Photoperiod Clone on a mission

[Ozone69]

Long story short....

Took a photoperiod, Ghost Of LeeRoy plant that was under 12/12 and identified as my first femal for the strain out of 6 seeds I'd planted so far. So decided to re-veg it and give keeping a mother plant going a try. Maybe three weeks ago or so I decided to take my first cuttings and give clones a try.

Out of the 14 cuttings, I only got two of them to start showing any root activity after a couple weeks. Need to go back and tweek the cloning procedure (think I way overwatered the Root Riot cubes), but that's for another thread at another time. Moved the two into some dirt a week or so ago. One didn't do much at all, but one started showing some new growth after a few days. Few days later while I'm not looking, and the cat pulls it up out of the dirt. Doesn't look like much damage, so back in the soil. Why the cat couldn't pull the one not doing anything that I ended up chucking anyway, I'll never know...just knew which was the good one to mess with.

Basically, at this point, this little clone has sort of taken on representing all the time spent on the five seeds that turned out to be males, the problems with the mother plant, getting her sorted out, trying the clones, failing pretty bad at getting a good clone success rate, etc..etc....

It has got to the point where it's basically become a personal misson for me that this plant WILL GROW and will PRODUCE SOME BUD if it $^&*(@#$ kills me!!!

Oh..the mother plant at some point in it's issues developed to have alternating instead of symmetrical ones, and I read that can be a good trait for LST. So I decided to give that a try and put the two into the wide 5 gallon pots to give me plenty of room to work. Little plant took off really good today, so went ahead and gave her the first tie down to get her going.

Here's where she's at today...not much to look at, but she'll get there.

 

[Ozone69]

Training continues. She's starting to gain a little more momentum, but still pretty slow going for now. Fans starting to put on some size so available energy should be increasing. Needed to mix up a full strength batch of compost tea for mother, so gave junior here a little boost with it a couple of days ago. Would have preferred the "new root" formula at this point, but the growth formula should be helpful to it just the same.

 

[pop22]

Keep her going! I've found that direct to soil, and using a hydro style clone box give the best results. I started using dip n' Grow for a rooting hormone also. Works better than any others I have tried! It can depend on the strain also, some are just bitches to clone. The difficult ones seem to do best direct to soil. Water very lightly, mist them often the first 3-4 days.

 

[Ozone69]

I'm trying the hydro style next. Picked up a 3 gallon bucket and lid from the grow store and just going to use air stones to make a "bubbleponic cloner" out of it. Some 1 5/8" neoprene holders and a 1 1/2" hole saw should be enough to do the trick.

As for hormones, I'm going to try out something I'd read about a couple times around the 'net. I went out on the dog and my walk yesterday keeping an eye out for a willow tree in the park. Found one and was able to grab a nice handful of shoots from the end of some branches. Not the ideal time of year for it since everything is dormant right now, but hoping it still might work. Cut 'em down and shaved 'em a little here and there to expose the inners and brewing some "willow water" tea up on the window sill for a few days now while I piece together the bubbler. :smoking:

 

[pop22]

here's the one I made, can hold up to 8 clones and uses about 1.2 gallons of water. I've wrapped it with black plastic, but you could just paint it. I used 2" netcups with the net cut of, and 2" neoprene clone plugs that fit in the netcup ring. I drilled a hole thru the container for the airhose. I used a cheap airstone and a spare aquarium pump I had from doing hydro. works like a charm and only cost me about $5.00 to build. Buy a second container and use it for a humidity dome!

 

[pop22]

I've never had great luck with peat plugs. My current use of them produced less than 50% germ rate for seedlings. direct to soil and the hydro cloner average 90% success. change the water everyday if you use a cloner. I have an extra tub for mine so that I can clean the other between water changes, reduces the chance of infection.

 

[Ozone69]

This is what I picked up to work with. Half dozen neoprene inserts, 3.5 gallon bucket and a lid for about ten to thirteen bucks. Going to use an air stone or two that I've got laying around from the old hydro setup. The DIY guide I was reading on the dude made some small, half inch or smaller type holes in strategic locations on the lid around the holders. This supposedly allows for enough spray to escape out the top to provide humitidy for the tops. We'll see about that....may have to come up with a lid idea if not.

 

[pop22]

best time to make willow water is in the spring using fresh shoots but any new growth should work. Got a neighbor with a big willow going to let me have some shoots in the spring, i've wanted to try it too!

I'm trying the hydro style next. Picked up a 3 gallon bucket and lid from the grow store and just going to use air stones to make a "bubbleponic cloner" out of it. Some 1 5/8" neoprene holders and a 1 1/2" hole saw should be enough to do the trick.

As for hormones, I'm going to try out something I'd read about a couple times around the 'net. I went out on the dog and my walk yesterday keeping an eye out for a willow tree in the park. Found one and was able to grab a nice handful of shoots from the end of some branches. Not the ideal time of year for it since everything is dormant right now, but hoping it still might work. Cut 'em down and shaved 'em a little here and there to expose the inners and brewing some "willow water" tea up on the window sill for a few days now while I piece together the bubbler. :smoking:

View attachment 689687

 

[Ozone69]

Well the bubble cloner is off and running. Took a half dozen cuttings this morning and stuck them in. I'd also read somewhere that it's a good idea on your cuttings to snip off half or so of any larger leaves to cut down on moisture loss or some such. So I tried that out on half of them to do my own little comparison between trimmed and not trimmed. Dumped in my jar of willow water and a couple gallons of filtered water and set it up with two 4" air stones.

Meanwhile, the original clone that's still growing is slowly doing it's thing. Starting to get enough little nodes going that it's going to start getting fun soon planning which way to take which branch with the LST. Kind of washes out in the picture of the tent, but really not too much to see right now anyhow. :smoking:

 

[Ozone69]

Decided this morning to go double check some dates on the mother plant before the PotPro's site get's mothballed. I knew she'd been around a little bit, but hadn't really stopped to think about it much. Originally planted early October, re-veged after determining she was a she on Oct 24'th. And kept under an 18/6 cycle since then.

I dunno...just kind of felt good when looking at the old pics from when she was first moved into the closet and comparing to how she is now. I was feeling a little bad since she's got a pale(ish) color and doesn't seem like the happiest plant ever, but when I think of her age now I suppose she's not doing too bad all things considered.

Dunno why I thought I'd share all that...maybe just to get the dates recorded again for future reference. LOL

Nov 1st...

Today: