Thread: New clones cut, how often do I water them??

I just took cuttings and they are placed in 2" rockwool cubes. The cubes are in a dome sitting on 1/2" of perlite on the bottom. I also have a heat pad placed under it.

I have been misting the clones about every 6 hrs. or so. I was told to keep it damp but not wet...whatever that means. This is day 3 and they look deep green and are standing up strong.

The rockwool is getting a bit dryer, but it stays moist from the perlite so...not sure how to handle the first stages of watering these babies. (cubes were soaked for 24 hrs. in distilled water)

Should I let the rockwool cubes dry before I water? Perhaps water them a little whenever I mist?

Any pointers will be greatly appreciated. THANKS!

I'm pretty new to cloning myself first off. Don't let the rockwool dry out, I'd give 30-60ml(maybe more, I use jiffy #7's, not cubes) water each day(to the cube, enough to keep it moist, not wet), and spray the clones twice a day (some people just spray the inside of the dome too, may work better for you), in a week of 18-24 hrs light they should have roots, again YMMV. Anyone feel free to correct me.

Thanks for your reply. This is my first time using rockwool so I'm not so sure how to handle it and how much water it retains. I know I'm not supposed to let the rockwool dry out, it's just tough to tell how often to water. I don't want to overwater them for I was told that would be a big no no. THANKS!

think the word we're looking for here is moist!

Is the heat pad a good idea to put under the tray?

yea as long as its not to hot. i used to put a teatowl between the try and the plant!

No don't let the inside of the dome get too wet because that will cause little magnifying glasses (water drops) to burn away at ur plant. I'm new to cloning too and my 2nd clone had this problem... it has a brown spot burned in 1 of the leaves.

I don't know why someone suggested to keep the cubes moist but not wet. I heard you need to give clones TONS of water as they do not have roots to hold the water in.

Here's what I do, I get bowl w/ a flat bottom and place my rockwool cube in there along w/ about 1/4" of water. Spray the cube and the plant if it's transpirating too fast. Then put it in natural sun w/ a coca cola (clear) 2L bottle cut in half and placed over it.

The son will vaporize the water in the bowl and cause constant humidity to keep the plant fresh and the water in the bottom will also feed as a reservoir for the rockwool to suck up water from to make it dry out WAY slower.

Whenever the cola bottle gets too many water drops on it... take it off and whip it dry... this will give a chance for the plants to breathe fresh air (but not too much time is needed)

If your plants are staying "moist" enough then they will turn extra green (more so than a normal canabis plant)

Then at night time, bring it inside under your lamp.

This is what I do and for the 1st time my clones have lasted 3 nights and 4 days...

i have some blueberry cones ,its my first time and i just keep an eye on them water them evry day and spray them also.they are standing up,they are in small r/w cubes then i am going to put them into small pots with soil .
but any ideas on how long they will take to reach the bottom of the r/w/
any advise would be appreiciated.

use a heat mate clones like the bottom of the root space to be warmer than the leaf space and make sure they can breath,mist morning and night keep rookwool cubes moist NOT to wet they dont need to have loads of water that will cause stem rot,you should have roots in 2 weeks good luck

ok guys i need my say here . when ur taking clones dip the rockwool in a weak fert solution and gentle squeese most of the water out . the rockwool doesn't need to be wet , just damp. too wet will cuz the bottom of the cutting to rot anyways as the clone has no roots to start with iits pointless to give loads of water that way as it has no means to absorb it. u want to mist ur plants only once a day to stop then drying out. do much moisture will cuz mold to start. as soon as u see the roots coming outta the blocks u want to stop misting and open the vents in ur dome for a day , then the next day u want to offset ur lid so it leaves the 4 corners of the dome open , do this for another 24hrs ( this will stop them turning yellow after u transplant them into pots ).

by the way get rid of the heat mat , it inturn will cuz mold to form

Originally Posted by Shallow Hal

ok guys i need my say here . when ur taking clones dip the rockwool in a weak fert solution and gentle squeese most of the water out . the rockwool doesn't need to be wet , just damp. too wet will cuz the bottom of the cutting to rot anyways as the clone has no roots to start with iits pointless to give loads of water that way as it has no means to absorb it. u want to mist ur plants only once a day to stop then drying out. do much moisture will cuz mold to start. as soon as u see the roots coming outta the blocks u want to stop misting and open the vents in ur dome for a day , then the next day u want to offset ur lid so it leaves the 4 corners of the dome open , do this for another 24hrs ( this will stop them turning yellow after u transplant them into pots ).

