Taking Cuttings & The PermaClone Recipe

Cloning Cuttings & ”The PermaClone Recipe”

Our last article provided a to-do and shopping list (did you complete it? I hope you did!).

First, I asked that you foliar spray your mother plants with OMRI Certified Pesticide (Such as Garden Safe Neem or take-down) containing a Kelp-based extract 24-48 hours before taking cuts.

I also outlined three ingredients required for reliable cloning: Oxidizer, Water Soluble Hormone, mineral nutrients, and Fiskars.

Your mother plants should have natural auxins and amino acids coursing through their stems and your cloning station should be stocked with three cloner additives and a pair of fiskars.

Today it’s time to clone!

Fill up your sterilized cloner with water and immediately add a plant safe dose of your oxidizer of choice. Here’s the dosages:

Take "clones" or cuttings 

More Nodes & Shoot Apices: Every point along the stems where a new shoot and fan leaf forms is called a “node”. The tip of each shoot from this node is called the shoot apex or terminal bud. Each shoot apex produces auxins (rooting hormones). When taking your cuttings, the goal is to leave several nodes above the cloning collar (untrimmed) from your cutting because each shoot apex manufactures natural auxins that travel to the bottom (basal) end of your aeroponic cutting or clone. When taking your cutting, the goal is 3 – 6 nodes left untrimmed which will go above the collars and 2 - 3 node trimmed which will go below the collar. This requires that when you take cutting from your mother plant, choosing segments that are 5 - 9 nodes tall. Before inserting them in a sterilized collar, trim off the lower 2 - 3 nodes (including the leaves) and leave the top 3 - 6 nodes untrimmed.

Removing Leaves: Removing fan leaves was a common practice before water culture cloning. Now we only recommend removing fan leaves to avoid shading other clones. The tradition of removing fan leaves was to decrease water loss through the pores in the leaves (stomata). In water-culture your clones' stems are well hydrated such that this water loss (transpiration) is not a concern. We only  recommend trimming leaves to avoid shading other clones. If you're aiming for 3 - 4 cuts (or clones) per collar, eliminate ALL fan leaves and leave JUST nodes and shoot apices. And, YES...it works. This method alone with make your cloner 3 - 4x more productive! 

Keep Track of Strains: As you Add cuttings to the system, keeping track of your strains by rows on paper. I recommend taking a picture of that paper so you have a digital backup for transplant day in your smart phone.

By the time all your aeroponic clones or cuttings are in place your initial boost of sterilizer has depleted. It’s important that before adding nutrients you boost your sterilizer a second time as listed below to surface sterilize everything before additives. This IS VERY IMPORTANT! ...add your oxidizer of choice before additive because most additive deplete the sterilizers: 

Next, add your hormone solution (only use one of the 3 recommended):

• Hormex Liquid Concentrate: 3 - 5 mL/gal
• KLN Cloning Solution: 5 - 15 mL/gal
• Rhizopon AA Salts: 0.15 g/gal - 0.4 g/gal 

Last add your mineral Solution: 

• Clonex Solution: 20 - 30 mL/gal
• Cutting Edge Solution: 2.5 mL/gal Micro, 5 mL/gal Bloom
• General Hydroponic: 2.5 mL/gal Micro , 5 mL/gal Bloom

Do not pH adjust your system until roots have formed. pH adjustment risks infecting your system with unwanted microbes and is tedious. Remember, we're all about simple work-flow.  

Set your cycle timer to 5 - 45 min on and 5 - 30 min off. Remember to adjust your on/off time to achieve and external IR temperature of 75 - 87 F.

**Use your IR thermometer to maintain/monitor temperatures.

Other than daily IR temperature checks, leave your system alone for 7 days. Eventually you’ll have you Cycle timing dialed in and won’t have to check temperatures as frequently. between days 3  - 5 you should have callous tissue (which, cancerous-looking bumps/growths) on the stem inside the system. at 5 - 7 days roots should be formed if you hit all the targets in this series. 

Keep in touch,

Michael Goldsmith

----------------------------------------------------------------------

PS: My articles share knowledge I've accumulated over the years while perfecting my use of PermaClone collars and collaborating with 1000's of customers. My hope is by sharing this knowledge, PermaClone's plant collars will be acknowledged as the best cloning pucks on the market for hydroponic, deep-water culture, and aeroponic systems. Please spread the word! PermaClone has collar sizes to fit the top cloning systems: EZ-CLONE, TurboKlone, PowerCloner by Botanicare, Oxyclone, Psychloner and more. We can also recommended sizes for DIY and home-made cloning systems...just reach out for dimension. Thanks for your support! #PermaClone #getsterilegetcloning