Why There are so Many Cloning Products? Just Trying to Figure Out!

At the local grow shop the other day I noticed what seemed like a million cloning products. In the past I always used a simple and effective technique with great success.

1-Prep rockwool by soaking in clean water with ph of 5.5.
2-Trim clone from mother with fresh razor blade, cut made on a 45.
3-Immediately dip cutting in root hormone.
4-Slip the cutting into the rockwool cube.
5-Place cutting and rockwool cube into sealed clear container under veg light.
6-Vent and mist daily until solid roots appear.
7-If I don't transplant right away I'll mix an 1/8 strength nutrient and mist the roots and rockwool to promote growth before transplant.

This leaves me wondering what I would need any of those products for. What are you using? Is my technique some sort of outdated old timers technique?

I stick with what works but am wondering if any of these other products are worth their price tags.

nope its all a money making scheme. a little IBA and NAA is all you need no matter what form its in. i like gels because they are easier for me to use.

Ever read that blog about what white people like? Pretty much everything more expensive than free. White people pay to pick berries. White people pay to camp. White people pay extra to eat 'ethnic' foods that ethnic people wouldn't have eaten if wasn't the only thing left (ever had menudo touted as a cure for hangover at college?)

Racial humor aside, it's American marketing. Anything you can sell, will be profited from even if there's a a completely free, cheaper or even paying alternative that does the job as well as if not better. Ex. Linux vs. Apple (New OS war: PC's & windoze are dead, raeg plz).

Kids with too much money will get scammed every time. This is 'why' and why we rely on veterans such as you to keep the truth free.

Only thing you need is the hormone.. all the other bullshit is bullshit.

Right on. I thought that the 70$ bottle of "clone conditioning solution" seemed crazy but if someone would have shown me some amazing rooting or other impressive results I would have had to pay attention.

One thing that does help is called no wilt. You mix it up with water and dip your whole cutting in it. It coats it with a wax like layer that negates the necessity of misting the cuttings all together. Works great with an aero-cloner with no dome.

euthanatos93420 said:

Ever read that blog about what white people like? Pretty much everything more expensive than free. White people pay to pick berries. White people pay to camp. White people pay extra to eat 'ethnic' foods that ethnic people wouldn't have eaten if wasn't the only thing left (ever had menudo touted as a cure for hangover at college?)

Racial humor aside, it's American marketing. Anything you can sell, will be profited from even if there's a a completely free, cheaper or even paying alternative that does the job as well as if not better. Ex. Linux vs. Apple (New OS war: PC's & windoze are dead, raeg plz).

Kids with too much money will get scammed every time. This is 'why' and why we rely on veterans such as you to keep the truth free.

Click to expand...

You dont like white people eh?


To the OP.

Its all the same. You might see one price at 20 and one priced at 60. Check the concentration. The 20$ one might say add 5ml to a gal if using as a supplement in a cloner, while the other one might say .5 ml to the gal. The price difference comes from the concentration of the product. Now one might also get rooting hormones confused with rooting aids. The rooting aids are used up til week 3 after it already has developed a root mass. This shit is expensive but works like magic. Read reviews of H&G Root Excelurator to see.

If you pay attention to little experiments people do, you will see that even thou plants do root in reg water, when adding these supplements success rate jumps up. Cloning time is almost cut in 1/2 and is less devastating if something went wrong.

just my 2c

I do it like this and it's very rare to lose one.I actually prefer to root them right into soil but used the peat for an example.

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cut, into water for 20 seconds, into ^ technaflora rooting hormone...into coco plug..into a 10 gal fish tank with seran(sp?) wrap on top..mist twice a day...into a grow bag within 3 weeks.

I've had clones go yellow in peat pucks.....never once in coco.

it is kinda funny how much stuff is out there. bottom line is to make money. but different people like different things. i just use a ez cloner i made, root tech clone gel an a small amount of root 66 in the res. roots are showing in about 5 days.

JealousGreen said:

One thing that does help is called no wilt. You mix it up with water and dip your whole cutting in it. It coats it with a wax like layer that negates the necessity of misting the cuttings all together. Works great with an aero-cloner with no dome.

Click to expand...

totally true, this and Cloud Cover are also great for helping move cuttings outdoors in the spring. with a bit of cloud cover a 2g plant can be moved out into full sun with no hardening off. a friend of mine sprays all his 1g transplants when planted out side in spring.

SCCA said:

totally true, this and Cloud Cover are also great for helping move cuttings outdoors in the spring. with a bit of cloud cover a 2g plant can be moved out into full sun with no hardening off. a friend of mine sprays all his 1g transplants when planted out side in spring.

Click to expand...

I have never used these products but now I am curious.

You don't even need rooting jel most of the time, but yes no wilt helps take away the babysitting aspect and rooting hormone speeds up what you could do with just water alone.

Some strains are hard to get clones to root though, especially with just water.

My preference now though, instead of continually buying rooting hormone or wilt spray or rockwool is making yourself a basic bubble cloner. 100% recycleable and reusable with the same benefits of wilt spray and rooting hormone. I was suprised to learn there are no more wilting problems using one with zero misting needed and no dome needed and no chemicals needed with just a bubble cloner, and the speed of rooting and growth is far far better than any combination you can do with rockwool or other media. (I've tried them all.) The only chemical I put in is a tiny bit of my normal grow fertilizer. Very dilute.

A cheap aquarium air pump and a couple feet of air hose is all you need, along with some kind of plastic container with a lid which can be anything recycled from around the house. I eventually did buy those foam plugs to make life easier, but even they aren' t needed. You can pick up aquarium air pumps for $1 used at goodwill or under $10 new. If you want to do a really large lot of clones the under bed plastic bins are nice, just know the bigger the container the bigger and more air sites you need to force bubbles up to the roots. Roots grow best and fastest if the clones sit just above water level and are just misted by the bursting air bubbles for best performance. You can find posts with pics and directions all over. No airstones are needed, waste of money. If you don't buy or find a black container then you can use anything to block the light from getting in the container whether it's reflective tape which is expensive or just thick cloth covering it. (Light blocking is important, roots don't grow well when light gets to them.)

Rockwool and cloning gel and no wilt should be a last resort these days unless you have a growing system planned which is dependant on using rockwool. People are spending more on rockwool and gels and wilt sprays than it costs to biuld these and it makes no sense unless you are going to finish those clones in a system which requires rockwool like a rotary grow. Even if you want to grow in rockwool slabs on a table you can start clones in this better and then fit them into the rockwool slab with one slice of a knife after rooted.