Cloning 101 - Controlled Clone Experiment - RIU user input welcomed

I have been cloning a while now and have used several methods, some successful and some not so much. In this thread I will be doing controlled tests over the next year to nail down the best possible cloning method as far as rooting times and clone health goes.

Here's my current setup.

GEAR
Room: 4'x4'x7' Tent
Bulb: 1000W Hortilux BLUE Metal Halide
Ballast: 1000W Lumatek Switchable & Dimmable
Reflector: Magnum XXXL 8"
Intake: Can Fan 4" HO
Exhaust: Vortex 6" Inline Fan (cools reflector)

MOTHER PLANT NUTRIENTS (pH 5.5)
Base: Dutch Master Gold Range A&B @10ml/gal
Roots: Canna Rhizotonic @15ml/gal OR House and Garden Roots Excelurator @1ml/gal
B-1: Technaflora Thrive Alive B-1 Red @12ml/gal
Silica: DynaGro Pro-Tekt @2ml/gal
Enzymes: Hygrozyme @8ml/gal
Mycorrhizae: Great White @3 scoops per 5 gallons once every other week
Carbs: Botanicare Sweet @10ml/gal
Humic Acid: GH Diamond Nectar @5ml/gal
Foliar: Technaflora Thrive Alive B-1 Red @5ml/liter daily
Foliar: Dutch Master Saturator & Liquid Light @60ml/liter 1-2 times weekly

*note: I don't use Rhizotonic and Roots Excelurator together. I have noticed that Rhizotonic gives me much finer roots hairs and Roots Excelurator gives me bigger stronger roots. From my experience I have found that rotating between the two gives me an optimal root system.

MOTHER PLANTS
Strain: SFV OG Kush
Age: 6 weeks
Growing Medium: 100% Canna Coco in 5 & 7 gallon Smart Pots
Status: Started from clones in 2 gallon plastic pots. A healthy root system was established after 2 weeks and then they were transplanted into 5 and 7 gallon smart pots. They have been in smart pots for exactly a month today and growth rates are about 5" every 2 days according to a measurement I took on September 5th. Each plant has 25-50 cutting sites on it. I will be taking cuttings in a week or less. I want to let them grow another 5-10" so when I take clones I am able to leave two nodes behind (topping) each branch I take a cutting from so 2 more will grow in it's place and double the amount of clones I will be able to take on the next round.

Here's some pictures of a my mothers that I took today.

Nice mama! What method are you using for cloning?

i've dreamed of doing this im just too lazy

Damn I love cloning..Saves your treasures. Nice healthy plants bro.

For the sake of the experiment I'm going to take the first round of cuttings using the same methods I've been using for the last few years. Here's the steps to my current method.


1. Pre-soak rockwool in a 5.5pH solution of quarter strength Thrive Alive B-1, A+B base nutes, and Rhizotonic (ppm usually about 200)
2. Gently squeeze excess water from cubes so they're pretty moist but not dripping
3. Make 45 degree cuts just below a node that is about 3-5 nodes below the crown of the cutting.
4. Place cuts in 5.5 pH'd glass of water
5. After cuts are taken, cut off the lower leaves for only a couple sets remain below the crown.
6. Use a razor to strip of some of the outer skin of the lower portion of the clone where I made my 45 degree razor cut
7. Immediately submerge end of cutting into Clonex for 5-10 seconds
8. Place the cutting into the rockwool. I prefer not to use the pre-made holes in the rockwool since they don't always give the clone a nice snug fit. A general rule of thumb I have is if the clone bends and is not strong enough to puncture the rockwool (not the pre-made hole) then the clone isn't one worth taking
9. Place the clones in rockwool into a 10"x20". The less clones per tray the better IMO. You don't want a clone to be too close to one next to it so leaves are overlapping. Moisture will get trapped between overlapping leaves and can lead to mold. It's also good to have enough spacing between clones so they are all getting enough light and not in the shadow of a neighboring clone. Depending on the spacing it's sometimes good to cut the fan leaves in half. I have heard many reasons for this. Some people say that cutting the tips off fan leaves will cause the plant to focus it's energy towards rooting. Others say it's just to keep a tray with lots of clones in it from being overcrowded. The 10"x20" trays will fit 50 cubes and cuttings but I try to stay around 30 clones per tray.
10. Spray cuttings with half strength Rhizotonic solution.
11. Place humidity dome over the tray with the vents close. Place the tray under flourescent tubes. Open the vents after 1 week and check for roots. If no roots, check again on day 10 and everyday following. I sometimes see roots as early as a week and as late as 3 weeks but usually around day 10 is when the majority of my clones start popping out roots.

