Rooting Your Clones: A Review of Rooting Mediums

Understanding Rooting Mediums

Rooting Mediums can vary widely, it is important to do research and understand the different types.

The best rooting mediums for your clones may differ slightly based on your experience, your own preferences as a grower, and your environment (think about whether you’re growing in Washington state or British Columbia vs. growing in Arizona or New Mexico).

Budget and what your end goal are may also impact your decision of rooting medium. Most growers stick with the tried and true, preferring the reliability of rock wool, starter trays or peat pots, while others champion bubble buckets and deep water culture (DWC) hydroponic systems.

If you’re just starting out, or you’re looking for more information about different rooting mediums for your clones, here’s a review of the most popular cloning mediums.

1. Rock wool cubes: these are an affordable rooting medium (generally you can get a hundred rock wool cubes for about $10 – $15) that can be coupled with a cheap tray to provide an affordable, reliable rooting medium for your cannabis clones. Aside from being cheap, rock wool cubes also reduce the need for aeration or water stones, and as long as you leave the cubes in ~ ¼ – ½ inch of nutrient solution and water they will continue to uptake water as needed, so they won’t dry out.


2. Peat moss pots: the two chief problems with peat moss pots are that they dry out very easily, which results in the death of your new clones due to their fragile roots being unable to take the dehydration, and peat moss can be susceptible to mold and rot. Peat
   
   
   

   Various rooting mediums require different nutrients and care.

   
   
   
   

   moss is also prone to lowering the pH of your nutrient solution, so you may need to adjust your nutrients and pH slightly to account for this affect. Those issues aside, peat moss can be a great rooting medium and is both cheap and widely available.

   
   


3. Soil in starter trays: tried and true, this method has been used for decades and with strains that root more easily it is often enough to just take your cutting and immediately plant it in moist soil. Keep your soil from drying out, but don’t waterlog your plants when you start in soil; overwatering can cause rot and suffocation. To maintain good drainage you can mix your topsoil with perlite or vermiculite (wear a mask for this).


4. Aeroponic systems: you can build your own aeroponic system with anywhere from $15 – $50 of supplies, or you can purchase a premade aeroponic system such as the EZ Cloner system (~ $280) for up to 60 clones. For growers interested in a more economical aeroponic system, the Nutriculture PT100 (~ $100) is a smaller system designed for up to 20 clones. Aeroponic systems are generally renowned for exceptional results, producing roots on 90 – 100% of clones, and are especially good for cloning tougher strains.

For a novice grower, first-time cloner or the cannabis cultivator on a budget, rock wool and a nutrient tray are an affordable and generally quite reliable method of growing your first clones.

Rooting Your Clones: A Review of Rooting Mediums

Air Bubble Embolism:What it is and how to avoid it

Air Bubble Embolism

Air Bubble Embolism is one thing that can lead to sickly, yellowing marijuana plants.

An air bubble embolism, also commonly called an air bubble aneurism, is what happens when you’re cloning your plant and an air bubble enters the stem of your cutting. This is particularly apt to happen when you use older, duller scissors or clippers, so using a new, sharp razor blade to take your cuttings is always more preferable.

An air bubble in your stem is deadly to the would-be clone because it blocks the transfer of fluid and nutrients in the plant’s cardiovascular system. To avoid the risk of drawing an air bubble into your stem, here are some tips for taking and preparing your cuttings for cloning:

• Work quickly: prepare your cloning medium, rooting hormone and other materials ahead of time to ensure that you can process your cuttings in the shortest time possible from the time you take them off the mother plant to the time you put them into their rock wool, peat moss, plug tray, etc.

• Use sharpened tools, preferably new razor blades that are sterile, to ensure a smooth, clean cut; the goal is not to damage the inner bark, including the xylem and the cambium, as much as possible (dull tools cause more crushing of the stem, thus more damage).

• Do use rooting gel; the gel provides a liquid barrier on the stem / wound of your cutting, as well as containing hormones that encourage faster rooting.

• Make another cut: after you’ve harvested your cuttings, make another cut about ¼ – ½ of an inch higher than your original cut while holding the stem underwater. This will ensure that the stem will draw up water rather than a lethal air bubble.

Finally, if you’re taking a large number of cuttings all at once, or if you won’t be able to deal with preparing them and setting them up to root immediately, fill a bucket or vase with water and a light dose of nutrients; toss in an air stone or two and keep your cuttings in this water / nutrient blend until you have time to deal with them properly.

Air Bubble Embolism:What it is and how to avoid it

Maintaining Your Marijuana Mother Plant

The Importance of Maintaining Your Mother Plant

Keeping a mother plant for producing clones is a great practice.

A properly tended mother plant can successfully be kept alive for years, with many plants easily lasting 3 – 5 years and some legendary mothers that are claimed to have lived 15 – 20 years. And while keeping a plant alive for 20 years might be beyond the desire, and skills, of the average grower, a female who yields viable cuttings for cloning is nice to have and can be maintained for 3 – 5 years fairly easily.

Good mother plants are worth their weight in gold, as it were, and they offer many benefits. First and foremost is that you can cultivate a uniform, female crop in less time than it would take you to grow from seed and sort out the males, hermaphrodites and weak females that come with it. Second is that you’ll know what to expect from your crop on account of already having grown the mother plant.

To select a good mother plant, choose your strongest female with the best yield. Make sure that she isn’t afflicted by disease, bugs, nutrient problems or any other common grow problems, and set her up in your vegetative area for full-time vegetative growth.

A mother kept for clones can be kept under standard metal halide or high pressure sodium lights, but if you aren’t harvesting as many clones and you don’t want to constantly be trimming your plant, you can also leave established mothers under weaker fluorescent lights with good results.

Keeping your mother plant healthy ensures healthy clones for a long time.

Keep Your Mother Plant Healthy

To keep your mother plant in tip top shape (and remember, as the source of your clones and thus your future crops, your mother plant is a central pillar supporting your entire grow operation, so you really do want to treat her well) be sure to trim away any spent foliage or dead growth. Don’t let yellow, dying or brown and drying leaves linger on your mother.

Don’t sentence your mother plant to the edges of your grow room, either, where she’ll be neglected and may fall prey to temperature fluctuations, mold and bugs. Dedicate a comfortable grow space for your mother plant, allotting her sufficient light, and be sure to keep any particularly photosensitive strains (meaning those that kick into flowering easily) under an 18 hour a day lighting schedule to ensure that she doesn’t go to flower.

When growing your mother in a pot or soil medium, be sure to keep an eye on your root ball. Despite the trimming and pruning you carry out up top, the root ball continues to grow and your plant can become root bound, leading to sluggish growth and sometimes outright death.

As you take cuttings and clones from your mother plant, you can expect that she will grow more densely and bushier. To keep her in check and avoid having your mother plant grow out of control, prune regularly even when you aren’t taking cuttings for clones. If your mother plant starts to get really unmanageable after a few years of growth, you can retire her by taking one of the strongest clones as a new mother plant.

Maintaining Your Marijuana Mother Plant