first time cloning(and first grow) my babies keep suiciding! help!

Heya everyone! Been lurkin' for a few months but this is my first time posting. I got into mmj growing recently, expecting about 60 Pineapple Cheese plants, that me and my partner would be purchasing as teenagers. partner is a silent one-providing fundin', equipment and clones, im the one with his hands all dirty up in the project. We recruited a third guy who had "been growing for 18 years," so we could use his rediculous amount of equipment (hoods, ballasts, 1000W hps's, 600W hps's, bags, tables, RO filter, sulfur burner, air conditioner ,carbon filter---he had the whole nine yards.) anyway, this guy shows up with his equipment, throws in two weeks of work, and disappears. It's been two months and I've been scrambling and lost as to what the hell I am doing.



Meanwhile my silent partner kept buying babies for a few weeks, so as of this second I have... literally 160 plants in the 3-5 foot range im about to flower, 20 that are in isolation with spidermites, around 40-50 or so "teens" (like 1-2.5 footers) and a bunch of babies (12-19inches) that I'm just about to transplant into big grow bags.



None of that is the issue. I've been stumbling my way through it, and trial and error is a bitch but its working, seems like we got a good recipe of nutes at least... Anyway...

So. I'm trying to clone 50 of my healthiest mature plants-its a mix of New York City Diesel, Blue Dream, Lemon OG, and Pineapple Cheese. I've tried on two occasions to take one or two dozen test batches to try it out. I've had 0% success both times.

So my method is "standard". 45 degree cut with sterile razor, into water immediately, then clonex, into presoaked rockwool, with a humidity dome under a cfl yada yada....



My problem isn't with takin them, its with them drooping. Immediately. I'll go get pictures after I finish this post of the ones I took 20 hours ago so yall can see what I mean. Basically I take the clones and throw em in water, within 5 mins they're in gel and rockwool. I've been presoaking my rockwool with 5.8 ph RO water. I've been spraying the cloneies with the following solution: RO Water + B-Vitamins +Rooting Hormone.
I've taken to spraying the plants as well as the underside of the humidity hoods so they stay in a moist environment. However, both times I've tried cloning, literally within 2 hours of being placed under the CFL lamp (around 18" away) they wilt completely (pics to come soon) first time nothing brought em back to firm upright posture, and within three days they were all compost.



I'm trying to avoid that with these two dozen young ones, if possible, and I'm trying to make sure my third attempt (sometime in the next few days as I NEED to start flowering my mature ones so I can have the room for the next wave that is rapidly growing out of the space in their grow room.

My environment is pretty well regulated, got a humidifier, some fans, a/c vent is a few feet up the ceiling, entire enclosure is mylar'd, what am I doing to make them wilt so completely, so quickly? I've read that potentially my environment isn't humid enough? (after taking these, it was at 32% for 6 hrs while I brought my waterlogged humidifier back to life...) Too much heat? Should I be adding cal-mag to my spray-watering routine?

blahhhh please healp! (Oh also I live in socal, and avg room temp is in the 80's right now)

A couple pointers I like to remember when cloning. I hope to do a video on this very subject spring of 2016. Zero difference between night and day temperatures is crucial to prevent clones from staying droopy the first 72 hours. Before anything, I like to thoroughly bleach and rinse the domes, trays, cutting tools, and clay pellets. I like to place the dome trays on 1/2 inch styrofoam sheets from home depot and I also put a seedling heat mat under the dome tray. I plug a thermostat regulator with a thermometer wire/sensor that keeps the mat at about 95F. I also use clay pellets for lining the first quarter inch of the dome tray. With temperatures around 80F-90F and enough clones to keep the relative humidity high enough.. the cuts should perk up like normal plants in under 96 hours. My typical clone takes me about 2 weeks while my quickest clones take around 10 days. Hope this helps!

as soon as u make the cuts IMMEDIATELY put them into the clonex. Also, use the clonex packets, do not use a bottle of clonex, it loses its texture and becomes useless. I get around 95% all the time doing this. Also, make sure there is enough of the leaves to get that light and dont use CFL's. You need like a Pioneer Junoir 4 bulb T5, and put it right over the dome. And just snips the end of the leaves so the plant concentrates on rooting into the cube or rockwool or w/e ur using

Lights need to be closer...more like 2 inches away

did you ph down the rockwool down to 5.0 - 5.5 that could be your culprit also is cubes drying to fast i always use a tooth pick and make a better hole reason is when your pressing stems in you could be damaging it make hole bigger and little deeper once you put it in you can use string to press it all together so its snug to stem
personally if your learning or trying to clone its best to do it in seedling starter soil

Wow thanks for the speedy replies guys! @DarthVapour : I got the ph to 5.8, is that alright-or does it need to be more acidic for cloning? and good tip with the string and toothpick, yeah I did have to do a bit of jamming them in there... :\
and @wiethe20: won't that cause a heat issue?
and damn--solar flavored is saying to have it at like ~90 or so? I do have a heating pad, but my cloning closet is at like 85(86-92) with humidifier goin' is that fine? is that too high? i was working off the assumption of ~75-80 degrees was good...
yall think that assuming humidity (or potentially ph/dry medium) is my only issue that I could bring these babies back to life if I nurse 'em carefully?

since for the past 24 hrs they've been in a dome, I"ve been spraying whenever condensation starts to go away, they've been under light and etc... humidity has just been like 30-45%...

And Darth-- Just reread your post, were you saying to go soil as a cloning medium over rockwool? what are the benefits of going soil over cubed?

