Cloning with willow water?

I've been growing outside in mi over 30 years and cloning about 6 years I have tried the jiffy pods with clonex gel and rooting powders treys all the shit that for cloning that cost to much money. Now I use a clone king 36 site fill it with my city tap water let sit over night then I put 2 to 3 cutting in each collar put a 40w bulb over them 24 7 plug pump in 24 7 I spray them cpk times a day with spray bottle then in 3 weeks I get about 95 percent of cuts about 80 clones with good roots not bumps ready for cups.I'm thinking of trying willow water in my cloner this yr has anyone used willow water in a clone machine?or used a clone king and got this many clones in 7 to 10 days cause I can't figure out any easier cheaper way.

Never used it, but it's supossed to work well, hormones for rooting and salicylic acid for bacteria control. If you have access to willows you can make it yourself, from what I've read, any willow species will do.

Maybe try not spraying them .
You dint normally need to in a cloner.
And get your temps right and you should cut that root time in half

I used willow last year for Tomato clones.. It worked well..

Fishing for more experiences on using willow water.

Had a bit trouble of cloning this one strain and
haven't really wanted to pick up any commercial rooting product.

Well came across the willow water and went down 20meters from the yard to pick some up
and prepped it using both the boiling water method and cold water.
(winter time here which is suboptimal, but should have some effect still)
I'll be having few small trials in the coming months myself.

Few interesting parts with my queries for chatgpt on the topic:

Estimated Differences in Hormone Levels

1. During the Active Growing Season (Spring/Summer):
   • Hormone levels are at their peak, especially in young, fast-growing branches.
   • Small branches may contain 100% of their typical IBA and SA potential.
2. Autumn (Before Full Dormancy):
   • Levels start to decline as the tree prepares for winter.
   • Hormones are redirected to the roots, and leaf drop begins.
   • Small branches might contain 60–80% of their peak IBA and SA levels.
3. Winter (Dormant Period):
   • Hormone levels in stems are at their lowest, but younger branches still retain some reserves.
   • Smaller, fresher branches (e.g., twigs) might contain 30–50% of peak levels.
4. Early Spring (Before Bud Break):
   • Hormone levels begin to rise again in preparation for new growth.
   • Branches may regain 70–90% of their peak levels before leaf-out.

How to Compensate for Lower Winter Hormone Levels
If harvesting willow branches in winter, you can adjust your methods to extract the maximum available rooting compounds:

1. Use More Willow Material:
   • Increase the number of branches or twigs used to prepare the willow water.
2. Extend the Extraction Time:
   • For cold water extraction, soak the branches for 3–4 days instead of 2.
   • For hot water extraction, let the mixture steep for up to 48 hours before straining.
3. Focus on Younger Growth:
   • Select thin, flexible twigs with green or yellowish bark.
   • Avoid older, woody branches, as they contain significantly lower hormone levels.

For long-term storage, pour the willow water into ice cube trays or freezer-safe containers and freeze. This preserves hormones for several months.


How Willow Water Speeds Up Rooting

1. Indole-3-Butyric Acid (IBA):
   • Stimulates cell division and elongation in the basal part of cuttings, which accelerates root initiation.
   • For already healthy clones, this can shave off a few days by encouraging faster formation of root primordia.
2. Salicylic Acid (SA):
   • Reduces stress on the cuttings and boosts their natural defenses, allowing the plant to allocate more energy to root development.
   • Particularly beneficial in non-ideal conditions (e.g., minor fluctuations in humidity or temperature).

Expected Time Frame

• Without Willow Water: ~14 days for visible roots.
• With Willow Water: 11–13 days, depending on how well the cuttings respond to the added hormones.

The difference may be more pronounced:

• If the clones are under slight stress (e.g., marginally low humidity, minor nutrient deficiencies).
• If the willow water is highly concentrated (younger twigs or freshly made solution).

Factors That Influence Results

1. Health of the Clones:
   Strong, healthy cuttings with good reserves benefit less from willow water compared to stressed or weaker ones.
2. Willow Water Quality:
   Higher hormone concentrations (from younger twigs or proper preparation) make a more noticeable difference.
3. Environmental Conditions:
   If your environment is already optimal (correct light, humidity, and temperature), the improvement will be smaller.

Practical Application
Even though the improvement may only be a few days, willow water's ability to increase consistency in rooting and reduce stress makes it valuable, particularly for cuttings that may be less vigorous or in slightly less-than-ideal conditions.


Sorry, if text formatting looks bad!

Id bet the barn that reg water would do the same thing.
I find no real difference using rooting hormone or not using it. Roots come out in the cloner between 5-9 days. Every time. No matter if it's willow water, fart water, pee water, rooting hormone, and even 98% pure hobbit spunk.
I have heard of you can get a couple hairs off falcor and soak them in the tears of the princess you can get roots in 2 days but I've been unable to find that damn luck dragon anywhere.

