Rockwool - Seedlings and cuttings - Need advice pls.

[Jedi]

OK guys and girls.

Its too hot to work with my earo cloner and i finally gave up on coco for cuttings and seeds.
Giving RW a go !!!!!

Got hold of a few starter rockwool plugs . and i,m about to plant germinated seeds and a few cuttings.

Regarding water and feeding for first two weeks.
I,m using ordinary hydro nutes.

how do you peeps go about EC and PH for seeds and cuttings. ???

(EDIT .... MY RESULTS !!!!) after 3 days in RW.

OK . hard facts with peeectures !

in the left hand corner...Mr No-Nute / straight tap water(we got good water btw)

on the right, soaked in nute 0.2ec/ph +- 6.0 ..

Excess water "shaken -out / spun out"
Temp +- 82 F / 30.c
Humidity dome .yes !!

 

[hippydan]

Seedlings don't need nutes until the cotyledons die, and as far as I know, cuttings can handle 1/4 to 1/2 strength nutes, however someone may want to back me up on that. Some people say to soak the rockwool cubes in pH adjusted water, some say they have fine results using their tap water. Your results may vary. Don't let the rockwool cubes stay super wet, just being damp or a little moist is fine. You don't want to induce rot.

edit: I forgot to mention that fresh cuttings that have no root system cannot make any use of nutrients, so there isn't really any need of using your nutes. Rooting gels/etc would be more than enough.

 

[Suspect]

just water to start with, no PH&EC adjustments. Ijust keep the RW cubes moist and it mustn't be dripping wet when you lift it.

 

[Jedi]

Cool fellas ! Thanks for the quick replies
I,m just paranoid when it gets to baby seedlings ..

I also feel like starting them in straight tap water , but
when i experimented with coco the seedlings in 0.2 ec/6.0 ph(rinsed) started better than the plain tap water.

Just like to get a few more second opinions before i proceed !!!

 

[hippydan]

Just like to get a few more second opinions before i proceed !!!

Of course, that's what makes this site and it's community so great! Best of luck to you, bro! Stay safe!

 

[Jedi]

Of course, that's what makes this site and it's community so great! Best of luck to you, bro! Stay safe!

perhaps i,ll do a little side by side experiment !


3 seeds(plain)
3 seeds(nute / ph charge)
3 seeds (soil)
and
3 cuttings (plain)
3 cuttings (nute / ph charge)
3 cuttings (soil)

i,ll get the set up ogether

 

[Saran]

Staight From The Source - LINK

 

[Jedi]

Staight From The Source - LINK

You made my day.!

Sent from above !

 

[FistedSister]

100% distilled tap water...less things to screw up. so ive got plywood floor, seedling heat mat, plastic tray, clay pebbles and cubes with tap. works like a charm !! moist not wet, damp not dry...

keep it fresh jedi

 

[Sgt.Stedenko]

Fisted,
Do you use distilled or tap?
Nice results on that floweing clone.

 

[CannabisDog]

I would soak your cubes in 5.0 PH'd water first. They have a high PH that needs to be brought down some before using. Better safe then taking chances. When I do my soak I add in a drop of Superthrive B1 and a drop of Hydrogen peroxide to keep fungus at bay. Works very well for me.

 

[stinky33]

Fisted, did you root some of those from flowering mothers? How long you now have to veg before going back into flower?

nice root porn on those infants.

 

[Deft]

Rockwool always ends up rotting my roots. So does coco.

Best think I have found for seeds and clones is peat pucks or straight good soil.

 

[libby]

Deft, rockwool and coco will rot roots if too wet.

I find pucks as you call them ,better.

 

[t33to]

OK guys and girls.

Its too hot to work with my earo cloner and i finally gave up on coco for cuttings and seeds.
Giving RW a go !!!!!

Got hold of a few starter rockwool plugs . and i,m about to plant germinated seeds and a few cuttings.

Regarding water and feeding for first two weeks.
I,m using ordinary hydro nutes.

how do you peeps go about EC and PH for seeds and cuttings. ???

RW is pro dude.

Here is what my crew does (for clones that is, seedlings don't need nutes).

Get a bucket or any other container big enough to hold all of your RW cubes. Record how many gallons of water are in it, and use the GH 3-2-1 formula.

It should come out somewhere near 350ppm and that's where you want it.

Add in your favourite Rooting Hormone. I use Roots - Gel with the fungicide, a few capfuls always be sure to premix it in warm water to prevent it from "globbing".

Stir really well, be sure there is no globs of root gel/powder.

PH to 5.5.

Put all of your cubes in there, with the paper on still. You will notice the PH will rise. Keep PH'n to 5.5 until it settles, this can take a little bit of time depending on how many cubes you have.

Now here is the trick we have found. Before you place your cuttings into the cube, squeeze out about 25% of the water. You don't want the cube to be super wet. You want to encourage the cutting to seek out water. We found this simple step increases the success rate to about 100%

Then place your cuttings in the cubes.

Place the cubes in a humidity dome and 7-10 days later you should roots poking out of the bottom of the cubes. 21 days later and they should have fatty root systems begging to be dunked in dirt or other medium.

Be sure to keep them nice and warm, lots of light, at least 18/6, 24/0 works too. I hope that helps.

 

[hippydan]

Wow, great info. I hope I can get good success starting from seed in RW. I don't feel like I have many options as I want to move straight into DWC with 5" netpots in hydroton. Starting in rockwool seems like my best bet.

A summary of the video for starting from seed: Using the pugs or 1.5x1.5" cubes, soak in 5.5pH water for a minute or two, take all cubes out and place in your tray. Use a pen or similar object to poke holes (probably 1/4" deep), place a seed in each hole, gently cover the hole with a bit of rockwool taken from the side of the cube or from a fresh one. They say not to squeeze excess water out of the cubes as squeezing them removes the mini air pockets in the rockwool cubes, but I think I'll take t33to's advice and squeeze out a bit, maybe up to ~25%. They also use humidity domes, but I think that was mostly for cuttings/clones. Try to keep temps between 75-85.

I'm still worried the cubes will be a little too wet, but it can't be any worse than sitting between two pieces of soaked paper towel. My seeds should hopefully arrive next week. When they do, I'll try it out and post my results. Thanks for sharing the info guys, makes me feel a little better. I just want to give each seed the best chances for survival! Stay safe!

 

[Jedi]

Hey t33to , cool for spreading the info.

Regarding draining some water from the rockwool before planting.
I soaked my cubes and 'shake' the excess water out of the cube.

Will post pics of the experiment in a day or two

 

[hippydan]

Will post pics of the experiment in a day or two

Really looking forward to this, thank you for doing this for all of us here at IC!

 

[Suspect]

I would like to add that I usually poke a little hole in RW with a pencil, not too deep, and put some vermiculite in the hole. Then I put the seed there and cover it with fine grinded vermiculite or fine sand, layer thickness is same as seed diameter. spray it wet and start waiting

 

[Jedi]

Really looking forward to this, thank you for doing this for all of us here at IC!

they breaked surface today.
Soaking in 0.2 ec / ph 5.8 are doing better than straight tap water. !!!