Cuttings
- Thread starter justjr27
- Start date
Cuttings should be immediately put into clone gel or other preservation and then put into rockwool cubes. Rockwool works really well for cuttings. As long as the other person has a clone dome with adequate warmth and humidity, I see no harm in giving them fresh cuttings. It will still take some time to root, so use your best judgement. ;-)
I left some cuttings wrapped in a paper towel in a fridge for three days once. After the first night of forgetting I kind of figured they were done and couldn't bring myself to mess with them lol.
When I did pull them out and unwrap them, they were a wilted mess. They looked worse than the remains of that bag of old leaf lettuce you've forgotten in the back of your vegetable drawer.
But they were also the last of a very prized unknown strain. So I re-cut the ends at a 45° angle under running filtered water, scraped the bottom inch of stem pretty good, wet the entire cutting down, and stuck them into clear(ish) cups of moistened soil that was 50% perlite, 25% vermiculite, and 25% cactus mix (with the rocks removed). Some of them wouldn't even stand up on their own. I figured they were goners and set them on top of the medicine cabinet where they'd be a couple inches from the row of CFLs in the light bar and left the lights on for warmth and light. I used the "clear" (actually translucent white) cups so that in the unlikely event that they rooted, I would be able to tell without tugging on the stems.
I really didn't have much (any) hope but a few days later they didn't look like spoiled salad bits and they all eventually grew roots and started reaching for the lights. At that point I put them under better lights and when I could see lots of roots (yeah, I know, I was asking for algae but none grew) I rinsed the light "soil" mixture off in the kitchen sink, stuck them in plastic cups full of geolite(?) clay balls and into the hydro setup where I hand-watered them for a week or so until their roots had grown long enough to reach into the oxygenated reservoir whereupon they took off and eventually saved the summer.
So while Ms. Fox is correct that clones should be dealt with immediately, don't automatically despair if circumstances keep you from dealing with them right away. I'm sure that I got lucky, they were a hybridized cross with lots of vigor, and the refrigerator had to help - but we're talking about a plant that grows in cracks in the sidewalk, outside windows when seeds have been pitched, and even in people's closets. Most of the time, they're tough girls who want to live.
When I did pull them out and unwrap them, they were a wilted mess. They looked worse than the remains of that bag of old leaf lettuce you've forgotten in the back of your vegetable drawer.
But they were also the last of a very prized unknown strain. So I re-cut the ends at a 45° angle under running filtered water, scraped the bottom inch of stem pretty good, wet the entire cutting down, and stuck them into clear(ish) cups of moistened soil that was 50% perlite, 25% vermiculite, and 25% cactus mix (with the rocks removed). Some of them wouldn't even stand up on their own. I figured they were goners and set them on top of the medicine cabinet where they'd be a couple inches from the row of CFLs in the light bar and left the lights on for warmth and light. I used the "clear" (actually translucent white) cups so that in the unlikely event that they rooted, I would be able to tell without tugging on the stems.
I really didn't have much (any) hope but a few days later they didn't look like spoiled salad bits and they all eventually grew roots and started reaching for the lights. At that point I put them under better lights and when I could see lots of roots (yeah, I know, I was asking for algae but none grew) I rinsed the light "soil" mixture off in the kitchen sink, stuck them in plastic cups full of geolite(?) clay balls and into the hydro setup where I hand-watered them for a week or so until their roots had grown long enough to reach into the oxygenated reservoir whereupon they took off and eventually saved the summer.
So while Ms. Fox is correct that clones should be dealt with immediately, don't automatically despair if circumstances keep you from dealing with them right away. I'm sure that I got lucky, they were a hybridized cross with lots of vigor, and the refrigerator had to help - but we're talking about a plant that grows in cracks in the sidewalk, outside windows when seeds have been pitched, and even in people's closets. Most of the time, they're tough girls who want to live.