Jjgrow420 said:

Id bet the barn that reg water would do the same thing.
I find no real difference using rooting hormone or not using it. Roots come out in the cloner between 5-9 days. Every time. No matter if it's willow water, fart water, pee water, rooting hormone, and even 98% pure hobbit spunk.
I have heard of you can get a couple hairs off falcor and soak them in the tears of the princess you can get roots in 2 days but I've been unable to find that damn luck dragon anywhere.

Click to expand...

Well, as long as it's not your barn


Conclusion:
Use of phytohormones and growth regulators has been reported in agriculture and horticulture from several years.
The search for natural products and organic rooting substances as substitutes for the use of phytohormones and PGR is
becoming very popular. This is due to the high cost of hormones and the risk of toxicity to plants, humans and
animals because of an overdose.
Extracts of some plant species have been found the presence of phytohormones in tissues due to which it exhibits root-promoting activities.
The use of plant extracts and natural products that contain a lot of active compounds could be a successful alternative to
synthetic hormones and plant growth regulators which are of chemical nature in improving root formation.
Hormones are rich in natural plant extracts, which can be used to improve and stimulate growth of other plant species.

From the review we can conclude that organic substances shows better performance in rooting of cuttings of many horticultural
crops and showed significance in root formation of cuttings than control and IBA.

cage said:

Well, as long as it's not your barn

Rooting hormones improve uniformity among vegetative cuttings

Rooting compounds aid in rooting of moderate to difficult-to-root species, accelerate root initiation, improve rooting uniformity, increase the number of roots produced and reduce shrink and rooting time.

www.canr.msu.edu

Grower 101: Rooting Hormones - Greenhouse Product News

Vegetatively propagated floriculture crops continue to increase in popularity because of tremendous production, marketing and garden success. Growers are able to propagate a wide variety of herbaceous plants on-site through the help of improved stock plant management techniques and propagation...

gpnmag.com

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349181897_A_REVIEW_ON_THE_USE_OF_ORGANIC_ROOTING_SUBSTANCES_FOR_PROPAGATION_OF_HORTICULTURE_CROPS

Conclusion:
Use of phytohormones and growth regulators has been reported in agriculture and horticulture from several years.
The search for natural products and organic rooting substances as substitutes for the use of phytohormones and PGR is
becoming very popular. This is due to the high cost of hormones and the risk of toxicity to plants, humans and
animals because of an overdose.
Extracts of some plant species have been found the presence of phytohormones in tissues due to which it exhibits root-promoting activities.
The use of plant extracts and natural products that contain a lot of active compounds could be a successful alternative to
synthetic hormones and plant growth regulators which are of chemical nature in improving root formation.
Hormones are rich in natural plant extracts, which can be used to improve and stimulate growth of other plant species.

From the review we can conclude that organic substances shows better performance in rooting of cuttings of many horticultural
crops and showed significance in root formation of cuttings than control and IBA.

Click to expand...

Meh. Makes no diff to me.im not saying that there isn't ANY validity in what you're saying just saying it doesn't really matter and the diff is slim to none and not really worth it.
If you wana chase dragons be my guest. If it was such an insanely awesome thing everyone would be using it and companies would be bottling that shit like water
Just seems like a bunch of work for no real diff than water alone. So what's the point?

Im not sure if focusing on speeding up root development will solve your problem. It sounds like the real issue is plant count?

Why dont you get 2 more clone kings and triple the amount of clones? I imagine that if you always have all three clone kings loaded with cuts, you would have roughly 240 fully rooted clones every 3 weeks.
You could easily take cuts from the clones that are waiting to get shuffled into the flower room. That and keep a few really large mothers. It would be more than enough plant material to keep all three clone kings fully loaded all the time.

Farmer's Hat said:

Im not sure if focusing on speeding up root development will solve your problem. It sounds like the real issue is plant count?

Why dont you get 2 more clone kings and triple the amount of clones? I imagine that if you always have all three clone kings loaded with cuts, you would have roughly 240 fully rooted clones every 3 weeks.
You could easily take cuts from the clones that are waiting to get shuffled into the flower room. That and keep a few really large mothers. It would be more than enough plant material to keep all three clone kings fully loaded all the time.

Click to expand...

Yeah, completely valid idea.
I just often transfer my mother while decently small and take the necessary clones when the mother is sufficiently big,
that often leaves small margin of error. Probably could do stuff differently as far as that is concerned.
But also interested in the topic for other plants too which might generally be more harder to clone.

If it shaves day or two off my average rooting times and has even little better root development,
I'll have few icecubes of it in my freezer.

Jjgrow420 said:

Meh. Makes no diff to me.im not saying that there isn't ANY validity in what you're saying just saying it doesn't really matter and the diff is slim to none and not really worth it.
If you wana chase dragons be my guest. If it was such an insanely awesome thing everyone would be using it and companies would be bottling that shit like water
Just seems like a bunch of work for no real diff than water alone. So what's the point?

Click to expand...

I don't know, took maybe 5min of work and could do way bigger batch with pretty much same effort.
That would last me probably for the shelf life of it, like few years.

I suppose companies are selling all kinds of root hormones (which are the same stuff that is in the willow water).
And all sort of commercial grows use them.

But yeah, I'll put some clones in testing side by side when I get the chance and will see for myself.