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Wilting Cuttings

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Hi all....I'm hoping someone here can give me a little advice.  I recently finished building a bucket cloner with spray heads and an submersible pump.  The manifold I built and sprayers seem to work great.  Today I made several cuttings to try it out...tomatoes, stevia, rosemary, mint, and sweet basil.  I cut the plants at 45 deg, used Clonex, and got them in the cloner.  Within a few minutes the stevia began wilting.  Now, about 5 hours later, everything except the rosemary (perhaps because of its stiffer stem) is wilted.  Is this normal?  Should I mist the cuttings?  They are not under a dome...should they be?  Should I to buy green Krylon and paint my thumb?  Any advice will be appreciated!

Bob

Hmmm... I tried to add a picture but can't seem to figure out how. If someone can tell me how I'll send one.  Thanks!

I do not use a dome over mine and it works fine.  What is the PH of the water?  If you have city water (treated), did you allow time for the chlorine to evaporate?  Try placing a cutting in a jar and see it it beings to root, if it does and the other items are fine, I would focus on the mister/spray pattern.

Thanks for the quick response.  I did test the pH, and adjusted it (as best as I could tell according to the color comparison chart) to just under 6.0.  I am using tap water, and ran the pump for a couple of hours before adding the cuttings. The sprayers seem to have great coverage....all the cuttings are wet when I pull them out.  I have 9 heads in the manifold I made in a 5-gallon bucket and I'm using replacement heads made for the EZ-Cloner. I did decide to mist the tops with a spray bottle....hoping that helps.  Since I just did this today perhaps I'm too concerned and the cuttings will perk up by tomorrow. 

Wilting cuttings

Thanks to SleestaksRule the pic is finally up.  Actually the cuttings have perked up a bit now.  I'll post an update tomorrow.

SleestaksRule's picture

I've cloned all that you mention using just an ice cream bucket and plastic wrap on top for moisture under a 42 watt light with 24/7 light.

Here's a video I made of it a few years ago:

 

 

 

 

To upload a photo switch to FULL HTML under the comment box and click the photo icon and upload.

Rosemary takes a while to root.

 

That looks like a much easier way to clone than I'm using.  I'm going to leave them this time and try your method next round.  I also have pH and PPM meters ordered so I can tell more about that soon.  Thanks for the input!

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