Eikel's Water-Cloning Technique

[Guest Eikel]

Hey Guys,

 

Well I introduced you to my experiments in water-cloning with this thread.

 

I have continued my experimentation and have refined the process down to an easy

to follow, quick procedure. People using this technique will find much faster rootings

and far lower failure rates than with "normal" cloning methods such as

rockwool/cloning-gel/direct-to-medium techniques.

 

The essential concept is that the inital formation of roots in rockwool clones tends to take the longest time out of each stage of the process, wouldn't it be nice to be able to have those "micro-roots" come out almost instantaneously so your clone has approximately a 7-10 day headstart?

 

You can always build an aero-cloner or bubbling-cloner setup, but feh, too much work for a lazy stoner like me.

 

So here is My Water-Cloning Technique, I have tried several variations of using different products to assist with cloning, out of all of these, this is my most successful and simplistic technique:

 

You will need:

Cups/Glasses/Vases/Pots/Whatever your clones and water will fit in.

Seasol

Normal cloning lights (CF's/Fluros).

A plant to take cuts from (and cutting tools).

Pre Boiled-Water (fill the kettle, turn it on, pour it out and let the water cool).

 

1. Take your cuts as you would normally, don't need to be that accurate or sterile with water-cloning, don't bother sterilizing your blade, just use dirty scissors, anything will work (never had a failure yet, If you would like I can provide my hypothesis why sterility is irrelevant more or less with this technique).

 

2. To your now room-temprature water, add seasol to water at the ratio of 1:416 (or, 1ml of seasol to roughly 2 cups of water).

 

3. Fill your vessel/vessels with the seasol/water solution.

 

4. Put your plants in the vessel/vessels - try to keep them standing, but if they "slouch" on their stem it's ok, just try to keep the majority of the folage out of the water, anything up to actually submerging full lateral branches is ok.

 

5. Either ensure 2 or more leaves are under the water line or use a humi-crib, one or the other. (don't need humidity if the bottom 2 sets of fans on the clone can drink directly).

 

Change water every 24-48hrs, 24 is best, but 48 is ok if you're lazy, just don't let it get dry - remember they will root very quick, and you don't want them to develop too big a set of water roots before the transplant to prevent "stunting" them for a bit while they change root structures. Also note - you don't need to pre-boil or add seasol to you water after the initial 24hr period, that's plenty of time for them to recover and get over being cut.

 

Within 3 water changes you will be able to see tiny wispy 'water-roots' forming, at this stage, place the clone in your medium and cover or wrap (with cling-wrap) for humidity.

 

Conditions for my clones are 1 x 14w cool-white fluro, 2 x 2' 18w grow-lux fluros, tempratures sit between 28-33c. With this technique I have had a clone root itself out of a 250ml "tube-stock" pot in 14 days of it being cut.

 

(Tom and some others can attest to the vigor of my water-clones).

 

(And hey, I'm pinning this topic, I know I'm biased, I think it's worthy of it :smoke ).

[Chev]

Sweet as Eik, I can definitley attest to how good your clones were I'll be saving this thread :whistling

[Guest Eikel]

Hey Chev, thanks for the kudos!

 

Thought I should post some tangable evidence that people can see to impress you all with the technique

 

Here's a couple pics of some water clones cut on 13 Jan, water-cloning for 4 days until I could see visible "mini-roots" coming out of "cut" flesh of the clone, then popped in 4" Rockwool. Visible root-tips coming out of the cubes happened today, 13 days to root out 4" rockwool, is that an OSA record? ::

 

As you can see they weren't small cuts, but they root just as fast as the smallies

 

I've circled the root tip because it is hard to see from the angle of the pic and with flash on, unfortunately this was the best one I could get. The root hasn't grown long out of the cube but it has penetrated through so it counts

[nitram]

Wll I have heard about this water clone technique and thought I'd give it a go !

 

1) I had the plant (cuttings) in a coke bottle (plastic see through) !

 

Wrong ! Obious that you wan no light on or at the roots.

 

be nice to be able to have those "micro-roots" come out almost instantaneously so your clone has approximately a 7-10 day headstart?

 

Yea too right Eikel !

 

You can always build an aero-cloner or bubbling-cloner setup, but feh, too much work for a lazy stoner like me.

