My clones :) A lil help with coco N rockwool

I got some coco and rockwool. I ph the water and expanded the coco and let the rockwool set in the water. Now the clones are babies and i put one in coco and 2 in the bigger new rockwool. Do i put cal mag yet . My water is R/O water. I know these are newbie questions so thank you again for the help.



Btw strains

Girl Scout cookies : )
bubble gum og

CLone a baby i put it in coco with just ph water does it need nuts yet ?

when using rockwool, soak the rockwool cubes in PH adjusted water with no nutes for 24 hours, then shake (not squeeze) gently to get the excess water out of them, and soak them in the same solution you will feed your cuttings (so 1/4 strength nutes or whatever you please) for another 24 hours. same again, shake them off gently, do NOT squeeze them, you will change the structure of the voids in the rockwool and possibly create larger gaps for water to sit (less surface area for oxygen, will drown parts of your root system). let them sit for a couple of hours until they stop dripping.

use a stick slightly larger than your cutting stem to form a hole in the top of the cube, pop your cutting in the hole with some rooting gel and secure the sides of the hole in with a toothpick, just push the rockwool towards the stem sightly so it isn't loose. if your hole isn't big enough, do not use the stem of the cutting to push it in, this will damage the cutting. make sure the sides are barely touching so your rooting gel isn't being scraped off as you insert it. if you screw up and the hole is too big to push the sides back in, shred up another cube and gently tuck in a couple of tiny chunks to fill the gap. don't make it too tight.

propagate the cuttings, keeping humidity high by misting the propagator lid, NOT the cutting itself, 3-4 times a day or as needed. if there is condensation on the lid, you are all good. if the lid is clear, mist it up. if any droplets form or drop on the leaves, use a piece of tissue or a Q-tip (cotton bud) to soak them up. if you treat them with great care, they will never fail you. once 2 or more roots have appeared out of the side of the rockwool, you don't need to mist them any more, they will get their moisture from their newly formed root system.

happy growing

I heard you dont feed your baby clones till after 3 weeks >>

you don't feed them full strength till after 3 weeks, but you still feed them lol. otherwise what are they doing to eat? i like to use 1/4 strength for first week, 1/2 for second week, 3/4 for third week then full strength till the day they get cut.

Simplified version: Soak rockwool starters for 24 hours in 1/4 strength nutrient solution. pH adjust the solution after that. Rockwool automatically has the correct air/water ratio, no need to shake. Remove cube and make a hole with a toothpick or not if you are using macro-plugs (they are slit from the side, no need to modify). Cram cutting into hole quickly. Do not use rooting goop, that was invented for tree cuttings and can cause more problems than it solves with weed. But mainly it is not needed and thereby a waste of money and effort.

Place cutting on a gro-smart tray insert (insert is optional, but very handy) in a 10x20 flat with tall humididome. Crack vents on humididome about 1/8 open and place under fluorescent or other mild light. Temp should be 68-74F. If excess condensation builds up on humididome walls, open vents to 1/4 open. Water starters every 3-5 days or when they start to look dry. When the cutting has a dozen or so roots, transplant. Be patient, it could take up to 21 days depending on strain. Some strains will yellow out. Don't worry about it. Success ratio if done properly is 100%.

bluerock said:

Simplified version: Soak rockwool starters for 24 hours in 1/4 strength nutrient solution. pH adjust the solution after that. Rockwool automatically has the correct air/water ratio, no need to shake. Remove cube and make a hole with a toothpick or not if you are using macro-plugs (they are slit from the side, no need to modify). Cram cutting into hole quickly. Do not use rooting goop, that was invented for tree cuttings and can cause more problems than it solves with weed. But mainly it is not needed and thereby a waste of money and effort.

Place cutting on a gro-smart tray insert (insert is optional, but very handy) in a 10x20 flat with tall humididome. Crack vents on humididome about 1/8 open and place under fluorescent or other mild light. Temp should be 68-74F. If excess condensation builds up on humididome walls, open vents to 1/4 open. Water starters every 3-5 days or when they start to look dry. When the cutting has a dozen or so roots, transplant. Be patient, it could take up to 21 days depending on strain. Some strains will yellow out. Don't worry about it. Success ratio if done properly is 100%.

Click to expand...

so basically what i said but with less care given. righto...

Green Troll said:

so basically what i said but with less care given. righto...

Click to expand...

No, this is exactly what I do. And it works perfectly, a 100% success rate with the minimum required time/materials as is possible. The only change I've made in many years is the addition of the gro-smart tray.

EDIT: Re-reading your post, I do of course agree that rockwool is not to be squeezed for the reason stated. But letting the cubes sit and drip is unnecessary. Same goes for securing the side of the hole. While a hole is needed, the cuttings are not so delicate that a bit of force will hurt them. In fact, you want the cut stem to have solid contact with the rockwool. Rooting goops are not needed for weed in rockwool, test it sometime. Misting is not needed, get a dome with the rotational vents on top.

