What I just learned on my first cloning experience

Snowchaser

Active Member
Hi Noobs,
After my first indoor run, I only had 5 seeds left so I planted all 5 with a view to keeping the best one as a mother plant to take clones from. Sounded easy enough do I read up on what to do... Here are a couple of pointers that I read along the way...
1. Patience. There are lots of (correct) ways to clone. Trusting you've followed the steps correctly and waiting a full 2-3 weeks before giving up is required.
2. Use rooting hormone gel. Pour a small amount out of the bottle into a shot glass and dip or brush each cutting. Discard leftover. Apparently the hormones activate when in contact with the biological material (i.e. the stem) so don't dip in the container itself.
3. Dont scrape too much off the stem before dipping/brushing. Even though I read you should take your cutting tool and gently strip or peel a layer off your stem just above where you cut, I scraped way too much. This is why my cuttings almost didn't root, and even looked rotted after a few days.
4. Spray the leaves on the UNDERside when misting for the first 5-8 days, rather than on top which can magnify the light and damage them.
5. Leave dying leaves on, don't clip them off. Your cutting can use and retain energy that it gets through the leaves, causing them to die off.
6. Be patient!
7. Keep temps as constant as possible around 22-25C or 72-75F and humidity high 99% for the first 8 days. Afterward your RH can be reduced back closer to 50.
8. Keep it simple and wait. I sprayed the dome, sprayer the rockwool. I was stressed. In the end the rockwool was better off drying out. And finally, poke your hole for your stem all the way through the rockwool (if you're using rockwool that is) but push the stem itself 3/4 of the way down. This way the roots can easily poke out the bottom. You don't have to but on mine the ones I accidentally poked too far through the cube rooted first or I could see them first.

Cheers and good luck.
 
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