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Cloning variables

ninjadip

Hydro Ninja
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ok ok, i am not in "trouble" or anything like that, just curious.
I just started my cloning operation back up, and very curious about the varying time for cuts to root in aeroponics taken at the same time from the same plant, and about the same size. These were all taken at the same time, i think a week ago.

Just curious how some can differ so much. I have all 3 in the middle of the aeroponics so i don't think it's a matter of placement in the cloner relating to the sprayers and all that. This isn't any kind of urgent issue, just curious. Does everyone experience this amount of variance when making clones? I wonder if it is the amount of time i let the cut sit in the rooting gel... I can't really think of another variable. Same light, same nutrients, close enough to be the same aeroponic spray application, same mom, same day cut.

Going to tag @Moe.Red and @Aqua Man my two hydro gurus.

Slowest one:
1687984294778.jpeg

second slowest:
1687984395379.jpeg

best: rooted in 2-3 days
1687984419531.jpeg


cloning environment: (the tall one is not one in the above pics, it was from an earlier cut) don't laugh at my beans popping lol,
1687984652253.jpeg

Environment under, you can see there are zero issues with aeroponic spray coverage lol. BTW is there a better way to stabilize the sprayer than with how i have it weighted?


1687984832596.jpeg
 
Hiya Ninja.

Here is an example of variation

1687984910320.png

But as it turns out, every one of them eventually took off and were healthy.

Based on that pic, they were all taken at the same time, same cloner, same rooting gel, same same same.

When cloning you need to convert undifferentiated cells into root cells. I think the biggest part of this is where you take the clones from the mom. Old woody growth will not root as quickly as newer tender branches in my experience.

You can see the spray pattern has little correlation to the root development.
 
Didn't even think about that... that makes total sense. The age of the snip! I thought i should avoid really new growth to make clones from, are you saying the newest growth is the best? I thought for some reason i needed a little heartiness/woodiness to the snips for their strength.

I love how yours explode before they get long like mine, is there something i'm missing?

I did forget when i filled the res up this time to use bloom instead of veg nutes, it's been a while since cloning and i'm still new. I read somewhere that clones do better in flower type nutes, something about the K?

What is/was your cloning solution made of? i think i'm ready to start dialing all this shit in a little better.

BTW sprayer timer is on 3min on/3 min off
right now i have some GH base and grow, CloneX - cloning solution. EC 1.0. No chiller on this, and the water runs hot af at 78. A small chiller for this is on my maybe list.
 
Environment under, you can see there are zero issues with aeroponic spray coverage lol. BTW is there a better way to stabilize the sprayer than with how i have it weighted?

One thing that I have found that very negatively impacts growth rates is heat in the water.

That pump seems very overpowered for the application IMO. Putting more energy into the pump means more heat in the water which means less O2 and more slimy stumps at the bottom of the cuts.

With lots of O2 you get something more like this

IMG_2408.jpeg
 
Didn't even think about that... that makes total sense. The age of the snip! I thought i should avoid really new growth to make clones from, are you saying the newest growth is the best? I thought for some reason i needed a little heartiness/woodiness to the snips for their strength.

I love how yours explode before they get long like mine, is there something i'm missing?

I did forget when i filled the res up this time to use bloom instead of veg nutes, it's been a while since cloning and i'm still new. I read somewhere that clones do better in flower type nutes, something about the K?

What is/was your cloning solution made of? i think i'm ready to start dialing all this shit in a little better.

BTW sprayer timer is on 3min on/3 min off
right now i have some GH base and grow, CloneX - cloning solution. EC 1.0. No chiller on this, and the water runs hot af at 78. A small chiller for this is on my maybe list.
When I am doing tissue culture, the very top of the new growth is the best place to take it. Called the apical meristem. Yes, this is the absolute best place because new growth is packed with stem cells. Also for other reasons that do not pertain to your question.

In terms of nutes, I personally use Jacks Clone, but I have also used others like Clonex and GH / Cal Mag. I think the nutes are less important than all the other aspects personally. When you clone, you are not really trying for transpiration (that's why you sometimes see people cut off the ends of fan leaves) and more about root growth. Without transpiration, you are not using much in the nute department.
 
Hiya Ninja.

Here is an example of variation

View attachment 10549

But as it turns out, every one of them eventually took off and were healthy.

Based on that pic, they were all taken at the same time, same cloner, same rooting gel, same same same.

When cloning you need to convert undifferentiated cells into root cells. I think the biggest part of this is where you take the clones from the mom. Old woody growth will not root as quickly as newer tender branches in my experience.

You can see the spray pattern has little correlation to the root development.
100% agree. Its where the clones are cut from on the plant
 
moe when reducing on time on the sprayer, should i reduce the time until i see signs of drought on the cuts, and then go up a little from there?
I've done some testing on this with fog.

Because the root zone is sealed, they really do not dry out much between spray on times. What I found most effective was a 5:1 Off to On time. So on for 1 minute, off for 5. For me at least, that was still more than enough moisture.

If the roots / start are already dripping wet, you are not adding anything helpful by blasting that water off and replacing it with different water. It just adds heat.
 
just turned it down from 3min on to 30 sec on and 3 min off. will test this out and see what happens. a 1:6 ratio.

Thanks guys, this will get the heat down i'm sure, and raise O2.

and that makes total sense about if they are already wet, spraying them with more water is moot not nute. lol
 
Just for my knowledge but it seems the goal is to keep the cuts wet so a few seconds, it would seem, is all that is needed to wet the cuts. Then no spray for a few minutes as the solution gravity drips off the stem and then on to re wet? Is this the idea?

