Used and Abused. Well.... I did it again.

[TychoMonolyth]

Last year I had a few mothers that I ended up taking hundreds of clones. I did it again this year but with only one plant. I had a single Pink Lemonade seed and the plant came up quick in march when I wasn't really ready for it so I started taking clones. The plant would grow a few 6-7" branches and I'd cut them and stick them in 4" garden pots. I got about 30 clones out of this little bitch sitting in a half gallon pot.

This is how it looks when I take branches. I'll take these last 4 clones today and put her out before she dies of exhaustion. lol.

Last year I had 4 Blue Jag like this and was going to bin them but decided to put them in the ground anyway. Damn if they didn't turn out to be my best plants.

This momma has been thru hell and back so she's going to get the same treatment. She's being retired, put out to pasture, and I will feed and water her like the queen she is.

 

[St. Phatty]

I just put out a Romberry plant from last year, that I re-gened.

Cannabis being an annual plant does not entirely like life as a Perennial. (if I have the terms right).


I suspect it is related to hormones & other chemicals left over from flowering.

I wonder how best to purge them.

Maybe I should prune the rat's nest at the bottom of my plant, once the new branches are well established.

 

[Great outdoors]

I just put out a Romberry plant from last year, that I re-gened.

Cannabis being an annual plant does not entirely like life as a Perennial. (if I have the terms right).


I suspect it is related to hormones & other chemicals left over from flowering.

I wonder how best to purge them.

Maybe I should prune the rat's nest at the bottom of my plant, once the new branches are well established.

For sure plants that have reverted from flowering to veg need to be pruned ruthlessly.

 

[aridbud]

I just put out a Romberry plant from last year, that I re-gened.

Cannabis being an annual plant does not entirely like life as a Perennial. (if I have the terms right).


I suspect it is related to hormones & other chemicals left over from flowering.

I wonder how best to purge them.

Maybe I should prune the rat's nest at the bottom of my plant, once the new branches are well established.

True. Cuttings yes, regeneration, typically.... no. Spindly, uncharacteristic for plant in original form.

 

[Sunshineinabag]

We call em hard canopy reduction

 

[Swamp Thang]

I've got a couple of indoor plants that I've taken numerous clones off, but they all died since this is my first cloning attempt. Tried peat pucks, water, and plain soil with and without humidity domes, yet the clones still all died. The mother is still alive under an 18/4 light cycle, so now I'm putting together a bubble cloner that will have the clones in styrofoam plugs inserted into a floating plastic cover in a rectangular keg cut open lengthwise.

The cover holding the styrofoam plugs is given buoyancy by hot-gluing styrofoam blocks to its underside so that even when the power goes off the roots will still be in the water, no matter how low the water level drops. I am really determined to find a cloning method that works for me, and this bubble cloner now only needs a pair of air pumps inbound on mail order. I'll have the pumps running on timers in relay, for an hour each around the clock, with yet more clones from the same mothers if they survive the carnage ha ha.


Noticed a few dead leaves in the lower canopy like in the picture above, but I guess that is normal for indoor plants, even with a fan blowing.

 

[Great outdoors]

I've got a couple of indoor plants that I've taken numerous clones off, but they all died since this is my first cloning attempt. Tried peat pucks, water, and plain soil with and without humidity domes, yet the clones still all died. The mother is still alive under an 18/4 light cycle, so now I'm putting together a bubble cloner that will have the clones in styrofoam plugs inserted into a floating plastic cover in a rectangular keg cut open lengthwise.

The cover holding the styrofoam plugs is given buoyancy by hot-gluing styrofoam blocks to its underside so that even when the power goes off the roots will still be in the water, no matter how low the water level drops. I am really determined to find a cloning method that works for me, and this bubble cloner now only needs a pair of air pumps inbound on mail order. I'll have the pumps running on timers in relay, for an hour each around the clock, with yet more clones from the same mothers if they survive the carnage ha ha.


Noticed a few dead leaves in the lower canopy like in the picture above, but I guess that is normal for indoor plants, even with a fan blowing.

The most important thing to successful cloning is the health of your mother plants.
Super healthy and booming, they will root fast and easy no matter the method. Struggling plant, struggling clones.

 

[dirty-joe]

I've got a couple of indoor plants that I've taken numerous clones off, but they all died since this is my first cloning attempt. Tried peat pucks, water, and plain soil with and without humidity domes, yet the clones still all died. The mother is still alive under an 18/4 light cycle, so now I'm .

Swamp Thang,

Did you NOT bury a node ?
Did you leave the clones with the mother, under strong light ?