EXPERIMENT STEPS
Round 1. After this first round I will be adjusting the variables one at a time for each new round. I plan on testing rooting hormones first. The first round will be all Clonex since it's already proved itself a worthy competitor.
Round 2.The following round I'll use Clonex, Rootech, Olivias, Hormex, Azos, and no hormones in a head to head while keeping everything else from the previous round the same.
Round 3a. Once I find which rooting hormone gives the best result I will stick with that and move onto the next variable which will be my presoak solution. Currently I presoak my rockwool in about 200ppm solution at 5.5pH of B-1, base nutes, and Rhizotonic. For this third round I will put a 200ppm presoak solution head to head with straight 5.5pH'd water.
Round 3b. In the same round as the presoak test I will also do a test where I cut half of the cuttings fan leaves in half and leave the other half of the cuttings in tact.
Round 4a. In this fourth round of cuttings I will be taking the top results from the previous 3 rounds and test the grow medium variable. I will most likely put rockwool, rapid rooters, and jiffy pucks head to head.
Round 4b. In the fourth round of medium testing I will also be testing cutting methods. I will do one tray of just a 45 degree cut, another tray of a 45 degree cut and shaving off the outer skin of the stem, another tray of a 45 degree cut and also splitting the bottom of the stem by cutting it down the center, and the fourth and last tray I will cut a 45 degree and combine both methods of shaving off the outer skin and splitting the stem. The stem splitting is something I haven't tried yet but I'm curious to see the results after hearing that it has worked well for others.
Round 5. By round 5 I will know what rooting hormone, pre-soak solution, growing medium, and stem & fan leave cutting methods deliver the best results. Here is where I will test a couple things. I will take one tray of cuttings from a mother who has been flushed with only water for a week, another tray from a mother that has been fed my normal solution, another tray from a mother who has been fed my normal solution but has also been boosted with an extra dose of carbs (Botanicare Sweet), and lastly a fourth tray that is cut from a mother that has only been fed water and Sweet for a week. My reason for this is that you always hear opposing opinions on whether or not to flush before taking clones. The carb addition of this test is because I've heard that a plant with more stored up carbs will root better. I have never tested this though so I'll see if adding extra sugar helps the plant while also seeing if nutes or flush before cloning is better.

For Round 6 I'm hoping to get some suggestions from RIU users. Here's some variables I've been considering testing:

-heat mat vs. none
-humidity dome vs. none
-moisture levels of cubes or plugs
-t5 vs t8 vs LED lighting

Feel free to add ideas to what variables or different methods that I haven't thought of or touched on yet. I will not be using EZ-Clone or other cloning machines in these tests because the worlds are so different between rooting in a medium and having free hanging roots, not to mention it would be way too loud to have 4 water pumps, 4 air pumps, and 8-16 airstones running.

So there it is. This is just a base plan to start with. I assume I'll be modifying my rounds some as things move forward but as of now it looks like it should take about a year or just over a year to test out everything. If I can find some extra space I'll see if I can knock out two full test rounds at a time and cut my process time in half.

