Taking Cuttings

I am going to give you a few tips on taking cuttings and being successful at it!

Cloning is asexual propagation. After taking your cut and planting it the end will swell up and callus cells form. From the callus cells come the first specialized root cells. Specialized cells are the ones that give the plant a purpose. New root cells will continue to grow on top of each other and start to branch out.

I've worked in hydro shops for years and it seems like the biggest problem is a lack of patience and knowledge in what a plant is actually going through while changing its whole purpose and becoming a plant of its own.

First thing is making sure the tools you are using are sterile. Just as I mentioned in cleanliness is next to godliness, you want to make sure you are not doing damage by using dirty tools. These cutting are very fragile and susceptible to issues because the cut provides an entrance for disease or even pests.

You want to have everything ready and in front of you when you are ready to take your cuttings. It is important that your cuts get put into water or immediately into a cloning hormone and put into your choice of medium. If you wait too long an air bubble can enter and cause the loss of pressure within the plant, called turgor pressure, causing it to wilt. Snip the end again if it does get dry.

Always take your cuttings from a well maintained and healthy plant. It will be an exact clone of the plant its taken from so if the mother plant is weak it could pass that right on to your cuts. The mother plant you take from should be in the vegative stage. Although it is possible to revert a clone from a blooming plant into a vegging one but who has time for that anyways. Plus its just a lot of stress for the plant to go through.

The best place to take your cuts from is the end of the branches where the new growth is. The cuts should be anywhere between 4"-8". The bigger they are and the more foliage on them the more the new plant has to take care of and keep alive. Pick off any extra leaves and trim down the stem. You should always have a few leaves left with both a node and internode left to help produce for the plant. A node is the site where your leaves come out from and the internode is the spacing between each set of leaves.

Your cutting should be in a warm environment between 75-78 degrees with around 80+% humidity. The colder the temps, the longer the process can take. After a few days you can drop the humidity 5% and it will cause the plant to work a little harder to root.

Rooting can take anywhere from 2-4 weeks.  Should be closer to the 2 week mark but it depends on the woodiness of the plant you are cloning. Don't freak out if your plants wilt. I have had people tell me they toss out their clones after 5 days because they were dying. One of the reasons for his failure was most likely too low of a humidity. Patience my friend. Most of the time your plant is going to go through a little bit of a healing stage. I always assume they will look worse before they look better. Once they start to put off new growth I can pick off the wilted or dead leaves left behind.

I prefer to use Grodan A Ok's or the individually wrapped rockwool cubes that you can write on. You can also clone in an aero machine such as a TurboKlone or EzCLone. They allow you to suspend the plants over a misting of constant water and you can use a gel hormone on the stem or even a liquid concentrate you can put straight into the res. Another method is bubbling or DWC.  You can easily make something with a nursery flat and an air pump. You don't want them sitting in stagnant water, they will most likely rot.

Hydroponic Systems

There are lots of different methods and growing systems in hydroponics. Below are the most commonly used ones.

Aeroponics - This system spray or mist water on the root system and are mostly in enclosed environments. They will not require any sort of soil and could function without a media at all. It is good for water conservation and getting air to the root system. The plants roots are growing through the net pot and are suspended in the chambers. This system has 3" net pots filled with hydroton. All my seedlings were started in rockwool starter cubes. It makes potting all these sites pretty fast and simple.

The system pictured above is also considered an NFT system. NFT stands for Nutrient Film Technique. Inside the chambers is a film of nutrient rich water that flows through the tips of the roots. This technique is more commonly used in the commercial gardening industry.

Ebb and Flo - This system will consist of a tray or tub that will periodically fill with water from the reservoir and flow back when your pump kicks off. There are many different mediums you can use in this system. Some prefer one over the other. I prefer Rockwool blocks and slabs. Some like to fill the whole tray with hydroton or pots filled with a soiless media. I think its harder to clean but its your choice! The amount of times you need to flood will be based on the water retention of your media choice. I would flood once or twice a day for 6" blocks.

Drip System - I really love drip systems. They have worked pretty well for me. They are also easily made by the garden hobbyist. You can really use this technique in very many ways. I use tubing to make a main line run from the pump up through pre drilled holes in the bottom center of my tray. "T" off that line and use elbows to run two hard irrigation lines the length of my tray and pinch it off. I then poked holes for each drip line and inserted 1/4" tubing and cap it off with a dripper stake. Thats it and your ready to grow!