Cloning nutrients

Hey Hydro team,

I have been having some serious trouble cloning recently, and it has led me to experiment with a few different cloners. I use rockwool by default, but recently built an areoponic cloner (H2O2, no nutes) with 1/30 success rate. My rockwool cloning is not much better, I attempt to follow ALBFUC method (no nutes H2O2), I can get 50% to survive 2 weeks, with no roots showing, out of desperation I place them in hydrogton in a flood table (~1 EC) and then they start growing roots.

My observation here is: clones only start growing roots when there are nutrients present? I have left cloners in the cloner for upto a month with no roots, only to put them in the flood table and they start changing and growing. I have setup a cloner with a flood and drain type system and will try feeding them from the start to see how that goes.

Does anyone have experience with a similar situation? Do nutes help cloning?

Also I have no clue how some people clone in 7 days :/ Has anyone gone from struggling to getting grade A results?

P.S.
I use clonex, scalpel, H2O2, sterile, soak 5.5 one day, the whole 9 yards. Heat mat (temps ~25c), 24/0 lighting, first day in dark, slowly open vents.

Bruh. You need literally NOTHING to clone but 0ppm Reverse Osmosis water spraying 15mins ON/15mins OFF with the use of a humidity dome to cover them all.
That's it...
H2o2 I would think might make things more difficult.
But do this for me:

Take a pic of the donor mother plant the cuttings are coming from. Also, a few shots of its leaves if ANY of them aren't PERFECTLY healthy, take a pic of it.

P.s., others will disagree but I find it super important to go from cutting a longer than needed branch, cleaning it up, then making the final cut at even more than a 45° angle and INSTANTLY, like as Fast As You CAN, tossing that fresh cut under water for a good 10mins at least. This way it's not going to suck up any air and create an air embolism.
Also NO pHIng is needed in the 0ppm RO water at all! Those pH ups and downs are acidic as fuck and horrible for rooting.

But above all, nothing is more critical than the health and vigor of the donor mother plant. I had never once had issues with cloning for years then once I had Thrips and didn't realize it. Went through 4 batches of failed cloning & weeks and weeks wasted. Sprayed moms with Monterey Gardens Spinosad and once they came out of it, boom, zero issues.
Before spraying, the clone stems would just turn to mush after a few days in their cloning collars.

I use dyna-gro KLN and Pro-Tekt in mine with some tap water.
Air is right, you dont really need anything but water and a healthy mother.
Ive compared with and without and with the DG additives they root much faster and are more explosive when they do start.
I lose one now and then but i pretty much have 100% success. Ive taken cuts from all over the plant and it doesnt seem to matter much.
Thick, hollow stems tend to be more difficult in my experience.

fragileassassin said:

I use dyna-gro KLN and Pro-Tekt in mine with some tap water.
Air is right, you dont really need anything but water and a healthy mother.
Ive compared with and without and with the DG additives they root much faster and are more explosive when they do start.
I lose one now and then but i pretty much have 100% success. Ive taken cuts from all over the plant and it doesnt seem to matter much.
Thick, hollow stems tend to be more difficult in my experience.

Click to expand...

Check the conversation were having with homeboy, please.

You use DynaGrow AND Pro-Tekt in your Aero cloner?!?!? I didn't know that Shit man....

Airwalker16 said:

You use DynaGrow AND Pro-Tekt in your Aero cloner?!?!? I didn't know that Shit man....

Click to expand...

Have from pretty much the start. I talk about it a lot, pretty much any time i comment on something like this, and I have pics in my post of it several times.
I have no missed convo notifications

fragileassassin said:

Have from pretty much the start. I talk about it a lot, pretty much any time i comment on something like this, and I have pics in my post of it several times.
I have no missed convo notifications

Click to expand...

I @'d you in the Convo. Read the one you and I are in.

Thanks for replys. I have attached some photos I don't have "perfect" veg growth, I have just started playing with hydrobuddy to get a good nutrient profile, but haven't implemented anything new yet. Currently have a few purple streaks on stems, maybe a bit light on N too, but it's not too far off imho. I do spray with "maverick" every 2 weeks, keeps most things at Bay. Can get more pics if needed.

Its the difference in environment that's making them root not the nutes. That's just coincidence

coreywebster said:

Its the difference in environment that's making them root not the nutes. That's just coincidence

Click to expand...

I have to agree with this, as I've been using an aero cloner for 3/4 of a decade and I've never added anything to the water. I don't even pH it.

spek9 said:

I have to agree with this, as I've been using an aero cloner for 3/4 of a decade and I've never added anything to the water. I don't even pH it.

Click to expand...

Same here, which ever method ive never adjusted ph or added nutrients.
I can understand guys that do just to give them some food when the first few roots do pop.
But never needed to, always tend to judge if theres roots from watching the plant cannibalise a bit so im not visually looking for roots.

Yeah I dont ph mine either, I know my mixture comes out right below 6 though.
KLN is a rooting hormone and Pro-tekt is Silica. No real nutrients here either.
If I want them to grow faster before transplant, ill add a bit once roots are fairly well established.

coreywebster said:

Its the difference in environment that's making them root not the nutes. That's just coincidence

Click to expand...

Interesting theory, thanks for the input. The veg tent with the flood and drain table has a much stronger light (I am using 15W LED 10 cm from clones, to a 400W LED @ 50cm for veg), and more air movement, temps are ~23C in the veg tent with RH around 50%.