What about a chiller in his res to offset the heat the pump is adding to the water temp?
 
When I am doing tissue culture, the very top of the new growth is the best place to take it. Called the apical meristem. Yes, this is the absolute best place because new growth is packed with stem cells. Also for other reasons that do not pertain to your question.

In terms of nutes, I personally use Jacks Clone, but I have also used others like Clonex and GH / Cal Mag. I think the nutes are less important than all the other aspects personally. When you clone, you are not really trying for transpiration (that's why you sometimes see people cut off the ends of fan leaves) and more about root growth. Without transpiration, you are not using much in the nute department.
Yep. The lower on the plant and closer to the main stem the cut is taken the quicker it will root.
Huh?:unsure:
 
yeah a chiller is on my if i have extra money list.

given the power of my sprayer, i guess it's too much, i only need to have it on for a few seconds to get them wet. so i'm going to reduce the time on drastically from minutes to seconds. i'm thinking even 30 seconds is too long. that sprayer can probably saturate everything in 10 seconds.

with 10 seconds on and maybe 3 minutes off(will have to see how long it takes for them to dry out) should help dramatically with the res temps.
 
yeah a chiller is on my if i have extra money list.

given the power of my sprayer, i guess it's too much, i only need to have it on for a few seconds to get them wet. so i'm going to reduce the time on drastically from minutes to seconds. i'm thinking even 30 seconds is too long. that sprayer can probably saturate everything in 10 seconds.

with 10 seconds on and maybe 3 minutes off(will have to see how long it takes for them to dry out) should help dramatically with the res temps.

@freezeland
@Moe.Red

Maybe this can be another side by side that someone can do? Cuts taken from the same mother but just different parts where they are taken to see which roots faster and more prolifically. Would also like to see if there is a difference in root propagation times for sativa vs indica vs hybrid. Another sub set of that would be aero vs soil vs synthetic media.
 

@freezeland
@Moe.Red

Maybe this can be another side by side that someone can do? Cuts taken from the same mother but just different parts where they are taken to see which roots faster and more prolifically. Would also like to see if there is a difference in root propagation times for sativa vs indica vs hybrid. Another sub set of that would be aero vs soil vs synthetic media.
It would be a while before I’m ready to take cuts. I have everything in flower and nothing in veg at the moment. Don’t feel like revegging anything. I already have one of those going outside. I should just kill it, lol.
 
It would be a while before I’m ready to take cuts. I have everything in flower and nothing in veg at the moment. Don’t feel like revegging anything. I already have one of those going outside. I should just kill it, lol.
Figured that was out already.

I’ve got nothing at the moment but I’ll be cloning in maybe a month I’ll take some photos and see what happens.
 
Maybe this can be another side by side that someone can do? Cuts taken from the same mother but just different parts where they are taken to see which roots faster and more prolifically. Would also like to see if there is a difference in root propagation times for sativa vs indica vs hybrid. Another sub set of that would be aero vs soil vs synthetic media.
soil is just slow as fuck, it just is based, on how it works.

roots love oxygen, which usually isnt that high in compacted soils as far as id think/know, especially if you dont water properly.

indicas may root faster in general as they have shorter life spans usually compared to sativas, but i also could be inclined to think it wont have much difference between indica/sat/hybrid besides the genes them selfs and of course, ENV params -

(i have no data on this and base this on absolutely nothing besides my briefly brief growing exp)

by synthetic media, do you mean just coco/perlite and or synthetic nutrients?

synthetic nutrients are already in ionic form and ready to go/when dissolved in water, organics gotta break down into ions first, for the plants to able able to uptake.
 
Got the spray timer down to 5 seconds on 12 minutes off and everything is still wet before the start of the next cycle. Sounds like a recipe for disaster but they all seemed fine this morning.

This was the growth overnight of the stubborn one. Thanks @Moe.Red , feel like an idiot, the timer adjustment seems obvious now. For some reason I thought the more spray the better, but I didn't think it through.
 

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Got the spray timer down to 5 seconds on 12 minutes off and everything is still wet before the start of the next cycle. Sounds like a recipe for disaster but they all seemed fine this morning.

This was the growth overnight of the stubborn one. Thanks @Moe.Red , feel like an idiot, the timer adjustment seems obvious now. For some reason I thought the more spray the better, but I didn't think it through.
I'm a credit hound for sure, but this one is not on me!

That clone just needed another day, the starts were there.
 
Theoretically speaking, I think there's reason to believe reduced moisture could lead to increased root growth (in some situations, of course). Seeking water is what roots do. I'm thinking this is possible because I noticed recently that a clone grew more roots when I decreased its water. I used a different method, but what's in common is less water.
 
I think tops do best till a certain point or thickness maybe? Like someone else said, once they get woody on the stem, they are very slow to root. Last time I did clones it was the tops of plants that were pretty big that I wanted to top, so instead of chucking them I went down more and made clones... they took over 2 weeks to root, I almost chucked em... probably would have e been a little faster with a fancy cloner instead of old school peat pods and a dome. 🤷‍♀️
 
Theoretically speaking, I think there's reason to believe reduced moisture could lead to increased root growth (in some situations, of course). Seeking water is what roots do. I'm thinking this is possible because I noticed recently that a clone grew more roots when I decreased its water. I used a different method, but what's in common is less water.
Exactly what happens.

These plant like DRY TIMES

Plant morphology is slightly different in hydro, the roots will grow slightly different.
 
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