How To Clone A Cannabis Plant

This entire thread has been a great read. Will be trying our first clones in a few days (Bianca, a hybrid fem)& I feel pretty confident now. Thanks for asking & answering most of my questions everyone!
 
I haven't been able to clone anything from my hydro system. And my soil grown mothers seems stunted (and they don't look healthy. Small leaves and slow growth. Northern lights and white widow) and clones off of those are not successful either. I have had my 72 spot humidity dome full with viable clones from winter indoor soil grows. Even cloned in straight water with ease. I'm saying I have had before nice roots in 2 weeks. Now, I can't seem to produce any successful clones. Even from super healthy plants from hydro. They just wilt ... the base gets slimy. I pulled some out to see if any root action was going on. Nothing. What am I doing wrong? Anyone else gone from cloning is easy ... to ... what's going on? I can't even produce one good clone. Feeling jinxed.
 
dirtybud said:
I haven't been able to clone anything from my hydro system. And my soil grown mothers seems stunted (and they don't look healthy. Small leaves and slow growth. Northern lights and white widow) and clones off of those are not successful either. I have had my 72 spot humidity dome full with viable clones from winter indoor soil grows. Even cloned in straight water with ease. I'm saying I have had before nice roots in 2 weeks. Now, I can't seem to produce any successful clones. Even from super healthy plants from hydro. They just wilt ... the base gets slimy. I pulled some out to see if any root action was going on. Nothing. What am I doing wrong? Anyone else gone from cloning is easy ... to ... what's going on? I can't even produce one good clone. Feeling jinxed.
Click to expand...
Well I don't use that system. If its the type that sprays water on the clone stems I'm pretty sure the pH levels need to be right and there is a some kind of additives you could include like microhizae. As far as the moms, are they in soil? when was the last time the roots were trimmed and transplanted. If root bound the pH can get out of balance as it goes downhill too.
:peace:
 
I did not mean to say that I use any particular system. I use rockwool cubes and rooting hormone and a standard humidity dome. My pH is 5.5 to 6. And my EC is .4 to .8. The temperatures in my room or 75 to 80°F. The mothers are in soil. They are not root-bound. But I did accidentally over fertilize them at one point. Now they grow slow and the stems are somewhat Woody.
My Hydro grown plants are very healthy but I have not had any successful clones grown from the healthy stems.
 
I was tired when I wrote that so I'm sorry if I came off harsh. :bigblush: I use a dome/rooter type plug system with a regular heat pad people use for their back pain underneath the main tray. I line the tray with pebble rock and put the plug tray over that then fill with water just so it is barely able to touch the bottom of the root plug tray. I believe this makes the clone look for water beneath it. I turn on the heat pad about 30 mins ahead of taking clones. Then I make cuttings from the mother so I have 4 or 5 nodes, trim the last 3 nodes and cut the remaining leaves in half, I trim the length of the remaining stem last at a 45 degree angle so that what is left sticking out will be about two inches above the plug, I scrape some of the stem in random places below the surface of the plug just before I dip it into some clonex(though I have used nothing and still got a living clone) and then immediately place into a presoaked rooter plug. When finished placing my clones I mist all of them using a fine misting bottle and cover with the dome without any breathing holes open for the first couple days. I put a cfl above and have a small fan blowing across it as well to keep the heat of the cfl from creating a hot spot on the dome. The more droplets that collect the better the light is dispersed evenly. I have a remote temp sensor I place through the breathe hole. First few days are at about 78 degrees F then I make adjustments to the pad control or just moving the pad slightly out from the bottom to bring it down slowly until I see the roots, then I turn off the pad. I do breathe into the dome about 4 or 6 times to give it some CO2 immediately and then at least once a day everyday afterward. After about 5 days I open the breathe holes about a quarter inch each but still breathe into it. At 10 days the breathe hole are opened full. Sometimes it takes 10 to 14 days before the roots show. I only add water to the plug once I see roots or if it seems dry to the touch. Sometimes I add water to the rocks below to keep the moisture up. I have not had a single failure yet, when I run out of rooter plugs next time I might try a rock wool instead but only out of experiment, and that is only because I have good success with this method - so why fix it if it ain't broke :)
I don't think your issue is related to the mother getting too much nutes but you could try flushing the mother if it is still showing signs of trouble. I keep my mother in a cloth pot for about a year now - its about 3 years old in all. I hope something here helps. :)
:peace:
 
