help clones not rooting but still alive

debo1987

Well-Known Member
ive took these cuts from my blue cheese grow 1week ago and there under 2 florecent lights at the min any ideas they were all cut at 45deg and used rooting gel
 

cues

Well-Known Member
Good start. It usually takes mine 10-14 days to show roots.
If they still look healthy you are doing well.
Patience my friend.
 

debo1987

Well-Known Member
20120904_093018.jpgany ideas in a closet 7ft length 7 ft hight 3 ft wide 2 x florecent, only thing i can fink of is heat, might put them in tent in the day time n here at night to try help with heat, and should i be spraying them or leave em to encorage root growth . thanks in advance
 

cues

Well-Known Member
Madman is right. You need a humidity dome of some type. You can get a propogator from the garden centre for 5 bucks.
You've done well to get as far as you have in my opinion.
Then again, I've never cloned in rockwool or without a dome so my opinion is worth sweet FA.
Be careful spraying under direct light, but yes, you should.
I bought a heated propogater for about £15, a pack of root-it cubes and clonex gel for a tenner, an old wardobe with 2x23w cfls and use one of the g/fs old perfume bottles as a mister and get about 90% success.
Will be following this. Good Luck.
 

trevronious

Well-Known Member
Cut those big leaves in half, mist 2-3 times a day. I despise rockwool, but as long as they are not wilting they will root. Patience.

And leave them alone.
 

cues

Well-Known Member
You cut them in half (cut the ends off the 'fingers') to stop the plant respirating as it doesn't yet have the root system to support it. Just the bigger lower leaves. Leave the top 2 sets alone.
5.8 is fine.
 
Good advice Cues! Cutting the leaves in half really helps out in the long run. It looks as if these cuttings are going to root soon. In the future maybe consider using peat pellets instead of rockwool. They seem to work better for me. Also next time consider some sort of humidity dome over them. Use a disposable aluminum cake pan with a clear plastic lid, that's what I use. They may start to look really wimpy after a while as well, this is the plant feeding off itself to get the roots to grow. It really is amazing to watch the roots pop when they are ready however! One day nothing, the next day they are growing out! Nature surprises us humans at times!
 
thanks for that ill do that rite away
I forgot to mention that I always use a rooting hormone as well. I feel powdered works just as well as liquid but in the end I am sure this is a hot button issue so just use whatever you are comfortable using. I also scrape the sides of the stem LIGHTLY with a razor blade to take off some of the outer bark. I thought this was insane before I actually tried it and saw the fantastic results it made. One can even clone older material (which many say is a no no) by scraping off the outer bark to expose the fresher insides. I know there is a scientific reason for this but I can't remember the actual facts behind it as of this writing. If you want I can do some more research on it after I get home from work. Have a great day!!
 
Hi there! So I did some research (found the original article years ago and can't find it now, buried in some forum no doubt) and it appears that with the razor scrape the grower is exposing the phloem just under the outer bark.

Here is where it starts to get divided among opinions as to what happens next. Some say that there is more surface area for the rooting hormone to get in (which I find hard to believe since there is just as much surface area than before the scrape) and the other school of thought is that when the phloem is exposed it simply lets the roots grow out faster since this outer layer has been removed. I subscribe to the latter thought.

Either way just scrape the stem where it will be under the surface of whatever you are using to root into (where the stem will be "stuck into" under the rockwool or peat pot). This is a very light scrape and with a sharp flat razor one will see thin bits of outer stem come up in practice.

I used to have a cloning kit that was nothing more than a men's travel shaving kit (with the rooting hormone powder residue it looked like a cocaine kit haha). This was really handy since the mirror in it helped by providing an area to do the scraping and the cutting that was easily made sterile with rubbing alcohol. Since I only grow for myself I have evolved (some would say devolved) to autoflowering plants so my cloning days are over for the time being;) It is fun to do though, but really tries one's patience in the beginning!

On proofreading I see this message is full of parenthesis, sorry LOL Don't know what happened here...
 
Top