Sunday, November 4, 2007

General Tips

When setting up and maintaining your cloning box you must take care to provide your clones with the best propagating environment and care possible. To ensure fast rooting and high success rates, high humidity, 16 - 18 hours fluorescent light, proper air circulation, strict attention to cleanliness and correct bottom heat are absolutely necessary.

Humidity should be 80-85%. If air in cloning room is dry mist more often. Black leaf edges, black spots on leaves and mushy stems (damping off disease) are all indications of too much moisture and poor airflow. It is also essential that you provide adequate bottom heat. Do not try to skimp here. The cuttings and their cubes should be warm 24hrs per day. Often people fail to clone successfully because they do not provide bottom heat and clones will root poorly when nightime temperatures dip under twenty degrees centigrade.

Remember: Stress is bad. The faster your cuttings develop roots, the less stress they will undergoe. Any stress the cuttings are exposed to can result in a decrease of final yield by up to 50%. So treat your cuttings with a lot of T. L. C.

In emergencies: If you have to take cuttings from blooming plants, cut all the flowers off the cuttings. This will reduce stress. If planting clones outdoors treat with care and slowly acclimatise to the sunlight. Clean trays thoroughly between cycles. Use a weak bleach solution and water. Lots of bacteria and fungii spores can grow in dirty wet trays. This will lead to damping off disease. Remember cleanliness is very important. Do not resue growool cubes after they have been used throw them out and buy fresh ones they are inexpensive easy to store if kept dry. Do not clone from mother plants infested by spider mite. Keep your mother plant free of spider mites. Your cuttings will have little or no resistance to spider mites and will stress badly if attacked by the mites during cloning.

1 comment:

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