In this first part of our guide, veteran hydroponicist Everest Fernandez, shares some of his personal, tried and tested techniques for taking top quality cuttings.

CLONEX from Growth Technology is a popular rooting hormone product.

She was finally ready.  Over the last few weeks before harvest one specimen in particular had caught my eye in the growroom.   She was clearly the star of the show and, each time I popped my head around the door, she appeared to stand out more and more.  The girth of her stem had been noticeably thicker than her neighbour’s since she was little more than a seedling.  Sometimes those early leaders turned out to be poor finishers – but not this time.  The flower heads that this sturdy frame was now tasked with supporting were respectively endowed.

This glorious freak of nature was twice as impressive as her nearest competitor.  I spent the following few weeks congratulating myself over and over again on having grown, in my eyes at least, the best plant in the world …. ever.

The rest of the crop paled in comparison.  Perhaps I’m guilty of a little over-personification but it was as if the other plants had given up the ghost when they saw the competition.  Or perhaps it was just the presence of this uber-specimen that highlighted my otherwise mediocre results more than usual.

All that happened many years ago now.  But before you dismiss this as another ethno-botanical urban myth, please let me say that I haven’t grown anything to match it since!  I was more or less a complete novice grower in those days.  It was a case of me being the lucky recipient of freak genetics, a holy matrimony of chromosomes, rather than the seed being the benefactor of anywhere nearly approaching an ideal growing environment.  I’ve since come to realise just how precious good genetics are!

In the years that followed my growrooms grew in size perhaps a little disproportionate to my proficiency, but if one axiom has remained true throughout it’s that the best growroom in the world can only realise the potential of the plant genetics to hand.  I’ve not come across a plant quite as monstrously resinous as the aforementioned specimen since and, alas, the genetics of that alpha-female, are lost.  Forever.

Back then I’d heard about taking cuttings (aka clones) but, apart from a lack of space, I dismissed the technique as a bit too advanced or hit and miss for me.  Had I known how easy it was to take cuttings from my favourite plants my growroom could have been filled with super-plants for years to come. (And, let’s not forget, had I been altruistic as well as prudent, my green-fingered friends could have benefited too.)

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve daydreamed about harvesting row after row of those identical super-plants.  Alas, the daydreams always leave me with a deep regret that I did not take any cuttings.

There are probably as many different ways of taking cuttings as there are people who take them.  Rather than try to exhaustively list each and every one I just want to start by describing my own simple, inexpensive method that has worked consistently well for me over the years.  There can be a lot of growers’ ‘hocus pocus’ when it comes to taking cuttings so let’s start with a little common sense.  If I accidentally snap off part of a plant and leave it discarded on my growroom floor then that severed portion will, of course, die!  It’s been separated from its root system and therefore has no way of feeding itself or replenishing lost moisture.  In less than an hour it will be shrivelled up and limp.  So in order for cuttings to survive with no root system of their own they need to be placed quickly into a sort of “incubation chamber”.  There’s no need to pilfer the local maternity ward as all these ‘newly born cuttings’ need is a warm, humid environment – and this is very simple to create.

Essentials

- A healthy, vigorous plant with lots of vegetative growth
- A clean scalpel (or a small, very sharp kitchen knife)
- Propagator (aka humidity dome)
- Plastic seedling tray (usually comes with propagator)
- Some rooting medium (unless you are using an aeroponic cloning system)
- Some 25% strength nutrient solution
- Light.  Not too bright!  A single 50cm fluorescent tube will do – as will the ambient light in the corner of your grow room.

Good preparation is going to be key to your success.  The quicker you can rush your fresh cuttings into their “incubators” the better.

Firstly, prepare your rooting medium:  I prefer rockwool cubes as they provide a sturdy base for my cuttings and they are fairly easy to work with.  I use medium-sized cubes (about 1.5 inches square) as I find that smaller cubes have a tendency to dry out quicker and require almost daily maintenance.  I make up a 25% strength vegetative nutrient solution at pH 5.6 – 5.8 and soak the cubes for a few hours (if I have time, overnight).  It’s important to reduce the pH of rockwool because otherwise it’s too high for optimum nutrient uptake.

In a full size propagator (that generally has room for about 77 cuttings) I arrange about 35 rockwool cubes in a chessboard formation.  An overly crowded propagator can all too easily become a mould farm.  Of course you don’t have to take 35 cuttings at a time!  Smaller propagators are available which can comfortably hold up to 6 cuttings.  A friend who used to only take a handful of cuttings at a time used to place them in small pots beneath individual ‘humidity domes’ he’d fashioned out of plastic lemonade bottles cut in half.  Whether you buy a propagator from your local garden centre or create something a little more “Heath Robinson” the heuristic remains the same:  Keep that precious moisture in!

Your rooting medium should be moist but not saturated in nutrient solution.  I tend to give my rockwool cubes a gentle squeeze to release any excess moisture before placing them into the propagator.  Once you have your rooting medium prepared it’s time to take some cuttings!

