Critical Mass by HHHG

It must be a pain to make room for so many cuttings, but it sounds hopeful that one of each will root. Finding a special mother is challenging but the fruit she provides is made sweeter by your efforts made to obtain her. Waxing philosophical over growing pains, such is life.

The Jiffy greenhouse holds 36 pellets and is only about 1 foot square. It only takes up half of the seedling heat mat.

This is my first heating mat. When I started cloning many years ago I used heating pads normally used for muscle pain, etc. But they started making them with auto-off switches. I then switched to a simple bubble cloner with an aquarium heater. It usually gives good results but I built a new bucket aeroponic cloner that I thought would give better results. It has only produced roots on a few cuttings (none of the CM).

I think the first batch of CM cuttings I took were too thick and the bottoms of them all went limp. I wonder if the 250gph pump I'm using in the 3 Gal aero bucket is too forceful?
 
I went away for a few days and the cuttings in peat pellets on the heat mat dried up and died so I took more cuttings today. The seed plants are getting big so I have to start flowering soon and will post new pics.
 
Worst case scenario you're getting a lot of veg time for the seed plants. Clones are hard to care for especially when life calls us away. Here's to patiently looking forward to harvest with you.
 
I trimmed all but the top bud sites from the seed plants. 12/12 will start March 1st :)

#1,2,3,4,7 all have hairs. #6 has not shown any sex so I'm pretty certain it's a male. I'll known after a couple weeks of flowering.

I took 3 cuttings from #1,2,3,4,6,7, plus 1 from #5. They are in the jiffy 36 greenhouse. I will be checking the moisture every 2 days.

I just picked up another jiffy greenhouse that has a wicking mat.
Does anyone have experience with this self-watering jiffy greenhouse?
 
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Hi HHHG,

I’ve used peat pellets for starting seeds (vegetable) but never for clones. One thing about them though, I think they have fertilizer in them…this could be causing some of the problems with your cuts not rooting. They may also have a low ph.

Or maybe CM is hard to root or clone, I don’t know?

Also, what kind of lighting are you using? Clones love floros.
 
It's a boy!

I was correct that CM #6 would be male and it showed sex after a few days in 12/12









 
Sorry to hear about your cloning difficulties.

If you could explain your set up maybe the community could provide some help.
I also have used aero cloners and bubble cloners (DWC), right now I have two of the latter I made myself.

I recently had some rooting problems/root rot/stem rot until I added another air pump (and two more air stones), changed the res water and added 10-30ml H202/gal every three days (I ramped up as I went, I didn't want to believe that 30ml/gal was safe, but it is).

If your cloner is using a water pump and it is in the res, your water might be too warm, in fact it should be if you are also using a heat mat?

From my experience, when cloning aeroponically or in DWC, water temps above 70F or below 60F cause problems. I always shake my head when I read tutorials saying otherwise, because trial and error taught me differently. I don't want to have to use hydroguard!

you could always add a valve to control the flow if you think the pump is too powerful. cheaper in the short term than buying a smaller pump. Usually roots don't grow if there is too little oxygenation, not too much so I have reservations about your pump being too big.

Do you run it all the time? or is it on a timer?

Light leakage can also be a major problem. Is your bucket/tub/lid black? If not, why not get some spray paint made for plastic and paint them black (several times all sides)? I couldn't clone without it :)

What kind of light are you trying to clone under?
Are you using indol-3-butryic acid or something similar as a root stimulator?

I also use LED's, but I wouldn't clone under mine unless I had to, and I don't...I'm afraid mine would torch them

Good luck to you and to your CM. I hope everything works out in your favor and you find what you are looking for.

Peace
 
The peat pellet cuttings started showing roots a couple days ago. The male #6 was the first to root. It is hard to keep the pellets at the right moisture, but it's easier with the self-watering jiffy greenhouse. Sometimes they get too wet but they never dry out. I just squeeze excess water out when needed.
 
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Congratulations! I'm glad you got some to root. I hope you have continued success and that you do not have to clone your flowering plants as rooting and revegging clones already in flower takes awhile. Plus they throw all those goofy leaves :) Nothing like clones with huge single bladed leaves! Better than losing something amazing...
 
