Could it be pH related, or am I doing something wrong?

 

[Sinfuldreams]

1st I'd loose the heat mat and use 1 smaller CFL or even just a 25watt Shop Floro.
Seems your doing it correct and then some.
How often do you water the RW and do you Spray the clones at all?

Sin

 

[Habibi]

better yet, how big are the clones you took? it could be you took clones that were too big

 

[lotusfalls]

Thanks for the replies. The clones are no more than 4 inches from top to bottom. I spray enough to keep the RW moist, but not dripping wet and occasionally spray the foliage lightly to keep the humidity up in the dome. I use the heating mat because everything I've ever or read or been told has been that the clones do better and root faster when the root zone is 10 degrees or so above the ambient air temp.

 

[lotusfalls]

I've had plenty of success growing from seed, but this is my first real go at cloning. I've produced successful clones in the past but never with any consistency. I sacrificed a few to take a peek at the cutting site, is it normal for it to be browning?

 

[Sinfuldreams]

It will go kind of grey perhaps brown.
Cloning is hard to get down... we all loose some.
I havn't used RW or Soil for Rooting for a while.
Much better sucess with Aero Cloners or Bubblers.
Got a buddy cloning in RW right now.. his is wet and very humid.
I never got anything with heat mats.. mabe seedlings.. but tend to be too hot or too hot here and too cool there and burn out fast.

Hope more help is forth comming I can't see what if anything your doing wrong.
Diesels are a Bitch to clone. Some strains take to it better than others.

Sin

 

[MTF-Sandman]

Are they wilting from lack of RH% or do they get slimy at the base/tips?

If they are wilting, then they are transpiring water too fast (lower temps and raise RH%)

If they get slimy, then the RH% or temps are too high...most likely the temps from the heat mat - ditch the heating mat unless you live in a very cool area...

 

[lotusfalls]

They do get slimy at the base, nothing extreme, but a definite oily look. I think I'll ditch the heating mat and move them out of the main grow room to a cooler area. The pH of the clone solution is already at 7.4% (working on that now), so I think cooling them down will help. Thanks for all the info.

 

[Breezy420]

I've always cloned in rockwool and with a heat mat and gotten great results over 95% success. Here is a link to a great tutorial with pictures. This is the same way I clone, and have never had a problem. Follow this to the 't' and you shouldnt have any problems. One thing I can say for sure is you shouldnt have to remoisten your rockwool through the entire process. The initial soak should be enough moisture to carry them through until they root. Also never mist the cuttings, but instead the dome itself. Misting the cuttings will spoil them and cause them to root slower. You want to make them search for water by growing roots. By misting them they will root much slower since they can get what they need from your misting instead of their roots.

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=26489

 

[Jesusbuiltmygro]

If they are getting slime on them perhaps you should back down on the spraying as they may not be getting enough air.

Make sure you light is not too close also as it will cause them to die faster. They usually recommend like 18 inches or more depending on the intensity of the light. I find you need very minimal light to clone.

You should definitely move up to something beside rockwool. It's ok stuff, but the stuff holds a little too much water. Rapid Rooters are the best I've used. Oasis cubes are also very good and a bit cheaper.

The one thing I can see that might be going wrong is how you trim the bottom leaves. Some strains react badly to leaf trimming also, but you should trim any excess growth off the clone before you cut it or else it lowers the survivability by leaving an open wound on the plant. Then when you dip it in hormone solution and add nutrients it all just speeds up the potential chances of infection.

I like using several small trays instead of one mega tray. This gives you more control and less chance of some bacteria using your humidity dome as an ideal breeding ground.

The heating mat could also be frying them. If you are within the ideal air temps in the room you probably don't need a mat. Heat speeds up the cloning process, but it also speeds up the rotting process. Colder temps will slow rooting, but tends to preserve the clone, however when temps are low the clones will many times go into stasis where they don't wilt, but also don't grow roots and eventually die. So cloning is much about keep constant control of the climate. If your rooms temps swing a lot you may want to move the clones inside a container or such which you can better regulate and perhaps keep cleaner and reduce chances of contamination via the air.

You could try aero cloner, but I find they are a little bit less reliable, though of course more convenient. They are cheap and easy to make, but in my experience rapid rooter/oasis cubes and even rockwool are easier.

Don't under rate the importance of oxygen in your medium or you will quickly get soggy clones and don't touch or move the clones much after you've put them in the trays. I like to get a new pack of razors, prepare my ideal clones by cutting off branches I don't want and then allowing 2-3 days for the wound to heal a little. Then take the clone. AND make sure the plant is healthy or cloning will be infinitely harder. Picking good prospective clones will make perhaps the most difference of anything you can do. Don't just take the runts. If you have a strain that is hard to clone try varying the size and thickness of the clones. You may have better luck with larger clones with more sturdy stems. These will resist wilting longer, but may also take a little longer to clone.

For the hard to clone strains I would try varying the size of the cuttings and for the thicker stems try scarification or removing a very thin layer where you want your root to grow. The roots will grow from the cut, so making the cut bigger creates more surface area for roots to grow from. This is basically the reason you are told to cut your plants at a 45 degree angle. The longer cut provides more surface area. Scarification is just another step using that theory. I find it most useful on the thicker stem cuttings.

I don't use nutes on cuttings as I find they don't really help increase cloning rate as much as they just help increase growth once the plants develop roots. For hard to clone strains the nute solution could be leading to faster wilting since it is also fuel for bacteria, but it's probably mostly from excess heat or lack of oxygen.

 

[unlearning]

You do want media temp. about 10 degrees higher than air temp HOWEVER you only want ambient air at about 65, so dont heat you media to 95 cause your air is 85. (make sure you are only at about 65 degrees UNDER the humidity dome, shooting for 75 degrees media)

You can also try scarifying the clones as mentioned above, cut a straight line down the clone kind of splitting the stem in two. Or when trimming excess fan leaves off, slowly pull down on the leaves (not out) stripping a small piece of bark off the stem. This will promote rooting by forcing the plant to heal itself, in turn providing it with more of the correct chemicals to root. (remember you want the scared piece of stem tissue UNDER the media)

I know in regular soil or soil-less we were always taught to "water-in" our cuttings, meaning water them AFTER they are placed in the media as to get rid of any air bubbles directly around the stem of the cutting, don't know how you can apply this to your rockwool cubes if at all, only onther thing I could think of, =) (however as jesus said as well, you do need airated media)

Good Luck!
Un

Hope this was clear enough =)

 

[Guest]

Too hot by the sounds of it.

Big cuts like that can dehydrate easily if there is too much air also.

7.4 PH is high but I doubt it's fatally high.

I like to take shorter cuts and use a lower dome. In a room at 80 I have roots in a week.

 

[Rosy Cheeks]

It seems like you're doing everything right and still...

In any case, it's not because you sliced the stems at a 45º angle and not a 90º angle that clones won't root. It's all about air temperature and humidity, so you really need to know how warm and humid it is under the dome.

In the late spring/summertime, when the general air temp/humidity is just right, I cut clones, put them in a cup with just a little bit of water, and forget about them. Two weeks later, they're rooted. No rooting hormones, no rapid rooters, no bubbler or dome or whatever. Maybe I change the water once or twice, that's all.

Two things to concider though. It does matter from what plant and where on the plant the clones were taken. Some strains are easy to root, others not. The plant needs to be healthy, well-fed and growing fast, for optimal results. Many growers give a N boost to the plants some time before cutting clones, so that there will be plenty of it in the clones. That's a bit tricky with the Blueberry though, since she reacts negatively to high N levels. I remember that Blueberry wasn't easy to clone, Chocolate Diesels I don't know.
Also, shoots taken from the top of the plant might look more vigorous, but they are actually harder to root than cuttings taken from the lower part of the plant. The closer a shoot is to the lower part of the meristem (i e the root system), the higher the amount of rooting hormones in the cutting, which will save you a few days.

