I'm THIS far behind in the thread, lol - so someone probably already mentioned this, but...
Personally, I would be somewhat hesitant to depend on a microwave oven to sterilize soil. Seems like those things... I've always had the impression that they heat a thing to a certain temperature by heating a very small part of that thing to way, way hotter than you're trying to achieve... which, in turn, heats up the rest (more or less :rolleyes3 ) of the thing.
When I heat food up in it, I end up stirring a time or two (if appropriate). And then I let whatever it is set for two to three minutes after the microwave stops, to give the too-hot portions time to give some of that heat up to the not-hot-enough portions, then stir some more...
And still sometimes end up with a mouthful of food that could have come straight out of the refrigerator instead of the oven (and after burning my mouth on the last bite).
I don't know whether or not the extremely hot bits would experience any chemical changes (and even if this is possible, it would probably depend on the composition of the soil itself plus any nutrients/etc. contained within it). But I would very much be concerned about whether or not I'd end up with portions of the soil which didn't get hot enough to be sterilized.
With an actual OVEN oven, I'd expect the thing (in this case, a batch of soil) to be more evenly warmed.
Just my opinion...
I kind of miss the one plant per days. I don't really chase yields any more, and haven't sold for years, so the fact that I'll never hit big "per watt" numbers again doesn't bother me. But the simplicity involved, knowing that the nutrients I mix can be targeted towards the one plant since I don't have to worry about another plant requiring far more - or far less - nutrients... And I've always liked doing the "scrog thing" with extended vegetative-growth times.
OtOH, lol, there are so many strains out there. So I haven't done single-plant grows in a while, and it'll probably be another while before I end up doing another one.
There's a tree in... Utah, I think, some kind of Aspen. It's named Pando. It's a clonal organism. And it's OLD. Apparently, the last time it successfully flowered was ~10,000 years ago (something to do with the climatic (etc.) conditions since then, IIRC). Most estimates put the root system at around 80,000 years of age - although some have thought the organism might be up to a million years old.
It was still healthy ~100 years ago. Appears to be dying now, but...
Different sort of clones, of course - those are still attached to the same root system, AfaIK.
I cannot help but feel the same way. AKGramma, you obviously manage to grow plants from seed to harvest. So I feel strongly that the issue isn't one of competency, lol. I'd guess that half of people's issues (with successfully rooting cuttings) are basically just fear - "Oh, I can't do that!" kind of thing. Then there's the "newbie love" thing - "kiss it and love it and hug it and squeeze it and... gee, why did it die?" - of doing too much. For example, I used to see a lot of people use humidity dome type things, end up looking like a plant sauna with drops of water all over the inside. "Are you trying to grow roots or rot," I wondered, lol. Stuff like that - people read 100 different things that others have done when cloning, so they try doing all of them :rolleyes3 .
Again, I think you are competent enough to do it. Ergo, I also feel that it's probably an environmental condition (or combination of two or more) that's giving you grief on this one.
I don't really give much specific advice on rooting cuttings any more. Because, last several years, I've mostly just made sure my cuttings have had good fresh-cut ends with a reasonable amount of surface area, tried to avoid an air bubble, and stuck them into... pretty much whatever was handy, lol. 50:50 vermiculite and perlite mix, an even mix of those plus whatever soil I had within reach... or a glass of water. And I've done so in whatever container I had - clear plastic water bottles work well for me, even, and they've allowed me to see the roots growing (even though we've long been told to keep light away from our plants' roots). I don't worry about heat and humidity unless it's Winter and my environment is definitely lacking one or both; I feel that a less wet media encourages root growth.
Up there, in Alaska, at this time of year... Might be the only situation where I'd actually try some kind of humidity dome setup. Might put my cuttings (in their individual containers) into a small box that I can set partially on a heating pad, to gently warm their environment. IDK.
I don't even have "clone lighting" these days. There's usually a semi-shaded area in the grow space that provides some light without blasting the cutting(s).
Things root a little slower than when I was sticking them into a float in a highly-areated bucket of water. <SHRUGS> I'm in less of a hurry these days, though, so....
I was reading through and was ready to tell you baking the medium would sterilize it, when you determined the microwaving was the way to go, and I realized I could be doing that to sterilize my perlite instead of baking it for hours at a time. Thank you so much for that.