Hopefully in a year I'll have tried out every tip and trick for cloning and have a solid documentation of the benefits and negatives of all these different methods. I'm excited to get started. It's going to take about a year to test everything but the knowledge gained will last a lifetime.

wow

I LOVE EXPERIMENTS! Good for you...
Would love to see you add Dip n Grow and Oasis to your fine experiment. I just did one with Dip n Grow VS Supernatural and found the Dip n Grow rooted faster BUT the Supernatural had more impressive roots...hmmmmm. I learned to make babies in Oasis on a bed of perlite in slotted tray within a tray, humidity dome and heat mat. Have good results about 90% but ALWAYS looking for better better BEST! I bought some Grodan to try as it seems to hold a lil more water than Oasis and is more forgiving? Some of these nice folks suggested Rapid Rooters. I like the idea of these RRs BUT trying to figure out a way to "box them up" in a tray. RRs arent stable on their own and I cant see giving away the inserts. Any ideas anyone?

babymama said:

I LOVE EXPERIMENTS! Good for you...
Would love to see you add Dip n Grow and Oasis to your fine experiment.

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Cool. I'm not opposed to putting Dip n Grow against other rooting hormones and Oasis up against the other mediums. How's the water retention with Oasis cubes and are they more spongy like RR's or more fibrous like rockwool?

I have gotten 100% success rates with rockwool and Clonex on several occasions on batches of 100+ before so I know that combo works great. There's so many products out there that it'd be nice to understand the difference in effects from each one. I was going to do all Clonex on this first round but picked up some Hormex (liquid, not powder) today. My friend swears by it and prefers it over all other products. He does a totally undiluted dip of his cuttings in the Hormex for a whole minute, just as described on the bottle. Either tomorrow or Monday I'll be doing my first round with a few trays of cuttings.

Tray 1 - 5 second swirl in Clonex
Tray 2 - 1 minute dip in Hormex Liquid Conentrate
Tray 3 - 1 minute dip in Hormex plus 5 second swirl in Clonex

I'll be using Clonex on any additional trays. Should have some results in a couple weeks.

I will save all u guys countless hours of experimenting. You won't have to do any kind of clone study. If u do its only cause u like wasting time with clones. Buy an oxycloner for around 50 bucks. Gigantic roots in 10 days guaranteed every time. Never lost not one clone with the oxycloner. Roots get so big and white u have to remove them before the two week mark. My roots end up about 3 times the length of my clones in around 10 days. Roots start showing in 4. This is a 20 site cloner but they make like a 100 site I believe. Best cloner on the market, especially for the money. 100% clone rate and giant roots every time no questions asked. No clonex or any other rooting chemicals. Only rule is remember cut on a 45. How easy does it get. Even a newb could become a master cloner.

I'm not looking to explore EZ-Clone machines or any other machine that uses the exact same method. Been there, done that. I'm not a fan of the maintenance and noise levels involved in using machines. It's funny you call that the best cloner on the market when it's exactly the same style of design that EZ-Clone, botanicare, and a hand full of other companies sell. Sounds like you're a rep for that oxy machine.

Also sounds like you missed where I wrote "Feel free to add ideas to what variables or different methods that I haven't thought of or touched on yet. I will not be using EZ-Clone or other cloning machines in these tests because the worlds are so different between rooting in a medium and having free hanging roots, not to mention it would be way too loud to have 4 water pumps, 4 air pumps, and 8-16 airstones running."

nomaninsf said:

I'm not looking to explore EZ-Clone machines or any other machine that uses the exact same method. Been there, done that. I'm not a fan of the maintenance and noise levels involved in using machines. It's funny you call that the best cloner on the market when it's exactly the same style of design that EZ-Clone, botanicare, and a hand full of other companies sell. Sounds like you're a rep for that oxy machine.

Also sounds like you missed where I wrote "Feel free to add ideas to what variables or different methods that I haven't thought of or touched on yet. I will not be using EZ-Clone or other cloning machines in these tests because the worlds are so different between rooting in a medium and having free hanging roots, not to mention it would be way too loud to have 4 water pumps, 4 air pumps, and 8-16 airstones running."