Nevertheless, I see that you've only been going for 8-9 days. You know, it usually takes between 8 - 14 days for a clone to root. Do not listen to the people who say they root clones in 4 or 5 days. These are growers that have everything dialed in perfectly (I know you have too, but it's one thing to play an instrument, and another to play it well), and there are quite a few fishing stories too coming from people that want to look like they have everything dialed in. Two weeks is normal and nothing to be ashamed of.

 

[lotusfalls]

I do take the cuttings from the bottom of the plants. I've always been told that giving the parent plants nutrients is not a good idea. I've been leeching the plants before cloning and misting leaves to remove nitrogen from the leaves. All of the CDs are healthy at the moment. The blueberry is showing signs of a zinc deficiency (newer leaves twisting at the tips till the bottoms point up), probably because of the high pH of the water. I know that CD and BB don't enjoy heavy feeding, so I've used fairly mild nute solutions and since they are all in soil, I alternate between giving them nute and giving them straight water. Since we've been cloning, as I said before, they get just water right now with a little vitamin B1 for stress. I'm going to get the clones into a cooler area, I believe that it's a been a combination of too much heat both in the ambient air and in the medium and too much water on the RW. I'll use a few smaller trays and try a few different methods till I find one that works. I knew this would be a trial and error process when I first started. Thanks again for all the great info! This forum is a hell of a lot better than just a book. Peace -lf

 

[Guest]

I've got a healthy set of 9 Blueberry and 8 Chocolate Diesels vegging under a pair of 600W lamps, they're right at two months old. I cloned them for sex about 8-9 days ago. I used a new, sterilized razor blade to cut the clones, I know enough to know that they were of proper size and age. After cutting I placed them directly in a cup with a mild mix of Olivia's Cloning Solution with R/O'd water. I removed the bottom sets of of leaves, sliced the branch at a 45 degree between nodes, immediately dipped them in Rootech cloning gel and placed them in 1 inch rockwool cubes that were pre-soaked with the mild solution. They've been under 24 hour light from two 45W florescents in a seedling tray with a vented humidity dome and a heating mat under it. Out of 34 clones taken, only nine are still there and only one has shown any inclination of rooting. The rest have either completely withered to nothing, or fallen over with a bruised look on the cut site. I found out yesterday that the pH of my solution is 7.4. Could it be pH related, or am I doing something wrong?

Did you properly prepare your rockwool cubes? You say you soaked them in a mild solution, but rockwoll cubes need to be soaked for 24 hours in a PH 5.5 solution. I usually get close to 100% on clones. Recently, I used some rockwool that claimed you just needed to dip in 5.5 ph water not soak like normal. So I followed the directions and lost almost 100% of the clones with the same symtoms you are describing.

Rockwool can work great but . . . .

1) You MUST prepare the cubes properly (5.5 ph soak)

2) be patient, depending on the strain it may take two weeks to root in rockwool.

 

[Guest]

In the future...

If you are not growing hydroponically, I'd abandon the cubes all together and go with peat pellets.

They are way more forgiving, root quicker for the novice and it's usually better to stay with the same medium you intend to grow out with.

 

[lotusfalls]

KK- No I'm not soaking them anywhere near that long, I'll do that this time around. Thanks very much.

NF - I agree, but I'm just growing the prospective mothers in soil. All the clones will end up in 6 inch RW in a 8 x 4 tray. This is my first time growing so many plants in soil, and my first time using seeds that aren't feminized. So far, I hate soil with a passion. That's probably just because I'm not used to it though.

 

[lotusfalls]

I took everyone's advice and got rid of the heating mat, stopped misting, soaked the RW for 24 hours and just generally left them the hell alone. Here they are a week in:

 

[Pimp Aurora]

how's the pH now? it's drifts if you don't keep your eye on it..

 

[Beetlepumpr]

Take the heat mat out,keep um cool, that's your problem, PERIOD.