Root Clone Test - pictures

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Root cloning is simply taking a few handfuls of roots from the side or bottom of the root ball (adventitious roots), leaving them in their growing medium (Pro Mix) with moisture, warmth and darkness. Within a few weeks to months the adventitious root pieces will develop calydons and there will be hundreds of shoots ready to plant.

I did this successfully when I first started growing, around the same time that I learned marijuana needs 12/12 to develop buds and the buds grow where the leaves are. The learning curve is not steep. I read about cloning on Overgrow and was trying root cloning, a bubbler and rockwool. The rockwool cuttings died; I had roots in a week with the bubbler; and a bucket of pro mix and dead roots. I jumped on the bubbler because of the early success and forgot about the root cloning.

Weeks to months later I was looking for a bucket and found hundreds of shoots in my root clone bucket. I planted two and threw the rest out. The plants grew fine and I forgot about them, just a couple more clones.

Looking at that bucket full of clone shoots I paused and thought: "Who the fuck would want hundreds of clones? And it takes forever, back to the bubbler." I assumed, and did until recently, that root cloning was a common method that commercial growers used. I was shocked at how little there is on the net about it, including horticultural and science sites.

Since I brought up root cloning and made the claim that it works I see it as my responsibility to prove the claim. In this thread I'll track, with pictures, root cloning trials until we have a technique developed for regular success. I'm hoping the first trial so I can be done with this.

This test is going to be like watching sod grow, perhaps not as interesting. I'll check the roots every week or so and post some pics if there's anything to see.

"... In particular, the natural ability of roots of many species to form buds that develop into new shoots has been long recognized, and lists of species capable of forming ‘root buds’ are extensive. In some species, shoot buds occur sporadically on roots only after the root has been excised, whereas in other species one of the main functions of the root system appears to be the production of root buds. The formation of buds on roots enables the propagation of plants by root cuttings and is an important means of spreading noxious weeds. A variety of root tissue may be involved in bud differentiation, and the development pattern therefore varies considerably depending on the region of the root in which bud initiation occurs. Root buds of herbaceous species frequently arise endogenously, in a manner similar to initiation of lateral or adventitious roots. Therefore, descriptions of buds arising from both the pericycle and the phellogen or related tissues are frequently reported"

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"In propagation by cuttage or layerage it is only necessary for a new root system to form, since the meristematic shoot apex comes directly from the parental plant. Many stem cells, even in mature plants, have the capability of producing adventitious roots. In fact, every vegetative cell in the plant contains the genetic information needed for an entire plant. Adventitious roots appear spontaneously from stems and old roots as opposed to systemic roots which appear along the developing root system originating in the embryo. In humid conditions (as in the tropics or a green house) adventitious roots occur naturally along the main stalk near the ground and along limbs where they droop and touch the ground."

http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/92/1/145

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My first and hopefully final trial will use roots from 4 plants: 3 plants with 2-3 weeks of flower left and 1 plant that was harvested 3 weeks ago and the root ball has been sitting in a garbage bag in my grow room. I have a Jillybean and Pandora's Box from Subcool and a Killer Chem Dog by Rez. The 3 week old root ball is from a Jillybean, bud was great, much more potent than I thought it would be.

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Step 1: Dig a hole

Dig down the side, putting the pro mix aside until you hit roots, then start pulling out handfulls and put them in a bucket. Use the Kajozgi-Jones method when possible.



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Step 2: Put the roots in a bucket

Make sure the pro mix and roots are about the same moisture content as when you'd plant - will hold together when you squeeze it in your hand but not drip water. Don't squeeze the roots. I gently separate root clumps and shake the bucket around to fluff up the mix.



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The 3 week chopped root ball. I really want to see if we can get a clone after we've cured and vaped the bud.



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Step 3: Put some plastic on the dirt

I'm following my last method as close as I can remember. Keep the moisture in.



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Step 4: Label it



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Step 5: Put the buckets somewhere warm.



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I'm going to post any info I find on root cloning in this thread and I'll post a weekly update. I'm off to mind the sod.

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Right on. Thank you for trying this method out. I was looking at giving it a go..except using roots from my hydro plants. I have no less than 8 or 9 gallons volume of roots between 2 plants!

im also giving this a try just to see if i can make this happen so hopefully ill get success along with you but your a much more exp grower than i am =]

now this being true (not douting you)
with all this said then if you could get a leaf to root then said leaf could then sprout a cotyldones from root zone
because everyone , self included, douts leaf cloning but i and others have had leafs sprout roots
maybe we gave up to soon

That 5hit said:

now this being true (not douting you)
with all this said then if you could get a leaf to root then said leaf could then sprout a cotyldones from root zone
because everyone , self included, douts leaf cloning but i and others have had leafs sprout roots
maybe we gave up to soon

Click to expand...

Deep tissue culture clones any plant tissue.

MuntantLizzard said:

Deep tissue culture clones any plant tissue.

