- Thread starter
- #2,661
Oh I’ve definitely tried that, and also bleach, and boiling all my water. It didn’t seem to help one bit 
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Weasel Forges Ahead
- Thread starter Weaselcracker
- Start date
Hmm maybe try to run them a little cooler
- Thread starter
- #2,663
Ha ha. Thanks Penny. Tried lots of that too. I tried a bunch of batches as low as the high 50’s, and mid 60’s.... I warmed things back up a bit now and with the Z9 am trying just around 70°F which is SOP I think
As far as slime and bacteria in the water Z9 has always been my go to.
Skybound
Well-Known Member
It sounds to me like you're very well skilled at cloning and have several methods to switch between, but because your environment is extremely challenging here you are. My thought now is if your RH is 80% or higher, how does your media ever really dry out?
Someone (Doc Bud) caught me off guard yesterday with big words and I had to go look up what "osmotic pressure" is, and I found a short video on YouTube that explains basically that water flows to the salt, so if the plant has more salt than the media, water flows up, but if the media has more salt than the plant, the plant struggles to pull drops of water up. I know this sounds outlandish, but maybe get a piece of limestone to draw water away from the media enough to dry out the media in a timely manner?
I'm near certain I am successful because my media gets almost bone dry each day, so I can also saturate the starter cube each day. If I read your environment correct, I bet your cube would stay wet for 3 or more days which would then be more suitable for damping off cuts like it's the desired result. I presume you tried cloning in straight perlite to improve O2, but maybe somehow missed your mark? Whatever the case is, I/we can shoot ideas at you and you can determine which you might want to try or not try due to past experiences w/o need of explaining your choices.
If you didn't already, please respond to my PM as soon as you can. Though I am head over heals in love with using Bennies, I don't think they'll be too much help in this case, though I do hope I am wrong about that. My feeling is the wet/dry and if RH is as low as 80%, I question whether the media ever dries at all.
Someone (Doc Bud) caught me off guard yesterday with big words and I had to go look up what "osmotic pressure" is, and I found a short video on YouTube that explains basically that water flows to the salt, so if the plant has more salt than the media, water flows up, but if the media has more salt than the plant, the plant struggles to pull drops of water up. I know this sounds outlandish, but maybe get a piece of limestone to draw water away from the media enough to dry out the media in a timely manner?
I'm near certain I am successful because my media gets almost bone dry each day, so I can also saturate the starter cube each day. If I read your environment correct, I bet your cube would stay wet for 3 or more days which would then be more suitable for damping off cuts like it's the desired result. I presume you tried cloning in straight perlite to improve O2, but maybe somehow missed your mark? Whatever the case is, I/we can shoot ideas at you and you can determine which you might want to try or not try due to past experiences w/o need of explaining your choices.
If you didn't already, please respond to my PM as soon as you can. Though I am head over heals in love with using Bennies, I don't think they'll be too much help in this case, though I do hope I am wrong about that. My feeling is the wet/dry and if RH is as low as 80%, I question whether the media ever dries at all.
Greenlizard
Well-Known Member
Hi Weaselcracker,
Great journal. This discussion on cloning caught my attention and I can't help but type out my thoughts... lol
I see you have been battling fungi and other natural contaminants. What type of lighting are you cloning under?
Perhaps a light source with a bit of UV might help purify the area slightly of fungi spores, and bacteria?
I use a humidity dome but I think this also isolates your clones from some of those natural environmental issues.
My T5's give a little UV and perhaps that helps prevent this kind of stuff??? Just thinking out loud lol Cheers!
Great journal. This discussion on cloning caught my attention and I can't help but type out my thoughts... lol
I see you have been battling fungi and other natural contaminants. What type of lighting are you cloning under?
Perhaps a light source with a bit of UV might help purify the area slightly of fungi spores, and bacteria?
I use a humidity dome but I think this also isolates your clones from some of those natural environmental issues.
My T5's give a little UV and perhaps that helps prevent this kind of stuff??? Just thinking out loud lol Cheers!
- Thread starter
- #2,667
Oh things definitely dry out at 80%RH. Really anything short of 100% humidity and life goes on pretty much as usual. If things didn’t dry at those high RH levels then this whole place would be soaked constantly... hmmm... I mean even more soaked constantly.
Think about weed in a jar. The jar can be at 70% RH and the weed will definitely be dry- maybe just a little on the moist side. 70 would be a perfectly normal RH for tobacco though.
But actually I meant the RH of the outside world. In winter that often hovers around 90+. We’ve had a relatively dry winter and spring so it’s probably averaging closer to 70 now. Rain is beating down hard on the roof as I write though, so I suppose it’s 100% at the moment...
In the veg room where I do most of my cloning, down on the floor- I’m not sure what the RH is. I’m sure it varies a lot. I can throw a meter down there and check.
A tub of perlite takes about a week before I have to top things up a bit. This is about perfect IMO cause in the beginning the cuttings prefer having a bit of a drink. By the time they’re hopefully even thinking about rooting conditions are getting nice and dry which in my experience is when roots like to travel.
I don’t think I can chalk the problems up to humidity. The upper part of the cuttings seem happy and healthy. But in general when they sit there a while the bottoms rot out.