by the way get rid of the heat mat , it inturn will cuz mold to form

dont get rid of your heat mat,ive been doing this years and never had mold and if you use your mat you will get better results

Originally Posted by xxxhazexxx

dont get rid of your heat mat,ive been doing this years and never had mold and if you use your mat you will get better results

i lose about 4/5 cuttings max out of 100. i have used heat matts in the past and in my opinion they are not worth the hassle.

Re: heating mat...maybe it depend in which climate you are growing. If you are in a cooler environment, I believe a heating mat would probably have some benefit to keep the root space "warm"...but not too warm or hot. Probably not necessary in a hotter climate.

SpitRhyma, I'm not sure where you got your info there, dude, but I have to disagree a bit here. I think the only way you will have burn spots on your clones from light magnification is if you are setting them in light that is too strong for a clone anyway. Ideally, we would like to give an unrooted clone a minimal amount of light so that the plant focuses it's energy on root development as opposed to trying to photosynthesize in the leaves.

Seems like you are doing this outside, Rhyma, so I would try keeping them out of strong direct sun while they are rooting. Then you should be able to keep your dome misted without burning your plants. If you are cloning indoors, the unrooted clones only need one or two CFLs and they don't need to be CLOSE like they are usually do during veg & flower.

Also, like everyone else is saying, you don't need them to be too wet, just moist & keep the leaves moist. And remember to let them breath occasionally. This is important.

Be cool.

The Fog

i think that my climate is warm enough at the moment and my little ones are still standing (7 days tomorrow)so will report back .

40mm cubes weigh 5g dry. They are "damp" when they weigh 25-30g, or when they have 20-25ml of water in them.

Please have a look at this photoessay on cloning in rockwool.

Originally Posted by Al B. Fuct

40mm cubes weigh 5g dry. They are "damp" when they weigh 25-30g, or when they have 20-25ml of water in them.

Please have a look at this photoessay on cloning in rockwool.

Al - excellent photo-essay. I'm going to cut clones for the first time tomorrow and you answered a lot of my questions. I've read a whole lot about cloning, but I've seen darn little about cutting the mother plants and your guide is spot-on in that respect.

Reps to ya!!!

I dont know what all the fuss is about the moisture level. I see people growing clones in cups of water and have success. I kept my clones soaking in a tupperware container sitting in 1/4" of water daily and sprayed daily and used anti-wilt every 6 days and roots popped out after 14 days in my Jiffy pellets. To each his own, I thought the way I did it was so freakin' easy a dumbass can do it.lol.

Originally Posted by Weed4Life

I dont know what all the fuss is about the moisture level. I see people growing clones in cups of water and have success. I kept my clones soaking in a tupperware container sitting in 1/4" of water daily and sprayed daily and used anti-wilt every 6 days and roots popped out after 14 days in my Jiffy pellets.

Cannabis doesn't 'water clone' (i.e. stick a cutting in a glass of water... and wait) very well, as do some other herbs like mint or basil. It prefers a damp rooting medium with lots of air in it- give it 'wet' or saturated, where all air is driven out of the medium and the cut on the stem tip will tend to rot, no matter how sterile you keep your scalpel. This slows rooting WAY down.

14 days to set root is a long time in cloneland. The cutting is depending on stored nutes in the leaves while the plant has no roots. Nutes as they appear in water given to the plant are not directly 'edible' to the plant. It's the roots which are responsible for changing the nutes into elements that the plant can use.

Aerocloners have been known to show roots in 4 days- mainly because there's no media in the way and root nodes are visible sooner than if they are plugged into some medium. Jiffypots and rockwool can yield visible roots out of the bottom in 5-7 days, but root nodes are happening just as fast as in aerocloners; you just can't see them for a few more days. The faster you can get roots happening, the better the plant will do down the track.

I see a lot of people using humidomes and anti-wilt products. If the plant can uptake enough water through the stem cut, slowing down transpiration by blocking the stomata on leaves with wax or raising the humidity so the leaves can't transpire much water usually isn't needed.