 

That's me e ! , ..... "a lazy stoner"

 

I've circled the root tip because it is hard to see from the angle of the pic and with flash on, unfortunately this was the best one I could get. The root hasn't grown long out of the cube but it has penetrated through so it counts

 

This one is through the 1" cubes

 

You will need:

 

Cups/Glasses/Vases/Pots/Whatever your clones and water will fit in.

Seasol

Normal cloning lights (CF's/Fluros).

A plant to take cuts from (and cutting tools).

Pre Boiled-Water (fill the kettle, turn it on, pour it out and let the water cool).

 

Seasol ! - anying else ?

 

Having a late night lend e ................. I looked for a pic of the coke bottle try-out (failue) but Na "not kept for some reason".

 

1 Q though on lights - What do you recomend for hours 24/0 ?

 

:whistling

[Guest Eikel]

Nit were you stoned when you replied? I'm trying to make sense of your post ::

 

Wll I have heard about this water clone technique and thought I'd give it a go !

 

1) I had the plant (cuttings) in a coke bottle (plastic see through) !

 

    Wrong !   Obious that you wan no light on or at the roots.

Yea too right Eikel !

Nah - see through containers are fine, I've never worried about keeping my roots

away from light - as long as they're in direct contact with water/medium that's all I worry about.

 

Seasol !  - anying else ?

Nope, seasol contains enough growth stimulants to cause rooting as quick or quicker than clonex using this method - no need for fungicides such as clonex because the fungus cannot grow UNDER water.

 

Having a late night lend e ................. I looked for a pic of the coke bottle try-out (failue) but Na "not kept for some reason".

What are you talking about ? Coke bottle try-out failure? None of my water clones have ever failed rooting? :scratchin

 

1 Q though on lights - What do you recomend for hours 24/0 ?

I don't, I only reccommend 24/0 if you are trying to "revert" cuts back to veg from flower, 18/6 is what I use normally.

[Infinitee]

I can definately attest to this method.

 

Took a clone that after just a few weeks growth, whacked it in the glass with Seasol.

I didn't even change the water (someone forgot to mention that part ) but i changed that today (maybe 5 days or so).

 

It had very small roots showing out the bottom of the clone after 3 days.

 

Don't have any rockwool on me so i figured i'd transplant in another day or two.

 

Nevertheless, great method, Eikel. Even a n00b like me can do it no worries! :thumbsup

[Gazza2001au]

i just gave this method a try and had success not a MJ clone but just a weed growing thru my fence from the neighbours yard ive noticed the roots are starting to grow from a node that is under the water the other clone without a node under the water isnt rooting

[Guest Eikel]

i just gave this method a try and had success not a MJ clone but just a weed growing thru my fence from the neighbours yard ive noticed the roots are starting to grow from a node that is under the water the other clone without a node under the water isnt rooting

 

Hey Gaz, the node points will spit out roots fastest, but the "wound" at the bottom of the stem is usually only 48 hours behind the nodes. I wait till I see my first 1cm root, and transplant, whether or not all exposed flesh has produced roots, seems to work ok.

[Gazza2001au]

so far its been 3 days 3 hours 15mins since i took the cutting the roots are pretty fat as u can see another root is starting to grow from the node the cut end is starting to swell this is an awesome method :thumbsup

[Aquaponix]

Hey Eikel

 

This cloning method is fantastic. So simple! Beauty. I remember Mum doing the same with tomatoes on the windowsill.

 

I'm wondering, for the benefit of clone superiority, if you have a method of scraping or pricking the bark at the base of your cutting to increase potential rooting sites.

 

It is/was considered mandatory by many old OG growers since experimentation began. Personal experience has proven to me than any cloning method can be improved by the application of this practise.

 

There are 2 ways of doing this.

 

1. Using a blade, scrape the sides of the bottom 1" of stem on the cutting lightly causing scarification.

 

2. Using a pin, prick lots of potential rooting sites into the bottom 1" of your cutting.

 

I will experiment myself and report here with the results of water clones scraped vs not scraped. Give me few days some new clones be ready to cut and start experiment.

 

In the photo below these clones are 6 or 7 days (cant remember exact, weekend to weekend) after being cut, scraped and inserted into the oasis cubes then a dome. All the roots came out of the cubes like that overnight. Temperatures (season) has played a large part in times to root with variations from 5 days to 2 weeks! Perhaps worth looking at temperatures with water clones too.

 

 

I'm very interested to see what I can do directly in water with clones having a water based system. Thanks again for the great info! :thumbsup