Well, seems I was getting lazy in my process - born from experiments where I had skipped 1. clipping leaves off and 2. providing moisture by misting because they didn't seem to need it.
The cloning process is tough to survive in the first place. Plants must survive with as little energy as possible. It's a fine balance of removing what it can't support in providing moisture but not too much that it can't provide energy to make roots and photosynthesis after it makes roots.
I wasn't clipping off enough leaves nor providing a regular regimen of misting.
The reason I started skipping these two processes was to find the threshold on removing/keeping leaves as to enhance the recovery process once roots started. The more leaves left on the plant would speed up recovery process of the clones to providing it's own energy through photosynthesis and try to avoid the stunted state where larger leaves would die. Some clones survive with only the young meristamatic tissue which is not mature enough to become it's own plant.
There is a fine balance of taking away too much and not taking away enough. Or improving how fast you have a clone vs it turning into a plant. It takes time for clones to recover. The variables for me that seems to have been affected were temperature. 75 deg. Make sure a mist of moisture is always present. Only leave two large top leaves and clip the the tips off.
These exacting variables combined are huge, yet subtle.
 
I spoke too soon. A majority of my clones are still rotting at the stem within the rockwool in 2-3 days. What do I not have right? I am following all the steps ...
and happy 420!
 
Where are you taking your clones from in relationship to the whole plant? Size dia. stem? How many internodes?
I took mine from the bottom of the plants. 3-5 internodes. 1/16" dia. green fleshy stems.
 
Right off hand I would say there is too much water in the rock wool, I mist at the beginning and let the heat pad under the pebble rock provide the moisture from there. Don't let any standing water touch the rock wool. These are guesses without a pic. I use rooter plugs so I am not sure how rock wool retains water.
If was going to use rock wool cubes I would probably let them sit on a something that keeps them away from direct contact with water yet allows the roots to go down into water once they appear. The leaf is the only way it has to get water until roots begin so moisture or I should say humid air is important along with light. the first few days.
If you scraped the stem you may have scraped too deep, I usually just scratch it a little bit.
Put up a pic so we can see your setup. :)
here is a youtube vid that uses a rockwool setup check it out and see if you are following all these steps:
 
The problem for rotting was the use of cloning solution. I'll explain as I stated the problem in an earlier post. In all my experiments with clones that were set in water or In rock wool, they all rotted and eventually became slimy in applications when the rooting hormone contacted the outer layer. I changed the water daily those set in a cup of water. Those that didn't have rooting gel or powder applied, did fine in plain tap water changed every few days. Took 2 weeks to get roots though. And it helps if my clones were 8- 10 inches long with nearly 1/4" stems. 1/8 or smaller didn't do so well. Temps between 75-80 F. Strain was northern lights.
 
I think the cut the tips of the leaves just for the extra safety, As clones don't have roots to quickly draw water which is why they're usually under humidity domes or misted maybe bigger fan leaves just require too much water.... just a thought idk....
 
i had same issue once. i cut like 5 at a time and i get 3-4 of them. but i found the easier way is the simplest. and always works better for some reason.
 
i heard they work great. i have one called auto sprouter - freshlife and it sucks.
 
some strains clone very easily. my ice, from nirvanna, does well. however, two free fem seeds i got, do not clone worth a darn. i have been able to get only one to live, out of ten or more, of critical sensi star. really terrible. i heard its harder to clone off a feminized plant. not sure how much truth there is to that. many of my more successfull cuttings, i put directly into soilless small pots. they seem to do better, as this eliminates the first transplant. they have their own pot, from birth, so to speak. many cant take any more than a hint of one cfl light, for several days.
 
I have been having 100% success with cuttings from a dispensary in NM. They cut.use a cutting gel and put them in starter plugs or rockwool. I take them and put them in a tray w/ a grid inside the tray to keep them out of the H2O then use a dome cover. I mist them several times a day and breath on them(CO2) keeping the temp. between 75-80 degrees and the humidity up. I have roots within 8 to 14 days, usually the shorter time.
The cuttings are all from fem plants. I have just finished my fourth set of cuttings with no failures!!!!
 
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