Personally, I would be somewhat hesitant to depend on a microwave oven to sterilize soil. Seems like those things... I've always had the impression that they heat a thing to a certain temperature by heating a very small part of that thing to way, way hotter than you're trying to achieve... which, in turn, heats up the rest (more or less :rolleyes3 ) of the thing.
When I heat food up in it, I end up stirring a time or two (if appropriate). And then I let whatever it is set for two to three minutes after the microwave stops, to give the too-hot portions time to give some of that heat up to the not-hot-enough portions, then stir some more...
And still sometimes end up with a mouthful of food that could have come straight out of the refrigerator instead of the oven (and after burning my mouth on the last bite).
I don't know whether or not the extremely hot bits would experience any chemical changes (and even if this is possible, it would probably depend on the composition of the soil itself plus any nutrients/etc. contained within it). But I would very much be concerned about whether or not I'd end up with portions of the soil which didn't get hot enough to be sterilized.
With an actual OVEN oven, I'd expect the thing (in this case, a batch of soil) to be more evenly warmed.
Just my opinion...
I kind of miss the one plant per days. I don't really chase yields any more, and haven't sold for years, so the fact that I'll never hit big "per watt" numbers again doesn't bother me. But the simplicity involved, knowing that the nutrients I mix can be targeted towards the one plant since I don't have to worry about another plant requiring far more - or far less - nutrients... And I've always liked doing the "scrog thing" with extended vegetative-growth times.
OtOH, lol, there are so many strains out there. So I haven't done single-plant grows in a while, and it'll probably be another while before I end up doing another one.
There's a tree in... Utah, I think, some kind of Aspen. It's named Pando. It's a clonal organism. And it's OLD. Apparently, the last time it successfully flowered was ~10,000 years ago (something to do with the climatic (etc.) conditions since then, IIRC). Most estimates put the root system at around 80,000 years of age - although some have thought the organism might be up to a million years old.
It was still healthy ~100 years ago. Appears to be dying now, but...
Different sort of clones, of course - those are still attached to the same root system, AfaIK.
I cannot help but feel the same way. AKGramma, you obviously manage to grow plants from seed to harvest. So I feel strongly that the issue isn't one of competency, lol. I'd guess that half of people's issues (with successfully rooting cuttings) are basically just fear - "Oh, I can't do that!" kind of thing. Then there's the "newbie love" thing - "kiss it and love it and hug it and squeeze it and... gee, why did it die?" - of doing too much. For example, I used to see a lot of people use humidity dome type things, end up looking like a plant sauna with drops of water all over the inside. "Are you trying to grow roots or rot," I wondered, lol. Stuff like that - people read 100 different things that others have done when cloning, so they try doing all of them :rolleyes3 .
Again, I think you are competent enough to do it. Ergo, I also feel that it's probably an environmental condition (or combination of two or more) that's giving you grief on this one.
I don't really give much specific advice on rooting cuttings any more. Because, last several years, I've mostly just made sure my cuttings have had good fresh-cut ends with a reasonable amount of surface area, tried to avoid an air bubble, and stuck them into... pretty much whatever was handy, lol. 50:50 vermiculite and perlite mix, an even mix of those plus whatever soil I had within reach... or a glass of water. And I've done so in whatever container I had - clear plastic water bottles work well for me, even, and they've allowed me to see the roots growing (even though we've long been told to keep light away from our plants' roots). I don't worry about heat and humidity unless it's Winter and my environment is definitely lacking one or both; I feel that a less wet media encourages root growth.
Up there, in Alaska, at this time of year... Might be the only situation where I'd actually try some kind of humidity dome setup. Might put my cuttings (in their individual containers) into a small box that I can set partially on a heating pad, to gently warm their environment. IDK.
I don't even have "clone lighting" these days. There's usually a semi-shaded area in the grow space that provides some light without blasting the cutting(s).
Things root a little slower than when I was sticking them into a float in a highly-areated bucket of water. <SHRUGS> I'm in less of a hurry these days, though, so....
. No... On second thought, that would be a disaster. Too much of the time, I'd just end up pushing that button in as far as it would go - and then taping it down.
:
I forsee a long afternoon nap today.
I think some thripes survived in my veg cab .. Gonna give them a full treatment once the flower space aka tub is clear.
