A Batch of Clones in Rockwool

Thanx again Al I will watch the watering closer, I do have a small fan circulating in there. VV

Al B. Fuct said:

I had a few batches root slowly and coincidentally came across anecdotal evidence of nitrogen slowing rooting performance. I stopped adding nutes to the watering soln, instead just correcting pH to ~5.5-5.8. The last batch done like that popped first roots at 6 days with profuse roots at 10 days.

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It seems that adding even a weak amt of veg nutes to the clone watering soln was in fact slowing them down. Now I'm just using pH 5.5-5.8 water on the clones until they have a good spray of roots, when they get chucked in the flowering area. Back to reliably seeing first roots out of the cubes in 7 days.

Yes, all of the information I have felt was reliable said they use weak flowering nutes because it lower in N. This is the reason the author I read said you get better result cloning if you flush the mothers for a few days before taking clones. It drops the N 'which inhibits early root development'. Works out for me not using the mothers , thats another story. Good to see ya. VV

Al B. Fuct said:

It's trouble that everyone should have, but I have a small complexity introduced by clones being ready to plant a little sooner than usual this time around. I've only recently added the thermostat to the clonebox. The more stable temperature has made it about 3-4 days quicker than before. The speed of first roots showing is about the same as before adding the thermostat, but the development of profuse roots has come around much more quickly.

I would normally be doing a new batch of cuttings on the day I plant out the preceding batch. However, in this case, because the flowering area is on a 2-week rotation, I'll have to delay doing another batch to avoid feeding clones into the flowering room too quickly and having to remove plants from the other end of the pipeline before they are fully mature.

Since the clonebox looks like it will have future batches ready for planting in 12 days instead of 15, I'll time my next batch of clones accordingly.

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what kind of nutrients do you use? and what is the mix per gal? im having a hard time coming up with a good level mix

Excellent thread! All good info, thanks!

VictorVIcious said:

Yes, all of the information I have felt was reliable said they use weak flowering nutes because it lower in N. This is the reason the author I read said you get better result cloning if you flush the mothers for a few days before taking clones. It drops the N 'which inhibits early root development'. Works out for me not using the mothers , thats another story. Good to see ya. VV

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I've heard about cutting back on the nutes for the mothers before taking cuttings, and I've done that for the last couple of years. Really don't know if it helps or not. And I use a weak flowering nute for rooting cuttings because of the higher Phosphorus, I thought. I've read in some nutrient regimens to use their PK Booster product for a rooting nutrient.

HTH

I think both are correct. The higher phosphorus content helps. Actually I think it was you that suggested the flowering nutes originally and I followed that when I used the rockwool cubes. VV

VictorVIcious said:

I put the fourth table on flood and drain yesterday. Still have a few things to do. I have the mother table set and ready. Have clones in it now. The other three are all in flowering, two weeks apart. I replaced two of my 400watt lights with t-5 4' 8 bulb fixtures. I like what I see so far. The first harvest will be of those clones I took from the flowering plants, so they have multiple branches instead of the single cola so I will probably get a lower yield from them. We have had hot, humid weather for a few weeks now so everything has slowed down a little. I figure another three months I should have it all going smooth.

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? did u switch to the t-5 because heat was a issue, and if so what type of heat did u have with the hps lights?

very impressed with your findings, i believe that i will try SoG method of growing here soon and after reading this thread i am more than confident that i will be successful.. great work Al B.!!

VictorVIcious said:

Yes, all of the information I have felt was reliable said they use weak flowering nutes because it lower in N.

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The pH adjuster sauce I use is simply phosphoric acid. No N at all compared even to weak flowering nutes.

Harlesjohn said:

what kind of nutrients do you use? and what is the mix per gal? im having a hard time coming up with a good level mix

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I use Canna Vega and Flores. Mix rate is 400ml each A & B in a 125L tank of tap water. Yields 1400ppm @ pH 5.7 with pH 7.1 makeup water. Tanks are dumped every 2 weeks.

Tank 2, which of course feeds tray 2, for plants in wk2-4, gets 50ml of Canna PK-13-14 in week 3. Plants are only exposed to PK for 1 week before the tank is dumped and the process repeated for when the next batch advances from tray 1 (wk0-2).

lowerlevel said:

? did u switch to the t-5 because heat was a issue, and if so what type of heat did u have with the hps lights?

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VV has this weird affection going on for fluoros, beats the crap out of me why! The only real reason to flower with flo's is because you can't adequately vent the space to cool an HPS.