You are placing them in a dome right ???? and as for light height does not need to be that close what you need to do is observe the misty humidity on the dome itself after 12 hrs if dome is clear lights are to close if dome appears to have that foggy look your in the sweat spot

CactusJackFerris said:

Wow thanks for the speedy replies guys! @DarthVapour : I got the ph to 5.8, is that alright-or does it need to be more acidic for cloning? and good tip with the string and toothpick, yeah I did have to do a bit of jamming them in there... :\
and @wiethe20: won't that cause a heat issue?
and damn--solar flavored is saying to have it at like ~90 or so? I do have a heating pad, but my cloning closet is at like 85(86-92) with humidifier goin' is that fine? is that too high? i was working off the assumption of ~75-80 degrees was good...
yall think that assuming humidity (or potentially ph/dry medium) is my only issue that I could bring these babies back to life if I nurse 'em carefully?

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I'd actually go a bit more basic. My ideal pH for clones is a 6.0. However, I use drops instead of a pen. The color that I look for is a corona beer yellow.

In regards to spraying.. they shouldn't need any spraying after the first day of cloning. When I first started to clones I didn't realize that I was over spraying the foliage in the first 5 days. I recommend spraying the underside of the dome, but only spray the foliage if needed. When I foliar spray I only do it once a day from days (2 until 7) in the morning. Just a light mist falling on foliage with one layer. Typically, I don't randomly spray clones after day 1 unless I left the dome off the tray for too long in week 1. I use a 2 foot t5 fluorescent bulb hovering about an inch over the dome for lighting.

Also, I think going past 93F with clones are in the trays can be a bit hazardous.. but they love 85F+ temps in my opinion. I just got lucky with my last clones came that from healthy mothers. It got up to 95F in the room and the clones took in less than 10 days. In my reservoir I use a light feeding of Cutting Edge Micro, Fox Farm Bloom, and Roots Excelurator with Alhambra water. I also find it helps if I drop the cubes down to 5.7 then I put them in a new container of Alhambra water to raise the pH up to 6.0. I also like to let my cubes soak for at least 24 hours so the lime can saturate in the water helping to drop overall cubes pH more consistently. If you want my nutrient breakdown, I can hook you up. Hope this helps!

yes i'm using a dome and after spraying it seems to stay foggy for around 6-7 hrs then it clears up. is that a sign that its evaporating too quickly and I should move my lights up a little bit?

why i say use soil is soil has a tendency to stay moist / wet longer with soil you know that you are in contact with medium sometimes with rockwool there can be a huge air gap meaning plants are not getting water from medium so it will dry out and droop ,, reason i like soil is just that i can lightly compact soil around stem once i placed it in . once i am done cloneing 72 clone tray i mist plants and dome and walk away for 3 - 4 days
People have a tendency to bother the clones to much all you need to make sure is dome has that foggy look and temps are in range ...
as for me 24 hrs after cloneing only thing is walk in room if dome has that foggy look were laughing then after 3 - 4 th day is when i will open dome up and mist plants and bottom of tray and so forth daily affter that so you need to ph your rock wool down in reality 5.0 - 5.3 do it in to steps meaning change out water after soaking for a few hrs then leaving them in new ph'd down water for day before you want to clone thats what i do .

okay so it seems like the temperature is actually not as crazy high (just checked, its 88 now) as I was worried it was, I just need to get that damn humiditity up and raise my lights a lil'. thanks so much guys, I'm gonna go for a ciggarette and then I"ll snap some pictures so you guys can see my clonin' chamber and all the firsthand action

I pretty much follow this procedure, works everytime. Thick healthy white roots in 10 days.

http://www.growweedeasy.com/cloning-made-easy

I recently just placed a clone into a medicine pill container with just water did the normal cuts up the stem like a fish hook and she rooted in clear medicine pill container with tap water non phd
PK you clone in Growdan cubes or soil

PKHydro said:

I pretty much follow this procedure, works everytime. Thick healthy white roots in 10 days.

http://www.growweedeasy.com/cloning-made-easy

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I also use Rootech as mentioned in the website. I disinfect a 1/16 inch diameter metal rod with rubbing alcohol to punch a new hole where the clone will go in the Growdan cube. However, it is important to punch the new hole just deep enough were you can get a snug fit.

see the switch-and-bait "expert" we hired-told me like two things about cloning I was pretty sure were wrong. He said to poke the hole THROUGH the medium so you could have the stalk sticking out the bottom so it can get oxygen while the middle part of it (in the medium) grows roots. I kinda figured since plants are all about CO2 not oxygen that he was makin it up, he also said to spray the plant leaves (directly) every 2-3 hrs... but from what I've read on this site it seems like the consensus is to spray as little as necessary and that if you keep a layer of moisture on the dome itself, condensation and humidity will make sure the plant gets the water it needs... you were saying that only needing to spray once per 12 hours is optimal right Darth?

Darth Vapour said:

I recently just placed a clone into a medicine pill container with just water did the normal cuts up the stem like a fish hook and she rooted in clear medicine pill container with tap water non phd
PK you clone in Growdan cubes or soil

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Jiffy peat pellets. Then those go into my lava rock hydro system. I always have problems with the Growdan being too moist.

Jiffys work wicked

Buy, or make, an aerocloner. Cheap, fast and easy solution.

hotrodharley said:

Buy, or make, an aerocloner. Cheap, fast and easy solution.

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Just as long as you can keep your temperatures from spiking over 80F in the root area on the cloner. Something I learned the hard way not to do... but if you can setup the right environment it sure beats cubes and domes.