Jrosek was the guy who taught me how to Hempy SOG, I try to carry on his tradition and I am glad that others caught on to its advantages.
These are my thoughts on cloner additives:
I dont use them because I find them to be unnecessary to rooting and a possible foodsource for pathogens in your cloner. I like to keep the cloner sterile and the water clean because the main goal is to avoid getting any slime on the stems / roots.
I keep my cuts in the bubble cloner for 3 weeks so that when I take them out the roots are well developed for transplant. For the first week or so when the clones have no roots they dont have any ability to uptake nutes out of the cloner water. So the clone lives on the stored up reserves it has in the leaf itself. When the roots start to show up the clone would be able to uptake some food that could be in the water but then that clone would start to grow when some of the other clones dont have roots yet.
So you start to create a disparity in the sizes of your clones.
When there is no food in the water the clones continue to use the stored up nutes just like all the rest of the cuts that could or could not be rooting yet. So the grow stays at the same rate as the rest of the clones. This allows everything to root by the end of the three weeks and all stay roughly the same size.
As for rooting gels and powders or solutions, I just see them as a Vector for pathogens. The ingredients in them could be food for things like Pythium to take a hold and start spreading to the stems / roots.
I use well water so Pythium and Algae are present and if they get enough food to start growing and enough warmth then they will start to colonize on the stems.
Its important to keep the temps in the low 70's because it keeps those bad fungus from growing and the clones do ok at that temp. I found below 70 the its still safe from the fungus but the clones tend to root a little slower.
When cloning I just try to be patient to allow the clones to do what they will do when no fungus stops them. As iam not in a hurry to produce clones as fast as possible. I dont see it as a race to get the clone from the mother to rooted as fast as possible. Mainly because some clones will root faster then another cut will. My goal is to have all the clones at the same rooted stage all together at the same time. That way when I transplant everything is quite similar and you get an even canopy.
So I have 3 full weeks for cloning worked into my cycle each rotation.
Clones will root with no nutes or additives in plain water as long as you keep the fungus from preventing that.
One of the most important factors to keep away the fungus beyond all that other stuff is Light. The water and the roots need to be in darkness the whole time they are rooting. I find that I get better results using a dark plastic container for the cloner. Currently I am using dark grey rubbermaid brute storage totes. The plastic is thicker then some totes and it helps to keep the light from leaking into the water / rooting area.
Another little thing, you wont need to cut the leaves of your clones anymore when you put them in the cloner. That is a trick used by growers to slow down the transpiration of the clone to avoid wilting. But since you will be giving them a dark period after the cut they wont wilt and they wont transpire too much water so the leafs wont need to be cut.
I found its just an unnecessary step.
The un cut leaf will even block some of the light from penetrating down into the res by shading the light so that it a minor bonus.
So keep the light out of the cloner rez, keep temps in check and avoid adding anything that might be food for a fungus to take ahold.
When you do it this way the clone might end up looking a little hungry but they will all be the same size and same health with a good rooting success rate.