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You obviously have no idea what an oxycloner is. Mine has 1 small pump with no air stones. Extremely quiet, almost so quiet at times I have to check and make sure its running. I prefer the method that probably 99% of RIU would choose. The KISS method. Keep It Simple Stupid. Like I said plain tap water and a 45 degree cut, that's it doesn't get easier than that no matter what u say. RIU users want easy and this is the easiest method ever. No heat mats, domes, cloning chemicals, hell u don't even have to have any media to put ur clone in, just plain tap water. No I'm not a rep for oxycloner, I'm just a guy trying to spread the easiest method of cloning among RIU members. If u have an easier method then that would be excellent and we (RIU members) would love to hear it.

Vonkins said:

You obviously have no idea what an oxycloner is. Mine has 1 small pump with no air stones. Extremely quiet, almost so quiet at times I have to check and make sure its running. I prefer the method that probably 99% of RIU would choose.

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I think I have a pretty good idea unless the picture I'm about to post is not what you're talking about. If the machine I'm looking at from oxycloner.com's website is the same thing you're talking about then it's not really different from every other big brand, small brand, or DIY machine out there. Your machine does have rainbow colored plugs though so maybe that's your thing.

I'm not disagreeing that your knock off machine doesn't work. I'd say it was probably the EZ and Botanicare that helped make a name for those machines, and then came the followers and DIY rigs. I've used them before and they work fine but I prefer the tray and dome method because I like the results better and prefer ditching big reservoirs, and air & water pumps. Your brand only carries a 20 site machine which is why you only need "1 small pump". That means if you were doing 100+ cuttings you would need 5 or more of those machines plus pumps for all of them. That's what I was getting at with my figures, Vonkins. You're thinking on a smaller scale than I'm going to do with this experiment.

With all that said. I know that the machines work but that's not what I'm doing on this thread. If you "99% of RIU" users (as Vonkins puts it) are gung ho on using machines then more power to you 99%. I sure don't feel like I'm the 1% but hey I guess I'm just a rare breed with my rockwool and all.

See you later Vonkins. You are not the 1% so this thread should be of no interest to you. My money is still on you a rep for or connected to oxycloner in some way.

i don't like the vibes here
sunny's out

Hey Nom.
I am experimenting with cloning also.You asked for suggestions so here is mine.Imho using a cutting with a full lush top canopy with no trim back,and like you said no leaves touching or blocking light from other cuttings root faster for me.
Good luck with your experiments.

thanks for taking the time to make this thread. I will be keeping an eye on it bro good luck

that is a shitload of greatwhite. in fact 3 scoops is for 50gal and at that price i would cut it down or switch to pondzyme. a fraction of the cost and treats thousands of gallons.

Here is how I clone and so far I have almost a 100% survival rate.
Cut clones from plant. Trim extra leaves and stem. Dip end of stem in cloning gel. Place clone cutting into plug and place plug into cloning dome. Leave them for 10 tens and dont even look at them. I have a T5 24W light over my clones and that is it. Cloning is very easy to do and to do right.

i have had that rate for years using only tap water, no dome and no additives.

Cloning is a game of patience I have found. I found best success with root riot cubes, and an oddball tray that holds the root riot cubes about 1/4" down below the surface of the tray. It seems to push the cubes tighter against the stem of the clones.

If I slide them out and there's no roots, I push them back in, give them an extra push to be sure they are all the way seated, put the lid on and forget them for another 2 or 3 days. If they go 3 weeks with no roots, I pull them and toss them.

Great thread though. Can't wait to see the results!

I love the experiments also. Especially if ya got some extras time on your hands. Im just using a jiffy style medium right now, and they are alive and well. Im hoping for a xmas harvest with this round.Building stuff is fun! Science and plants is a fuckin blast to learn! Good luck and would love to see the process move along.