There’s a lot of ways to effectively clone; so I would never say my methods are the best. I would, however, say my recipes are reliable and produce excellent results! In this quick article, I focus on the anatomy of an ideal cutting based on personal experience operating a company focused on cutting propagation. Some of you may already know I've spent years playing with different recipes and methods to cloning. This article is about my favorite style of cutting, specifically.
STEP 1
Mother plants need to have a lime-green color, not dark blue-green (i.e., over-fed). You want parent plants fed exactly the nutrients required to avoid deficiencies, and no more. In coco- and peat-based mediums, I recommend feeding moms in the 400-600 ppm (EC: 0.8-1.2 mS) range, excluding cal/mag or hard-water readings. This concerns organic media's nutrient-buffering capacity. In Aeroponics or Deep-Water Culture (DWC) you can use half these values (200 - 300 ppm, EC 0.4 - 0.6 mS, again not including cal/mag or your water's base reading). This is because water culture doesn't compete for mineral nutrients like organic-based growing mediums. Water culture doesn't buffer your nutrients.
STEP 3
Just before placing in the cloner, take a final cut a few millimeters above your initial cut, aiming for an obvious "plug" of xylum and accessible carbohydrates (sugars), as shown above. The one shown, sadly, went dry while I was taking pictures, but a fresh cut should look wet and be immediately placed in your sterilized propagation system. Sometimes this "plug" is more white, others have a fleshier, light-green core. The goal is to avoid an exposed hollow section. For strains with hollow stems, the plug will usually be found just below the nodes.
Check out our publication: PermaClone™ Manual for Perfect & Predictable Hydroponic Cloning for a thorough outline of recommended methods for cloning and sterilizing your system.