Maybe my clone light is too weak? I do have some 125W CFL I could swap in for the LED.

One thing I notice is the stems turn purple and some of the clipped fan leaves discolor as roots develop. Is this a common behaviour?

spek9 said:

I have to agree with this, as I've been using an aero cloner for 3/4 of a decade and I've never added anything to the water. I don't even pH it.

Click to expand...

coreywebster said:

Same here, which ever method ive never adjusted ph or added nutrients.
I can understand guys that do just to give them some food when the first few roots do pop.
But never needed to, always tend to judge if theres roots from watching the plant cannibalise a bit so im not visually looking for roots.

Click to expand...

fragileassassin said:

Yeah I dont ph mine either, I know my mixture comes out right below 6 though.
KLN is a rooting hormone and Pro-tekt is Silica. No real nutrients here either.
If I want them to grow faster before transplant, ill add a bit once roots are fairly well established.

Click to expand...

This was my understanding too. I used plain water, only 1 out of 12 showed roots after 3 weeks.

I am struggling to make a connection between the change in environment and the roots starting to show in veg tent.

My leading theories are

1. Health of mother
a. Pests (I don't have anything I can see, I will start spraying as a preventive for a while).
b. Nutrients, I know I don't have optimal nutes, but I do have good healthy green growth, I am not sure if nutes being slightly off would cause clones to stunt to this extent.

2. Cloning conditions
a. Rockwool too wet / dry. Trying to fix this with a flood and drain cloner.
b. Too soft lighting, 15W led @ 10cm, is this enough?
c. Lack of nutes in cloning. I am experimenting taking clones in nutrients at the moment.

Thanks for responses so far! Every perspective helps.

Airwalker16 said:

P.s., others will disagree but I find it super important to go from cutting a longer than needed branch, cleaning it up, then making the final cut at even more than a 45° angle and INSTANTLY, like as Fast As You CAN, tossing that fresh cut under water for a good 10mins at least. This way it's not going to suck up any air and create an air embolism.
Also NO pHIng is needed in the 0ppm RO water at all! Those pH ups and downs are acidic as fuck and horrible for rooting.

Click to expand...

I don't soak when I go to rockwool, I drip in gel and go straight to medium. I will start doing this, I can't see it hurting at all.

petedavid said:

Interesting theory, thanks for the input. The veg tent with the flood and drain table has a much stronger light (I am using 15W LED 10 cm from clones, to a 400W LED @ 50cm for veg), and more air movement, temps are ~23C in the veg tent with RH around 50%.

Maybe my clone light is too weak? I do have some 125W CFL I could swap in for the LED.

One thing I notice is the stems turn purple and some of the clipped fan leaves discolor as roots develop. Is this a common behaviour?

Click to expand...

Clones don't need much light at all. I'll explain with a couple of pictures I just went and took.

In this first picture, you can see the light (it's only a 23W CFL. I must have swapped out the 43W) is hanging almost parallel with the top of my cloner on the right. The clones barely get any direct light at all. Preventing a whole bunch of light helps reduce the plants trying to grow out leaves, so they focus on roots. This also limits the discolouring and dying of the leaves, because when the green half of the plant doesn't grow, there's no need for the plant to be slurping the nutrients from within the leaves.

On the left side, I currently have some basil seeds, but usually that's where I put all of the rooted clones for a week after I pot them.



Here's more of an overview photo. The clones at the back are 10 days old, and I have three clippings I just put in there today at the front. Zero leaf discolouration whatsoever.




My reservoir temperature is 78F (maintained with a 50W fish tank heater on a cycle timer three minutes on, 20 off). The ambient air temperature I always keep lower than res temp (~68F).

Airwalker16 said:

But above all, nothing is more critical than the health and vigor of the donor mother plant. I had never once had issues with cloning for years then once I had Thrips and didn't realize it. Went through 4 batches of failed cloning & weeks and weeks wasted. Sprayed moms with Monterey Gardens Spinosad and once they came out of it, boom, zero issues.
Before spraying, the clone stems would just turn to mush after a few days in their cloning collars.

Click to expand...

I am not sure about infestation, I have not sprayed for a while so will begin a preventative mesaure till I can clone again. I used a combination of l Tau-fluvalinate based insecticide and Neem oil. I have not heard of Sponosad, do you think it is worth looking into?

spek9 said:

Clones don't need much light at all. I'll explain with a couple of pictures I just went and took.

In this first picture, you can see the light (it's only a 23W CFL. I must have swapped out the 43W) is hanging almost parallel with the top of my cloner on the right. The clones barely get any direct light at all. Preventing a whole bunch of light helps reduce the plants trying to grow out leaves, so they focus on roots. This also limits the discolouring and dying of the leaves, because when the green half of the plant doesn't grow, there's no need for the plant to be slurping the nutrients from within the leaves.

On the left side, I currently have some basil seeds, but usually that's where I put all of the rooted clones for a week after I pot them.

View attachment 4601187

Here's more of an overview photo. The clones at the back are 10 days old, and I have three clippings I just put in there today at the front. Zero leaf discolouration whatsoever.


View attachment 4601194

My reservoir temperature is 78F (maintained with a 50W fish tank heater on a cycle timer three minutes on, 20 off). The ambient air temperature I always keep lower than res temp (~68F).

Click to expand...

Thanks for info, well the lack of light is not the problem then. Mine get basically the same light levels. What is with the clear plastic barrier around the side of the cloner?