Using a scalpel or sharp knife, slice off a cutting from your donor plant, making a clean cut through the stem at roughly a 45 degree angle.  It’s important to have as sharp an edge as possible because your aim is to take the cutting with the minimum amount of tissue damage.   The 45 degree angle opens up an increased surface area of inner-stem to rooting potential.  When taking cuttings from particularly woody stems (usually from older mother plants) I sometimes carefully remove some of the outer layers of ‘bark’ to expose more of this “inner stem” – especially if using rooting hormone products.
The size of your cuttings is important.  I usually take cuttings that are between two and four inches long with one or two young growth tips and three or four small leaves.  Cuttings smaller than these are fiddly and overly-delicate and they take longer overall to grow to the desired size.  Ideally cuttings should fit comfortably into the propagator allowing for a little growth.  I remove any large fan leaves as these tend to die anyway.  Remove any growth tips or leaves close to the bottom of the cutting as you need a nice inch or so of clean stem to insert into your rooting medium.

Other Useful Items

- Rooting hormone (e.g. Clonex or Roota)
- Small sterile container (e.g. a shot glass)
- Rhizotonic
- Digital min/max thermometer with probe

Next I dip the cutting into rooting hormone.  It’s worth pointing out that I’ve had success without using any hormone products but it does speed the process up which lessens the chance of mould and disease.  I prefer to use rooting gel (such as Clonex or Roota) as these are very easy to use (no mixing or diluting required).  Rooting hormone gels tend to have a short shelf life so don’t buy more than you need and always check the best before date.  Avoid dipping your cuttings directly into the rooting hormone product container.  It’s wise to keep any surplus hormone clean and untainted otherwise you could inadvertently be spreading disease from one set of clones to another.  Pour a little into a small receptacle (not the lid of the rooting hormone!)

Take care when placing the cutting into the rooting medium.  Most rockwool cubes come complete with a small hole and I find that this is more than sufficient to hold the cutting.  It’s important not to bruise or bend the cutting stem.

Place the cutting into your propagator.  Be sure to turn any fans off, and replace the lid in-between taking each cutting or give them a light spray with a mister – it’s amazing how quickly they dry out.  Once you have taken all your cuttings you should place the propagator into a warm environment (about 25 degrees Celsius is perfect).  Ensure the lid is on firmly, any vents are closed, and any excess moisture at the bottom of the propagator tray is removed.  A single fluorescent tube placed directly on top of the lid provides ample light for the cuttings to root.  Do not place your cuttings directly under a high intensity bulb.  If you have a separate vegetative growroom you can provide adequate light for your cuttings by placing the propagator in the corner of your growroom.  (If you use this method try placing some bubble-wrap over the propagator to keep the light well dispersed.)

The propagator should mist up.  This is perfectly normal and shows that everything’s working: i.e. the moisture is being retained inside the propagator!  Check the propagator daily.  Be sure to remove any dead leaves, growth tips or cuttings as their presence can cause mould (stem rot).  I tend not to spray my cuttings initially as there tends to be more than enough humidity generated from the moist rooting medium.

Now it’s just a case of waiting through the “incubation period”.  Some plant varieties can root in 5 days, and some can take over 14 days!  When checking your cuttings be careful not to disturb them too much and never pull on a cutting to see if it has rooted (instead check for small white roots emerging from the bottom of the cube).  Wipe any excess moisture from the propagator lid with a kitchen towel.  Most importantly, check the rooting medium of each cutting regularly to ensure that it has not dried out.   If I find a cube is a little dry give it a quick dip in some freshly made 25% nutrient solution, followed by a little squeeze to get rid of any excess.  Rockwool cubes tend to be fine for the first 3 or 4 days in an optimum environment.  Be especially vigilant towards the end of the incubation period or as soon as you see the first sign of root development – suddenly cuttings that seemed like they were doing nothing for days on end turn into thirsty little blighters and can dry up in hours!  During the latter stages of the incubation period I tend to open my propagator vents a little.

Some cuttings will root faster than others.  You can keep dipping the leaders in more nutrient solution whilst the others catch up so that you can plant out your rooted cuttings all together.  It’s important to realise that your rooted cuttings are still very delicate little creatures.  After all, they’ve just stepped out of their incubator – placing a newly rooted cutting directly in the full on glare of a 400 watt or higher HID light is a little like expecting a baby to ride a bicycle.  Either stage their development with a fluorescent unit or 250 watt metal halide or ensure any higher wattage lights are raised at least 3 feet above the tops of your plants.

This introduction to taking cuttings should be all you need to enable you to start growing your favourite plants again and again.  However cuttings bring more horticultural benefits than consistently high quality crops.  If you already know exactly what you are growing then its predictable nature allows you to concentrate on optimising other growroom variables such as feed strengths and vegetation times.  When you come to know a particular instance of a plant (also known as a “phenotype”) in this personal way you can focus on whether she performs best with two days in vegetation, a week, or ten days, matrixed with other factors such as the spacing of plants and the resulting availability of medium.  Clones are the quintessential constant in the growroom that allow the grower to explore other factors in a more scientific way.

In order to enjoy continual access to cuttings from your favourite plant it needs to be maintained in a separate growing environment to the area in which you flower off your developed cuttings.  This plant is often referred to as a ‘mother’ or ‘mother-plant’.

Read the second part to our beginner’s guide to taking cuttings…