I took 3 cuttings from each remaining uncloned flowering plant and put in the bubble cloner in case the ones in peat pellets don't root.

I think the problem with the bucket aero cloner was the low water volume which caused high temperature. It was a 3Gal bucket with 2Gal water with a constant mist from 250gph pump. I can easily switch to 5Gal and put the bucket on a cold surface outside of the veg tent next time.
 
Upgrade

The tent will soon be upgraded to 2000 watts. I have another 1000w digital system on the way. It will use MH bulb while the current one uses 1000w HPS. It's also in a cool tube. Should be hooked up in the next week and I'll try to get some plant pics then. The Critical Mass will be 3 weeks flowering when they start the additional 1000 watts.
 
Female:Male ratio

The last to show sex is #5, so that makes 6 females and just 1 male. I couldn't ask for better than that :)

#1-4 and #7 are flowering, #5 is a bonsai mom I need to clone, and #6 is male that I culled but have a clone of. The #6 stem is pretty solid so not sure how much that would effect using it as a father.

The new 1000w system arrived and I got it installed, then unwrapped the MH bulb to find the element was chipped and glass was loose inside the bulb. Hopefully they will ship a replacement soon.

The flowering CM are stretching above the current vertical HPS bulb so the addition of the new one above will help get "sunshine" to all the top buds. Since I can't run the space heater and 2nd 1000w ballast at the same time I decided to hang the new bulb without cool tube and heater will be off during lights-on. I hope it creates the right amount of heat without being too hot. If it gets too hot I'll use the cool tube. Lights run from midnight to noon when outside temps are still 30's-40's.
 
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Hi,
You could also look into cycling your pump (instead of leaving it on all the time, with a timer) and, if the pump is IN the water, plumb it so it is external to the cloner, ie the pump is not sitting in the water while its running (because the pump produces heat, emanating into the water it is sitting in).

Also, you could freeze bottles of water and add them to cool the water, but that's just a band aid instead of a fix....I've read Hydroguard works like a champ but I've never used it personally, it's kind of like the frozen bottle, a temporary fix to a permanent problem...

That water pump producing heat is a real pain in ass to get around, that's why I switched to DWC. I loved my little botanicare cloner, but I had nothing but water temp problems constantly, had to give it up. Only drawback with DWC to me is the noise of the air pumps. I suppose in the summertime water temps could be a problem.

I hope it works out for ya and I can't wait to see how your CM progresses. I hope you find a holy grail type in there! :)
 
Hi,
You could also look into cycling your pump (instead of leaving it on all the time, with a timer) and, if the pump is IN the water, plumb it so it is external to the cloner, ie the pump is not sitting in the water while its running (because the pump produces heat, emanating into the water it is sitting in).

Also, you could freeze bottles of water and add them to cool the water, but that's just a band aid instead of a fix....I've read Hydroguard works like a champ but I've never used it personally, it's kind of like the frozen bottle, a temporary fix to a permanent problem...

That water pump producing heat is a real pain in ass to get around, that's why I switched to DWC. I loved my little botanicare cloner, but I had nothing but water temp problems constantly, had to give it up. Only drawback with DWC to me is the noise of the air pumps. I suppose in the summertime water temps could be a problem.

I hope it works out for ya and I can't wait to see how your CM progresses. I hope you find a holy grail type in there! :)

Thanks for the tips. I am back to using the reliable shoe box size bubble cloners until I get the aeroponic bucket sorted. They have two bubble wands and an aquarium heater.
 
Group photo at 23 days flowering

Seed plants #1,2,3,4,7 in order from left/front to rear





There are some nice fruity scents coming through now :)
 
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Roots!

It took about 2 weeks for the cuttings taken from the flowering plants to show roots in the bubble cloner.

They are loving the extra 1000 watts from above and are developing lots of buds.
 
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PICS! 32 days flowering - Seed plants #1,2,3

Critical Mass seed plant #1











Critical Mass seed plant #2












Mutant 2-headed bud


 
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PICS! 32 days flowering - Seed plants #3,4,7

Critical Mass seed plant #3











Critical Mass seed plant #4








Critical Mass seed plant #7






 
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