You can cool a single 400HPS with a 100mm fan (pref centrif) and dryer vent hose, as long as you can put the exhaust where it won't get sucked right back into the grow. Placing the ballast outside the grow airspace helps loads as do cooltubes. I've seen cooltubed 400s in a grow op airspace the size of a fridge.

Requirement #1 for any realistically productive indoor grow op is the ability to ventilate the space adequately. If you have enough airflow to keep the plants healthy, chances are you've got enough for a small HPS.

Flo's in flowering are really a last resort; if you simply don't have access to a space with adequate ventilation, flo's will get you through. They can make the difference between growing a little weed with not-so-dense buds, slowly- or none at all.

It's all in the light intensity. Flo's are low intensity light sources; HPS is a high-intensity source, which at optimum spacing isn't too far off from the intensity of sunlight. In some ways HPS is better than sunlight as you never have a cloudy day in a grow op!

Flo's do have good uses in every op- they're THE light for clones and can veg your mums adequately as well. However, if you want solid nugs and lots of them in the quickest way possible, you need HPS in flowering.

If there's any moderators pssing by, my lead post in this thread needs an edit. I can no longer edit the post.

The text

* 10L tapwater
* 3ml H2O2 (50% horticutural grade)
* 5ml each Canna Vega "A" and "B" nutrient, should yield a (weak) 400ppm solution
* pH corrected to 5.3-5.8 (correct pH after adding everything else)

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should be amended to

* 9-10L tapwater
* 9-10ml H2O2 (50% horticutural grade)
* pH adjust as needed to 5.8 (correct pH last)

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I've found the weak nutes slowed rooting and eliminated the step some months ago. 50% grade H2O2 should be applied at 1ml/L. Instruction is amended to 9ml to suit the ultra common 9L bucket size.

If you keep a bucket of clone watering soln for more than a couple of days, check pH after a couple of dip waterings- RW cubes may have some limestone dust which has a tendency to raise the pH of the watering soln as cubes are dipped in it. Correct down as needed. Add H2O2 every 3-4 days to keep soln sterile.

The hardest thing about cloning in RW cubes is not overwatering them. A damp 40mm cube should weigh no more than 25g. Heavier than that is too wet.

I water cubes by dipping only a corner of the bottom of the cube for less than a second until the clones have sent out first roots. They will want a LOT more water once they have a good spray of roots and are actively growing. Cubes with advanced rooted clones may have to be immersed to get them wet enough to carry the clone through 12 hours!

lowerlevel said:

? did u switch to the t-5 because heat was a issue, and if so what type of heat did u have with the hps lights?

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I've got a 24" dual T5 setup for seedlings, a 48" Quad T5 for clones, getting a 600w HPS for mothers, and a 1000w HPS for flowering.

T5's keep small bushy plants, slow veg, plenty of nodes. If I mixed in some red light they'd be taller than they are now; I'm using all blue lights right now.

The HPS on the mothers will help with making nice big clones for DWC.. thanks to Al's example.



Enigma

Heat is not an issue with HPS lighting if the ballast is located outside the airmass and cooltubes are used.

Enigma said:

getting a 600w HPS for mothers,

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That's a lot of light for mums. I am supporting 10 mums with a 400HPS and probably could do with a 250.

Al B. Fuct said:

That's a lot of light for mums. I am supporting 10 mums with a 400HPS and probably could do with a 250.

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Really?

I'll post a pic of my new idea.. later.



Enigma

... Hey everyone, I just reviewed this thread after posting my 4000th post in Al's other required reading thread, Get A Harvest Every Two Weeks. Couple thing I had forgotten to do, good thing I practiced on those male's. And I still have them damn T-5 lights hanging around.lol Props Al. VV

Well done, VV.

You realise that one day I am going to show up at your place and force you at bongpoint to install some HPS lights.

I will make it there before you get here. My wifes next business trip is going to be to Australia. They usually stay in two different cities, 3 to 4 days each. Don't know the details yet. You did notice I still have one of the 400 watt hps lights in use right? I am going to use it for about 10 mothers here in the next few months. IF you have the time I would appreciate it if you could post one of your clone pictures in my blues thread. I want to use it to explain the difference between running an op that is alreay set up and going and the shoestring operation I am running and I think having the picture right there will help drive the point home. VV

I have a question that is sort of relevant to this topic, but i didnt think it was worthy of making a thread, does rockwool germinate seeds well? BEcause i had tried to germinate in rockwool and it didnt work, so i threw it in a wet paper towel and in a bag and it germinated in 24 hours but i left it in for an additional day, but i only left the seed in the rockwool for about a day and a half, i think i was being impatient and didnt give it time, but does it work in rockwool bc i dont think i left it in for long enough.