Clones Not Working Out

So I am not new to growing at all but new to cloning. usually since I grow outside I make my own seeds for next season and thats what I have been doing for the past 15 or so years.

So I tried to do some cloneing since I am growing indoors now and I took some cutting dipped them in the rooting hormone I got from lowes and stuck them into some moist soil and put them about 14" away from a single 24or26 watt CFL. I mist them with some water between 4-8 times a day. It has been 6 days and I pulled one out of the soil and NOTHING was growing not even a tiny root... nothing. The leaves are nice and dark green everything looks healthy they are not wilting or anything so what seems to be going on with them? Does it just take more time than this to root or what?

I just look at pictures online and they show after two weeks a nice big rootball coming out of those rockwool cubes.

my buddy was really good at getting clones going but he dipped it and held it for about 15 seconds in the rooting hormone but then he would dip it in a powder and then into moist soil i cant remember what it was but ill talk to him a let you know whats up. In my journal you can see my GC clones, i got those from him and they are healthy little buggers, only started with 3-5 leaves, now look at it.

Pulling the cutting out of the soil is a bad idea. I clone the same waay you are basically but under a tiny regular flouro tube using peat moss pellets. I don't try very hard to do a good job because I have way too many cuttings but I get about a 50% ratio which is more than I need. Takes me like 10-15 days to see roots coming out of the pellets ("Jiffy Cubes").

Rooting in soil definitely takes more than a week... if you have cuttings in a bubble cloner, a week is good time.

Try giving them about two weeks to root, and don't pull the plant up or disturb what might be going on in the soil. As long as the cutting is still green and perky then all is well.

rucca- You said it takes you 10-15 days to see roots coming out of the jiffy cubes, well this is my point. I am at day 7 and there is NOTHING growing from the plant at all it likes the same as when I stuck it in the ground. I just can not see what I am doing wrong.

I have similar issues with cloning, I've looked at several guides and tried them all verbatim with success rates at only ~50% and it takes at least two, up to four weeks for the ones that do root.

I use AN Juicy roots, take 45 degree cuts and scrape a little off the first 1/2 inch of the stalk and apply some rooting hormone directly onto it. I let it sit for a second - meanwhile, cutting the end off of each leaf tip - and place it firmly (but not too firm) into rapid rooter plugs. The plugs go into a humidity dome with ~60w of CFL lighting and a heat pad and sit.

Most plants go a week or so without losing color or shape, then the ones that are taking swell at the base a little and will lose color until 1/2 the leaves are yellowing etc (if you open one up around this time you will see the the part that was scraped is now swollen and bumpy) I just keep letting them sit and sit, sit, sit... so slow!

Get a humidity dome. Its also going to take a while to see progress cloning the way your doing it...most likely 2 weeks.

If you want to spend money and dont have lots of clones get this http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=191589&catid=98986&aid=338666&aparam=191589

Thats what I have and I love it.
I cut the clipping; re-cut it under water; dip it in the rooting hormone; then stick into the device. After about 10 days I have some roots showing.


I hope that helps! Good luck!


Taking that clone out of the soil most likely messed up anything that was going on.

Growit&Smokeit said:

rucca- You said it takes you 10-15 days to see roots coming out of the jiffy cubes, well this is my point. I am at day 7 and there is NOTHING growing from the plant at all it likes the same as when I stuck it in the ground. I just can not see what I am doing wrong.

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Well I said it takes 10 days minimum to see roots... you are at day 7. Under the best circumstances cloning in soil possible, I would still not expect to see roots at day 7. When you pull the plant out, you should basically just restart your timer too. You likely damaged any roots that were forming. If it is still green and healthy looking up top you may want to recut it and try again.

A humidity dome will speed this process up. Also, misting as much as you are can rot your clones. I feel like also, if they are constantly wet, they feel less pressure to develop roots and search for water. I mist 2 times a day and don't saturate my clones medium

7 days is not enough time. I dont spray my clones because it slows them down. If you keep misting them they develope roots slower. I use a heatmat set at 88f no dome, no mist. Just water twice a day(5 ml per clone) right at the base and i get roots and growth at about 12 days. I'm not saying the other ways dont work, its just the way i do it because its easy and i have not lost a clone in months and i clone every week.Clone box temps should be between 78f and 82f with 40%-60% humidity. good luck

Heres some more pics.First one is a pic of clones that i rooted for 21days and stuck right into 12/12. This method works in dirt and rockwool. good luck

ClosetJungle said:

Get a humidity dome. Its also going to take a while to see progress cloning the way your doing it...most likely 2 weeks.

If you want to spend money and dont have lots of clones get this http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=191589&catid=98986&aid=338666&aparam=191589

Thats what I have and I love it.
I cut the clipping; re-cut it under water; dip it in the rooting hormone; then stick into the device. After about 10 days I have some roots showing.


I hope that helps! Good luck!