Hi Rookiekid,
Do you have a good ganja growing book? Read the section on cloning and follow it. You're getting conflicting advice and some is wrong IMHO. Rootone powder is under $10 and lasts forever. It has an antifungal and hormone to stimulate root growth. Easy to use. Skipping that step seems just plain silly. And no misting? I don't know where that comes from, but most books recommend misting.

I'm just saying that if you're confused, I can understand why.

Regarding feeding...of course you don't feed until they have roots to absorb the nutrients...and very very weak.
JD

JohnDee said:

Hi Rookiekid,
Do you have a good ganja growing book? Read the section on cloning and follow it. You're getting conflicting advice and some is wrong IMHO. Rootone powder is under $10 and lasts forever. It has an antifungal and hormone to stimulate root growth. Easy to use. Skipping that step seems just plain silly. And no misting? I don't know where that comes from, but most books recommend misting.

I'm just saying that if you're confused, I can understand why.

Regarding feeding...of course you don't feed until they have roots to absorb the nutrients...and very very weak.
JD

Click to expand...

Again, rooting powder was developed for trees. I've tested it extensively and found that it is not needed for use in rockwool on this plant. It did absolutely nothing to improve either the quality or the speed of the process. Test it for yourself, the book writers are in the business of writing books, not conducting extensive, time-consuming experiments.

As for misting, I used to waste time with it. Now I realize my error: not only would you be defeating the purpose of the humidity dome, misting inside of a humidity dome greatly increases the chances of leaf mildew. There is a humidity target for cloning and in my experience a little condensation on the dome is fine, but if it starts getting too heavy, open the vents more.

Of course it is better to pre-soak your rockwool cubes in 1/4 strength nutrient solution. The solution will not only act to help balance the initial pH (as a conditioning agent), the plant's roots will have nutrient solution available as soon as they form, a condition that you will not be able to detect unless you have x-ray vision to look inside the rockwool cube.

EDIT: In my testing, I tried numerous rooting powders, gels, and solutions with rockwool starter cubes. Notably, none of them produced a 100% success rate. The idea that these products are needed is one of those canon myths that will probably never die since it is such an easy sell. They are almost as notoriously useless as superthrive, except for the fact that there are applications where rooting products are appropriate: trees and other hard-stemmed plants.

Furthermore, the rooting products almost invariably contain a weak NPK additive. This makes them look good when tested against plain water.

bluerock, I'm not interested in a pissing contest...it's just that you're spreading disinformation.

So let me see, who am I going to believe? Jorge Cervantes or bluerock? Jorge uses rooting hormones.

And Rookiekid, the OP, has more plants in coco then rockwool so quit harping about rockwool techniques.

When I was growing dirt, I cloned in peat pucks. Much more problem with stem rot until I started using rootone powder.

And so what if cloning powder was originally developed for trees? (and I'm not saying that's true)...does that mean that it can't work for a woody plant like ganja. Of course not!
Get a grip Dude,
JD

JohnDee said:

bluerock, I'm not interested in a pissing contest...it's just that you're spreading disinformation.

So let me see, who am I going to believe? Jorge Cervantes or bluerock? Jorge uses rooting hormones.

And Rookiekid, the OP, has more plants in coco then rockwool so quit harping about rockwool techniques.

When I was growing dirt, I cloned in peat pucks. Much more problem with stem rot until I started using rootone powder.

And so what if cloning powder was originally developed for trees? (and I'm not saying that's true)...does that mean that it can't work for a woody plant like ganja. Of course not!
Get a grip Dude,
JD

Click to expand...

Have you tested any of your claims against a control? I have and can assure that my techniques work exceptionally well. Therefore, it is most assuredly not "disinformation". As for George Van Patten (AKA Jorge Cervantes) he has done a fair amount of work with rockwool and I have benefited from his experience, particularly in the area of early force flowering with rockwool. However, he obviously hasn't done much testing on cuttings; otherwise, he wouldn't use rooting products with rockwool.

Rockwool starters can easily be transplanted to any medium. I agree that peat pucks suck for cloning. They take longer then rockwool and may well benefit from anti-rot agents. But I am talking rockwool, not peat.

Cannabis cuttings from typical mothers are not "woody" regardless of what the density of the final adult plant becomes. Therefore, they do not need rooting products in rockwool. If you take a cutting from a late stage flowering plant then a rooting product MIGHT be useful...but I doubt it and that is not a typical cloning situation as it will take the clone a very long time to revert to vegetative growth.

Conduct some rockwool experiments instead of simply talking non sequiturs and reading books, dude.

EDIT: A lot of the books out there have been extensively revised since their original publication. Because they contained misinformation.