Click to expand...

thanks for the lessen
but this is root cloning
taking roots planting them a letting them sprout whole plants
everyone douts leaf cloning but if this works (the first im hereing of it ) then it would be thinckable to leaf clone (after the leaf dies the root that is submerged would then sprout a plant given enuff time - with all this said it would still be ezer to just branch clone in a bubbler with hormones- but this shit is still cool to know and do

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Thanks MutantLizzard, now I know what it's called.

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Plant tissue culture is a practice used to propagate plants under sterile conditions, often to produce clones of a plant. Different techniques in plant tissue culture may offer certain advantages over traditional methods of propagation, including:

• The production of exact copies of plants that produce particularly good flowers, fruits, or have other desirable traits.
• To quickly produce mature plants.
• The production of multiples of plants in the absence of seeds or necessary pollinators to produce seeds.
• The regeneration of whole plants from plant cells that have been genetically modified.
• The production of plants in sterile containers that allows them to be moved with greatly reduced chances of transmitting diseases, pests, and pathogens.
• The production of plants from seeds that otherwise have very low chances of germinating and growing, i.e.: orchids and nepenthes.
• To clean particular plant of viral and other infections and to quickly multiply these plants as 'cleaned stock' for horticulture and agriculture.

Plant tissue culture relies on the fact that many plant cells have the ability to regenerate a whole plant (totipotency). Single cells, plant cells without cell walls (protoplasts), pieces of leaves, or (less commonly) roots can often be used to generate a new plant on culture media given the required nutrients and plant hormones.

Modern plant tissue culture is performed under aseptic conditions under filtered air. Living plant materials from the environment are naturally contaminated on their surfaces (and sometimes interiors) with microorganisms, so surface sterilization of starting materials (explants) in chemical solutions (usually alcohol or bleach) is required. Mercuric chloride is seldom used as a plant sterilant today, as it is dangerous to use, and is difficult to dispose of. Explants are then usually placed on the surface of a solid culture medium, but are sometimes placed directly into a liquid medium, particularly when cell suspension cultures are desired. Solid and liquid media are generally composed of inorganic salts plus a few organic nutrients, vitamins and plant hormones. Solid media are prepared from liquid media with the addition of a gelling agent, usually purified agar.



In-vitro tissue culture potato explants

The composition of the medium, particularly the plant hormones and the nitrogen source (nitrate versus ammonium salts or amino acids) have profound effects on the morphology of the tissues that grow from the initial explant. For example, an excess of auxin will often result in a proliferation of roots, while an excess of cytokinin may yield shoots. A balance of both auxin and cytokinin will often produce an unorganised growth of cells, or callus, but the morphology of the outgrowth will depend on the plant species as well as the medium composition. As cultures grow, pieces are typically sliced off and transferred to new media (subcultured) to allow for growth or to alter the morphology of the culture. The skill and experience of the tissue culturist are important in judging which pieces to culture and which to discard.

As shoots emerge from a culture, they may be sliced off and rooted with auxin to produce plantlets which, when mature, can be transferred to potting soil for further growth in the greenhouse as normal plants. reference: Plant tissue culture: theory and practice By Sant Saran Bhojwani, M. K. Razdan

The tissue obtained from the plant to culture is called an explant. Based on work with certain model systems, particularly tobacco, it has often been claimed that a totipotent explant can be grown from any part of the plant. However, this concept has been vitiated in practice. In many species explants of various organs vary in their rates of growth and regeneration, while some do not grow at all. The choice of explant material also determines if the plantlets developed via tissue culture are haploid or diploid.

Also the risk of microbial contamination is increased with inappropriate explants. Thus it is very important that an appropriate choice of explant be made prior to tissue culture. The specific differences in the regeneration potential of different organs and explants have various explanations. The significant factors include differences in the stage of the cells in the cell cycle, the availability of or ability to transport endogenous growth regulators, and the metabolic capabilities of the cells. The most commonly used tissue explants are the meristematic ends of the plants like the stem tip, auxiliary bud tip and root tip. These tissues have high rates of cell division and either concentrate or produce required growth regulating substances including auxins and cytokinins.

Some explants, like the root tip, are hard to isolate and are contaminated with soil microflora that become problematic during the tissue culture process. Certain soil microflora can form tight associations with the root systems, or even grow within the root. Soil particles bound to roots are difficult to remove without injury to the roots that then allows microbial attack. These associated microflora will generally overgrow the tissue culture medium before there is significant growth of plant tissue.

Aerial (above soil) explants are also rich in undesirable microflora. However, they are more easily removed from the explant by gentle rinsing, and the remainder usually can be killed by surface sterilization. Most of the surface microflora do not form tight associations with the plant tissue. Such associations can usually be found by visual inspection as a mosaic, de-colorization or localized necrosis on the surface of the explant.