Those would be a couple of bad things, IMO anyway.
Otherwise cloning should be easy, and nearly 100% success.
I did it last year, outdoors, no special light, no cloning gel, no humidity dome, no rapid rooters, nothing special. Just stuck them in dirt, kept them in mostly shade, and misted them a few times, and had 100% success.
This is them at 25 days from cut, and keep in mind they didn't grow at all for at least 12 days.
I did it for the purpose of pollinating a branch without any chance of mucking up the whole mother.
for scale those are 5 inch square pots

 

[Swamp Thang]

Swamp Thang,

Did you NOT bury a node ?
Did you leave the clones with the mother, under strong light ?

Those would be a couple of bad things, IMO anyway.
Otherwise cloning should be easy, and nearly 100% success.
I did it last year, outdoors, no special light, no cloning gel, no humidity dome, no rapid rooters, nothing special. Just stuck them in dirt, kept them in mostly shade, and misted them a few times, and had 100% success.
This is them at 25 days from cut, and keep in mind they didn't grow at all for at least 12 days.
I did it for the purpose of pollinating a branch without any chance of mucking up the whole mother.
for scale those are 5 inch square pots

I do believe you might have solved this mystery Dirty Joe. Yes, I do leave the clones under the same 18/4 LED lights as the mothers, though they were generally positioned under the canopy of the mother to reduce the direct light. The failure rate was truly disheartening, hence my building an elaborate bubble cloner. On the positive side, I did always ensure that a trimmed node or two was present along the buried stems of the clones, so that is one practice I'll be sure and continue.

This advice is much appreciated. I was completely stumped by my 100% failure rate with all cloning attempts thus far, especially reading about the success others were seeing in this forum.

 

[gorilla ganja]

Subbed for the show TychoMonolyth, best of luck.

Swamp thang- make sure you have proper heat for clones as well. Proper heating of clones will root them fast. Without heat can take weeks if they root at all.

 

[Swamp Thang]

Subbed for the show TychoMonolyth, best of luck.

Swamp thang- make sure you have proper heat for clones as well. Proper heating of clones will root them fast. Without heat can take weeks if they root at all.

This pointer about using a heat mat is appreciated Gorilla Ganja. I must ask though whether I'd still need such supplemental heating out here in the tropics where nighttime rarely dip below 80 degrees F? The LED lights also put out a bit of heat as well, and while I'm more than ready to try a heat mat, I just thought I'd better check whether such heating might only be required in cooler climates. Any thoughts you can offer on this will be appreciated.

 

[gorilla ganja]

This pointer about using a heat mat is appreciated Gorilla Ganja. I must ask though whether I'd still need such supplemental heating out here in the tropics where nighttime rarely dip below 80 degrees F? The LED lights also put out a bit of heat as well, and while I'm more than ready to try a heat mat, I just thought I'd better check whether such heating might only be required in cooler climates. Any thoughts you can offer on this will be appreciated.

Forgot you are in the tropics. 70-78F/ 21-25C is the temp you want to aim for in the media. Worth checking. I'm sure the bubble cloner will work for you.
Best of luck

 

[Swamp Thang]

Roger that and much thanks. I'm just about ready to fire up the contraption.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

I've got a couple of indoor plants that I've taken numerous clones off, but they all died since this is my first cloning attempt. Tried peat pucks, water, and plain soil with and without humidity domes, yet the clones still all died. The mother is still alive under an 18/4 light cycle, so now I'm putting together a bubble cloner that will have the clones in styrofoam plugs inserted into a floating plastic cover in a rectangular keg cut open lengthwise.

The cover holding the styrofoam plugs is given buoyancy by hot-gluing styrofoam blocks to its underside so that even when the power goes off the roots will still be in the water, no matter how low the water level drops. I am really determined to find a cloning method that works for me, and this bubble cloner now only needs a pair of air pumps inbound on mail order. I'll have the pumps running on timers in relay, for an hour each around the clock, with yet more clones from the same mothers if they survive the carnage ha ha.


Noticed a few dead leaves in the lower canopy like in the picture above, but I guess that is normal for indoor plants, even with a fan blowing.

There are a few good threads on cloning in here. I've tried most and got tired of failing. One day I had a jiffy plug with nothing in it and a branch in my hand. So I poked a hole in the plug, cut the branch at the node, scraped the bottom of the branch with my scissors, dipped it in cloning powder and stuck it in the wet plug. I kept water in the tray the plug was in and wouldn't you know it, it kept the clone alive long enough for roots to make their way out and into it's first transplant. I've been doing it like that ever since.

Point is, find a way that works for you. I keep my mothers in a 1 gallon pot and rarely clean them up. The bottom leaves die because the pot is mostly roots at this point. The only way to keep them picture ready is to water and feed every day, so they cannibalize the bottom leaves for nutrients. Their work horses, not show cars. lol


The last clones I did I just stuck in 4" pots directly (with cheap cloning powder) and kept them in a tray with water. Worked. I think the trick for me is to keep the medium wet for a couple weeks then slowly back off on the water to let the roots stretch for their drink. They're goin the in ground next weekend.