I think the Z9 is making the difference. I’ve yet to see rot in my latest perlite batch, which is a complete change from the past.
- Thread starter
- #2,668
It’s funny you say this. You of all people. One of my many debacles that I like to post about, was my discovery that one of the CFLs I used for cloning, was actually a 20w UV bulb for a lizard habitat.
I had that bulb in there for over a year- a fairly big thing that I got at the thrift store with it’s own reflector. I thought it was just a normal cfl but I got suspicious one time when I saw it had burned some of the cuttings. Closer investigation showed a picture of a lizard on the reflector, duh. I can’t say if it helped with the cloning much. Seems like it was about the same.
Honestly after that last experience with the green bread mould stuff- I feel like there’s no chance of sterilizing my grow and I shouldn’t even try.
I boiled the water, used all sterilized containers and scalpel, fresh perlite from a brand new bag, a brand new container of cloning gel, and boom there was green slimy mould all over everything pretty much instantly. No plastic dome is going to keep that stuff out.
- Thread starter
- #2,669
The rooted clone a few days after I took that last pic.
I did the math and it’s actually been 19 days since I started this batch, so not as long as I’d thought. The unrooted cuttings still seem healthy enough that I think the options are open- if they ever decide to grow some roots.
I did the math and it’s actually been 19 days since I started this batch, so not as long as I’d thought. The unrooted cuttings still seem healthy enough that I think the options are open- if they ever decide to grow some roots.
Could it just be strain related?
that is quite clever and dern funny,, well done friend,,
course the locals would disagree,, ten thousand years of it or so,,
Dankman_420
Well-Known Member
Take the not rooted one and dip it in clonex and stick it in dirt. I bet it will take rootThe rooted clone a few days after I took that last pic.
I did the math and it’s actually been 19 days since I started this batch, so not as long as I’d thought. The unrooted cuttings still seem healthy enough that I think the options are open- if they ever decide to grow some roots.
Dankman_420
Well-Known Member
Recently I had a problem with one strain that would not root in my cloner. After a couple weeks or so in the cloner with no roots I took them out of the cloner and dipped then stuck in Solo's in soil. Sure enough they took root. I was surprised that they rooted so fast in the soil. I think the stems being kind of soft from being in water so long may have helped
- Thread starter
- #2,674
Good idea and I’ll work on this and post some blather about it tomorrow
Last night was feeding #2 á la HydroBuddy and all the plants seem happy with the new diet. I’m very excited about this whole thing. Hey- now I can say I’m a HB grower...
Except - the good ol P Chunk. Sigh...
Isn’t this P deficiency? It normally shows this issue- or something a lot like it, but on the new diet it’s even worse.
- Thread starter
- #2,675
I can definitely tell that some strains are harder/easier to clone than others. But overall- there seems to be a general roadblock that’s affecting everything.
Oh yes Nivek.... truly our local culture is an awe inspiring thing.
But....I’m still betting on the fungi to win in the long race. Humans or mould - We’ll see who is the dominant culture in another 10,000 years.,,
Speaking of old culture's. Heard on radio yesterday, going to open up some old sites in Australia.. one they found artifacts dating back 100,000 years..other is a site not far from me, 6,500 year old fish breeding farm. Thats going to be world heritage listed...
I don't get it though, land was only discovered 200 years ago...
I don't get it though, land was only discovered 200 years ago...
Skybound
Well-Known Member
From my side, P is one of them things where def and tox look very similar, or perhaps there's something else that's out of whack such that P is being blocked? This is just a possibility though. You're in coco right? If yes, isn't coco fussy about calcium? I've read coco somehow leaches calcium out of the soup so perhaps your new targets are lacking in calcium for coco? FWIW, my high brix adventures has taken me to a place in my reservoir that has me seriously considering reverting to my old feed regimen and just compensating with foliar feeds. I got a really good product in the mail yesterday that is fish hydrolysate that is 2-4-1 which resolves about all parts equal after K2O and P2O5 are refactored. I made a foliar spray with it and a half gram of gypsum to get a small dose of Ca in there as well. I'll know in about 2 weeks if this is a more viable option for us, but my current thought is we can give a nice even mild serving up top and let the roots fill in what's needed. IDK if it quite works out that way inside the plant, or the science of things, but it's just my overall feeling from studies.
Would you kindly share a screen shot of your NB nute regimen? I remember when trying to work with branded nutes that I needed to intentionally skew my targets to make HB resolve the numbers closest to what I originally intended.
- Thread starter
- #2,678
Thanks. Definitely, I’d be happy to have you look at those numbers in the H Buddy thread. No I’m not in coco these days it’s Sunshine Mix- which is like Promix.
Skybound
Well-Known Member
Isn't promix dirt? IMO, that would kind of change the rules that apply to each of us. My media is completely inert whereas yours I think is loaded with organics and microbes, so my feed might be poisonous in dirt, my ratios might even be counter productive. I could try to help make educated guesses, but if you're in dirt, you'll be doing some pioneering.
- Thread starter
- #2,680
Well I can’t speak for Promix I guess but no -Sunshine Mix is not dirt. It’s soilless. Peat moss and perlite. It has some lime I believe to counter the peat moss acidity. But basically it’s just an inert medium same as coco.