** Cloning with Azi **
For anyone new at cloning or looking for a simple, effective, and SIP friendly approach I thought I'd detail my process.
I used to be horrible at rooting cuttings, and in fact successfully participated in the International Worst Cloner Of The Year competitions held each year around the world. I never did medal in them as I was always able to get a small percentage to root which kept the lights on, but man did I suck. And the few clones I did get to root took a long time and looked pretty sickly by the time they did.
I tried everything you could imagine including soil, coco, glasses of water, bubble mist cloner contraptions of three different types, DWC, domes, rooting hormones, you name it. Nothing worked very well for me which I attribute to my environment, but I kept at it. I even started a cloning thread recently (which you can read through
here ) but for those of you that like to jump straight to the last chapter of the book I'll detail my process below.
My criteria was that I wanted something simple, highly successful, consistent and involved no judgement, no noise, no hardening off, no domes, no pumps, no rooting hormone, no complicated builds, etc and this approach checks all of those boxes.
The Build
Find a container that won't hold water. A regular small nursery pot would work fine but I use a Solo cup with a small hole made with a soldering iron or small drill bit. If you're using cups you can cut a slit with scissors on the side of the cup at the very bottom corner. I make a corresponding hole at the top of the cup so I can easily see where the bottom hole is. I use a clear Solo inside of an opaque one.
Congratulations, your build is finished.
The Medium
Fill the container with something coarse that breathes well; perlite, pumice, or coarse builder's sand.
The Process
I take cuttings from the ends of branches about 4-5"/10-12cm long, trimming away any branches below the top flush of leaves fairly close to the stem but leaving a little stub. The smaller the better as that's less wound for the plant to heal. If you do this step the day before you cut it while the cutting is still attached to the plant you'll get roots a day or two earlier. My theory on this is that the plant will send repair hormones to heal these cuts and these hormones are still present the next day when you actually cut the clone and that helps wth the rooting process. Plus, those wounds will have scabbed over and need less repair effort after the cutting is removed from the plant.
I place the clones in a cup of water immediately after cutting them from the plant and leave them there for 20-30 minutes to let them fully hydrate.
Then make a hole in the medium slightly larger than the stem width with a chopstick or other tool, stick your cutting and firm the medium around the cut by pressing down and around. I have small plants and therefore small cuttings but I can fit 5-10 in a standard Solo cup. Doesn't matter at all if the leaves touch or overlap. Mist the medium well until water drips out the drain hole.
Then mist the leaves twice a day, I do roughly 12 hours apart. When I spray, I place the cups in a large storage container stood on end which contains any overspray. After I'm done I tilt the container on one corner and drain the excess water into another cup for use on other plants. I use straight tap water, left in an open container for 24 hours to help off-gas any chlorine out of habit but really don't think that matters a bit.
I leave the cuttings off to the side, out of direct light and in fact I have a piece of cardboard on the side of the cuttings area to block any direct light. And I keep them in an environment with more than 12 hours of light since I don't want them trying to flower while they're rooting. I keep them in my veg room at 18/6.
I get roots in 7-10 days and usually let them stay in the cups for 3-4 weeks total before potting up but I have potted them at as little as 14 days. I just like a better developed rooting system before I do. I don't feed them or rewet the medium at all while still in the cups as drips from the twice daily misting of the leaves keeps the medium moist enough. Taking more cuttings than I plan to plant allows me to select the best of the best from the group and there are always one or two that are appreciably better than the others.
When my veg room top temps drop below mid-80*'sF/30*C I'll use a heat mat set to that range which helps rooting in winter.
This process is borrowed from the commercial "Rooted Cuttings Industry" where they root thousands of landscape plants in sand beds using intermittent mist and under shade cloth to protect from direct sunlight.
Rooting cuttings is really hard until it clicks, but once you find a process that works for you it becomes easy. And this is the one that clicked for me. And, because the cuttings are rooted in the same environment as your veg space, there is no hardening off required. They go directly into my organic soil SIP and don't miss a beat.
Good luck!