 

[Swamp Thang]

There are a few good threads on cloning in here. I've tried most and got tired of failing. One day I had a jiffy plug with nothing in it and a branch in my hand. So I poked a hole in the plug, cut the branch at the node, scraped the bottom of the branch with my scissors, dipped it in cloning powder and stuck it in the wet plug. I kept water in the tray the plug was in and wouldn't you know it, it kept the clone alive long enough for roots to make their way out and into it's first transplant. I've been doing it like that ever since.

Point is, find a way that works for you. I keep my mothers in a 1 gallon pot and rarely clean them up. The bottom leaves die because the pot is mostly roots at this point. The only way to keep them picture ready is to water and feed every day, so they cannibalize the bottom leaves for nutrients. Their work horses, not show cars. lol


The last clones I did I just stuck in 4" pots directly (with cheap cloning powder) and kept them in a tray with water. Worked. I think the trick for me is to keep the medium wet for a couple weeks then slowly back off on the water to let the roots stretch for their drink. They're goin the in ground next weekend.

Good to know that a few dead leaves on the lower branches of a mother plant aren't unusual. My bubble cloner is ready for its first run, and in keeping with my fondness for complicated solutions to simple problems, I've got two air pumps running on separate timers where each operates for one hour, and then shuts down while the second pump runs for the next hour, around the clock without break, whereby each pump gets one hour's rest every hour, to prevent overheating. Multiple air stones hooked up to both pumps through a manifold with adjustable valves ought to ensure that the water is highly aerated.

Having read differing opinions regarding whether or not the stems of the clones ought to be above, or below the water level, I wound up with a plastic tray made buoyant with styrofoam blocks hot glued to its underside, which allows just the ends of the cut clone stems to touch the water, even as the water level drops. Power outages are frequent here, so I decided not to have the stems completely out of the water where they could dry up if the bubbles ceased during a power outage. I plan on replacing the water every 5 days, per conventional wisdom.

I wish I could have seen the kind of success you've had with Jiffy plugs, but truth be told, I do like tinkering and trying to reinvent the wheel ha ha.

 

[Swamp Thang]

I do understand that this is technically the outdoor grow thread and not the propagation thread, but I feel compelled to share my delight over the results on day one of my first ever bubble cloner. Fired it up with dual air pumps running in relay for one hour each around the clock without interruption, and put in ten clones which were drooping in various sad poses at the start. Checked them this morning and every single clone was perked up and looking strong, to my relief. This is a VERY good start to my first ever cloning attempt with a bubble cloner setup, and I am stoked to see that not one single clone is showing the slightest sign of weakness thus far.

I'll change out the water in a few days, and then await that magical root development, which will hopefully take place over a couple of weeks. My concluding remark at this early stage is therefore as follows : Yeeeeeeehaaaw !

 

[dirty-joe]

I do understand that this is technically the outdoor grow thread and not the propagation thread, but I feel compelled to share

Another week has gone by, I'm wondering how things are going Swamp Thang ?
Like last year I took a few bottom branches today (june 12) for seed making purposes, and I might keep one as a "bonsai" mother plant over the winter ? And like last year I expect 100% success. This all being done outdoors, no humidity dome, etc. I'll update this with another pic in about 12 days.

 

[Swamp Thang]

Hey Joe, where ya goin' with that bong in your hand? I got good reason to be feeling musical today, because I took a peek at the water-side of my floating bubble cloner tray this afternoon, and there before my disbelieving eyes were a few wispy roots, still too underdeveloped to transplant, but a good start. Two weeks and counting today since the cuttings were stuck in the bubbler. Lost a couple of clone cuttings that got replaced a few days ago so they'll probably take a week or so longer to show roots than the rest.

Waited a bit too long to change the water, and soon as I changed it, I noticed the water surface didn't foam anymore, as the air pumps started producing larger single bubbles instead. Looks like the conventional wisdom of five-day intervals is about right for changing the water.

Amazing to see you can make clones just by placing cuttings in soil outdoors. Those plants look very healthy and ready to grow into trees.

 

[dirty-joe]

Hey Joe,
Amazing to see you can make clones just by placing cuttings in soil outdoors. Those plants look very healthy and ready to grow into trees.

An update as I promised. I did not get 100% this time, should not have been so cocky...anyway the failure was all my fault...too much sun too often. They were severely wilted many times. (I have started a couple more.)
But hey, the strong survive, and at 13 and a half days 66% (4 out of 6) have survived.
The real beauty of this method, in my opinion is, it's a one-step process...done (OK, sure I need 1 more transplant, done properly, a non-issue)

 

[TychoMonolyth]

I tried putting cuttings directly into the pot and soil I usually transplant into. God damn... It worked!

I have a couple more cuttings I'm going to do like you and put them right in the ground. I'm going to my guerilla site and will do them on site. Lol