Mysterious INSANE root growth

[NS775]

I am currently using a DIY bubble cloner (2 10" air stones 60Gallon aquarium pump, & 30 EZ Cloner Neoprene collars) and have minimal success, maybe 80% w/ 20% succumbing to rot. Now for the strange part.....

Many of the clones that appear to be goners, when I pull the plug out and remove the clone from the neoprene collar, to my surprise there is INSANE root growth ONLY on the section of stem which had the collar pressed against it. When I say insane I mean there is almost no stem visible just crazy bright white healthy roots forming on the entire surface area covered by the neoprene. Whats up w this?

Is neoprene a required trace element that no one has known about until now? Is it the total darkness or humidity or lack of h20 contact that is causing this? Anyone ever seen this before or have any ideas on how to build a cloner to take advantage of this????

 

[magiccannabus]

I no longer use a bubble cloner. I have found pucks to be much more simple, or just a small plastic cup with coir in it. I would suspect though that bubbles are coming up through the hole around the stem and concentrating the most air there. Your water level is probably too high, and there's no other way for the escaping air to get out. Try ventilating the top somewhere, and take a serious look at how much air you've been using. You may need more.

 

[FreezerBoy]

Dude, you're doing better with naked stems than I ever did. Never once have I seen a single root nub. Then I started using rockwool along with a one minute soak in full strength Hormex. I haven't lost a clone since.

 

[NS775]

Yea the results aren't terrible, but I know they could be much better. I've currently burnt out on the whole make everything as hi-tech and complicated as possible and I'm now trying out a perlite/wick setup to simplify things, we'll see how that goes..... anyways.....

The water level isn't too high, theres actually about 1-2 inches between the cutting tips & the water. I hear you are supposed to have the tips of the cuttings submerged in a true DWC cloner, but with this setup the bubbles burst and send droplets flying everywhere (if I pull a collar out of the top I can see the droplets flying out of the hole). So when the clones do take, I am seeing extensive lateral root growth like little fine hairs which makes me think that it appears to be the optimal enviroment, but then again the optimal inviroment for root and unrooted clones might be vastly different.

I am wondering about the air aspect of the situation. The cloner is by no means air tight, there is a hole for the air lines to enter and the neoprene collars don't fit perfectly in all areas. So I would suspect that the path of least resistance wouldn't be the slits in the neoprene collars. Maybe the inside of the collars have less solution and more moisture. This could account for why many of my cuttings dye from rot. I've even seen a number of cuttings start forming roots directly above the neoprene collar, but they never fully develop

 

[magiccannabus]

These sort of odd problems are why I gave up on bubble cloners. They need to be sterilized sometimes, so that might be part of what's going on with the rot. These days I just smear some honey on the stem, stick it in a coir puck, and wait about a week. You don't even need to buy pucks. Just take a really tiny clear plastic drinking cup(you can buy big packs of them for cheap), fill it with coir, and you have a great cloner. The clear plastic lets you see when the roots are formed.

 

[Slangheat]

I just soak some rockwool (ph'd water), and toss my cuttings in a tray with a clear vented dome. keep misted and viola 10 days later I got plants!

 

[Todd P]

hey freezer boy im diggin your cloner. i am trying to make my own similar to yours im gonna use these plugs i have and i was wondering about water level?? i used a shoebox sized container from the 99 cent store and cut holes in the top (9) and put some bubblers in there. i was going to use the foam noodle (99 cent store) but as i was puttin this thing together i noticed my plugs fit perfectly! so im rollin with that. any suggestions ph ect... thanks

 

[Todd P]

help?

 

[habeeb]

must have been the water with direct contact with the stem?

I know it's expensive but the ez-clone works 100%

also you can do coco, soil , rooters,


I never get people having problems with cloning?

 

[wick.96]

cloning is SOOOO easy

 

[vicious bee]

I made a low pressure cloner/grower. It worked great once. Root rot set in and it's a bitch to get rid of. I'm using Hempy buckets now. Excellent. I found that the best cloner for me is the Walmart ice cube tube cloner.
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=42847&highlight=Walmart+tube+cloner
Who ever wrote the tube cloner thread is a genius. It also works great for seeds. I always get my seeds either to wet or to dry. This automatically wicks water up to the seed. Works Great.

 

[Zealious]

just made a new cloner.. I was using dwc with net pots and rapid rooters. worked great. I also made inserts to block light using foam..

My newest unit was made to make things easier. i hate dealing with net pots and i fell in love with the rapid rooters. so i used a very shalow square tupperware. painted it black pitch black. cut out holes just a little bigger than the rapid rooters.. the orignal goal was to use straight water and the plugs were supposed to float... then a air bubbler for good measure.. well tehy floated but they would just slip under the lid. so now I use hydroton and water and air stones. by accident i realized this might work out amazingly. airbubles need surface area to get into so the hydrojton should really get my o2 level pretty high. anyway jsut want to share it with you ill get some pics tommorow

 

[Todd P]

Dude, you're doing better with naked stems than I ever did. Never once have I seen a single root nub. Then I started using rockwool along with a one minute soak in full strength Hormex. I haven't lost a clone since.

hey freezer boy i really like your cloner with the rockwool. i did the same thing but i used a wonderplug. anyway things are goin great i see roots after 5 days now for my question...how do you remove the newly rooted clone without damaging the roots?? it didnt dawn on me till i looked at al these roots...

 

[Marshmello]

Just bury the plug bro, it's all good.

 

[FreezerBoy]

hey freezer boy i really like your cloner with the rockwool. i did the same thing but i used a wonderplug. anyway things are goin great i see roots after 5 days now for my question...how do you remove the newly rooted clone without damaging the roots?? it didnt dawn on me till i looked at al these roots...

Hey Todd, lost track of this thread, my apologies.

I maintain the traditional 1" gap between water level and cubes. I remove the plugs by lifting the lid and pushing cuts down through the hole. Pulling up could easily damage roots while the leaves are able to endure much more abuse. Just another reason I like small cuts with trimmed leaves.

 

[Todd P]

Hey Todd, lost track of this thread, my apologies.

I maintain the traditional 1" gap between water level and cubes. I remove the plugs by lifting the lid and pushing cuts down through the hole. Pulling up could easily damage roots while the leaves are able to endure much more abuse. Just another reason I like small cuts with trimmed leaves.

wow thanks a million! my cloner is working great! thanks for you input!