Taking that clone out of the soil most likely messed up anything that was going on.

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Do you use any of the nutrient solution with that thing or just water to root your clones?

It all depends on strain.... I have a few different ones going and some of my clones root within 24 hrs of putting them into my bubble cloner, some strains take 10 days just to show the start of root growth in the same damn cloner!

patience.... if u have no dome, then mist..... if you have a dome, then dont mist...



Also, a cutting without roots cannot take in nutrients, only water.... adding nutrients will only slow the process down.... if you want to give your cutting nutrients while it is trying to root, then foliar feed.

Im also waiting for my first roots on my very first 2 clones that I take from a mother plant... Ill update my news when it comes

Reposted one of my old posts on what I do for cloning:

Just cloned last night. Many people have their own cloning techniques, but here is what I do and get a 2-5% failure rate. (usually 1 or 2 out of 40 clones will die)

Materials:
Healthy mother plant
Clean Razorblade
Bowl of Water (RO)
Small bowl of Clonex Gel
Large bowl of 50ppm Nutes:
--Aqua Flakes A + B
--Roots Exelerator
--Algen Extract
--Drip Clean
Bag of Rapid Rooters


1. Put the rapid rooters into the 50 ppm nutrient bowl
2. Put the wet rapid rooters into your little clone holder tray
3. Make cuttings
4. Dip the cut immediately into water. (I swish it around a little bit.. more of an Obsessive Compulsive thing than anything else)
5. Dip in Clonex Gel
6. Firmly place the cutting into the rapid rooter (firm contact with the medium and the cut)
7. Cut the fan leaves basically in half (reduces water loss due to evap)
8. Spray RO water all over the cuttings in the tray
9. Spray the inside of the dome
10. Put the dome on the tray
11. Once a day at 7pm-ish I spray the plants, spray the inside of the dome, and put it back on
12. In 6-7 days I pull the dome off and put them in rockwool cubes that were soaked in 150ppm solution. You should have tons of roots at this point coming out of your rapid rooter.
13. Don't water your rockwool for 2-3 days
14. Use 350ppm nute solution for the first week of rockwool, then jump it up to 400-500ppm for another 2 weeks
15. Flip your plants (12/12)

For Rockwool cube size, technically you could flower in a six-inch rockwool cube, but I prefer to transplant them into 3x3's for 3 weeks before I put the plant into Hydroton in a 3-gallon bucket.

Everywhere I read it says that to mist them with water since this will slow down the plants transpire or transpiration or something like that, but it says misting them is good to do.

Sixstring can you explain why misting them slows the rooting process down? I can see you know what you are doing I want my clones roots to look like your first picture.

Also I know pulling them out of the soil is a bad bad idea but I wanted to see if anything was happening and now that you say it I did see some white bumpy stuff around the stem where I scrapped it, I am guessing this is the roots starting to develop?

Thanks For all The Help,

Yes, those little bumpy things are the roots starting to form.

Growit&Smokeit said:

Everywhere I read it says that to mist them with water since this will slow down the plants transpire or transpiration or something like that, but it says misting them is good to do.

Sixstring can you explain why misting them slows the rooting process down? I can see you know what you are doing I want my clones roots to look like your first picture.

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This method is not my idea,but my old boss believed that by only watering at the base of the cut or stem the plant would push new roots there quickly or die, and that if you take a good stem or branch for your clone the stem would have enough nutes to push new roots.If you do this in a room with say 20% humidity, more than likely a pot plant or most plants would dry out too much and die.So if you want to try this you need 40% or better.I use 50-60% because that is where my room stays and i have not lost a clone in months. There is a great thread in the hydro sec, by Al B Fuct under how to clone in rockwool and his method is very similar and works just as well in dirt.That thread goes into great detail on cloning and mother plants and IMO a must read for cloning. good luck

Got some GREAT news. As said before I pulled one out of the dirt but when I do this I know it is very damaging to the plant so I use a screw or nail to carefully dig away from the root away and slowly work it out of the dirt when I did this I saw all three I pulled up had roots about 1.5 inches long and just 3 days ago they had nothing. I did not think they would grow that fast but they did. So this mean's I can slowly start increasing the light. I am going to put another 20 something watts every two days on them until they are up to around 150watt this is actual wattage not the equivalent.

I also noticed that the others have a swollen base right where the cutting meets the dirt so I asume that they will all take, not bad 100% of the clones took for my first time cloning.

Thanks for everyones help here.

It just takes time... My first few clones took a few weeks to even start rooting. Also my set up in the beginning was crap. I think to help quicken the rooting process, it helped to have a good heating pad and humidity dome. And time... here's my recent additions to the family

I think that is the smallest clone I have ever seen. Is that flowering, I can see the white hairs on top... My clones are about 10-14 inches tall and have a few sets of leaves the size of your palm. Maybe mine are too big I do not know.