An alternative for obtaining uncontaminated explants is to take explants from seedlings which are aseptically grown from surface-sterilized seeds. The hard surface of the seed is less permeable to penetration of harsh surface sterilizing agents, such as hypochlorite, so the acceptable conditions of sterilization used for seeds can be much more stringent than for vegetative tissues.

Tissue cultured plants are clones, if the original mother plant used to produce the first explants is susceptible to a pathogen or environmental condition, the entire crop would be susceptible to the same problem, conversely any positive traits would remain within the line also.

Plant tissue culture is used widely in plant science; it also has a number of commercial applications. Applications include:

• Micropropagation is widely used in forestry and in floriculture. Micropropagation can also be used to conserve rare or endangered plant species.
• A plant breeder may use tissue culture to screen cells rather than plants for advantageous characters, e.g. herbicide resistance/tolerance.
• Large-scale growth of plant cells in liquid culture inside bioreactors as a source of secondary products, like recombinant proteins used as biopharmaceuticals.
• To cross distantly related species by protoplast fusion and regeneration of the novel hybrid.
• To cross-pollinate distantly related species and then tissue culture the resulting embryo which would otherwise normally die (Embryo Rescue).
• For production of doubled monoploid (dihaploid) plants from haploid cultures to achieve homozygous lines more rapidly in breeding programmes, usually by treatment with colchicine which causes doubling of the chromosome number.
• As a tissue for transformation, followed by either short-term testing of genetic constructs or regeneration of transgenic plants.
• Certain techniques such as meristem tip culture can be used to produce clean plant material from virused stock, such as potatoes and many species of soft fruit.
• micropropagation using meristem and shoot culture to produce large numbers of identical individuals.

Although some growers and nurseries have their own labs for propagating plants by the technique of tissue culture, a number of independent laboratories provide custom propagation services. The Plant Tissue Culture Information Exchange lists many commercial tissue culture labs. Since plant tissue culture is a very labour intensive process, this would be an important factor in determining which plants would be commercially viable to propagate in a laboratory.

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will this really work? I'm super interested

did not know that what it was called

I cant wait to see if you pull anything out of that rootball! Sub'd and in for the long haul!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/14571756/The-Biotechnology-of-Cannabis-Sativa

Here is a good read about the biotechnology of cannabis..

download it

Hobbes said:

Weeks to months later I was looking for a bucket and found hundreds of shoots in my root clone bucket. I planted two and threw the rest out. The plants grew fine and I forgot about them, just a couple more clones.

Looking at that bucket full of clone shoots I paused and thought: "Who the fuck would want hundreds of clones? And it takes forever, back to the bubbler." I assumed, and did until recently,

Since I brought up root cloning and made the claim that it works I see it as my responsibility to prove the claim. In this thread I'll track, with pictures, root cloning trials until we have a technique developed for regular success. I'm hoping the first trial so I can be done with this.

This test is going to be like watching sod grow, perhaps not as interesting. I'll check the roots every week or so and post some pics if there's anything to see.

Click to expand...

i trust that this works - it will be cool to watch it -
and thanks for being the type of person that walks and talks it - thats shit is important - so many make claims and never back them up what you are doing is cool shit dude regardless on how long it take - this is just cool shit to be apart of

sick.
I think i might try this.

Just harvested some killer bud.
But it was a bagseed.
so genetics are unknown

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Anyone who wants to run parallel trials please post pics and keep a journal in this thread, the more people trying the more chance of proving the method. This thread is open to all.

After reading the Plant Tissue Culture write up several times Root Cloning seems to work on the same principles but uses a much rougher technique - the garden not the lab.

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Very interested in if this actually works. Pretty crazy a root can get enough energy in complete darkness to grow a plant but I figure at worse I waist 1sq/f of my house and a couple gallons of soil so I'll be doing this for sure once my current grow finishes.

Ok I'm going to try this with the super skunk I harvested today, I just keep it moist covered, warm and dark? Seems like it would just compost . . .

NewGrowth said:

Ok I'm going to try this with the super skunk I harvested today, I just keep it moist covered, warm and dark? Seems like it would just compost . . .

Click to expand...

this is what i was thinking

I would like to try this with White rhino, im in reveg now(DWC), which takes weeks and months anyway. Speed isnt everything. So Hobbes, Do you thing this could work for a set of thick DWC roots? I know what i would do with a 100 clones, Spread the good stuff around. imagine a 20 dollar 1/4 of rhino.

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" Do you thing this could work for a set of thick DWC roots?"

Yes, so long as they are adventitious roots.

"Adventitious roots arise out-of-sequence from the more usual root formation of branches of a primary root, and instead originate from the stem, branches, leaves, or old woody roots."

So we're looking for newer pulpier roots growing out of woody roots - most likely 2nd and 3rd order lateral roots but I'd keep the 1st order lateral as well. Definitely not the tap root. Remember to separate the roots - I just ripped them apart but with a bunch of hydro roots you could use scissors.

This is going to be a great experiment for learning about the much ignored root system.

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