If you haven’t watched that yet, please check HERE.
This simple Hack am showing you today will actually overcome one limitation of using air stones or other similar bubblers, That is they get clogged easily, specially if they are of low quality. After watching this hack, you may not feel like purchasing air stones at all. Yes, this is a permanent solution to this drawback of using air stones or similar stuff.
What you can do is: Just take two Ball pens like these. These are the famous Reynolds pens. Am sure all of us know about these pens.
Remove the refills and make tiny holes into the white plastic body by heating a needle. Make tiny holes as many as you want.
Then connect the air tube to the open end of the pens and place them into your cloning chamber. That’s it.
You can see how nicely and uniformly the bubbles are appearing. Also one more point and update is: you need not keep the bubbler continuously switched on. You can switch it on and off intermittently or atleast for 10 minutes 2 or 3 times in a day to get best results.
Also if you have a PH testing gadget, try to maintain the ph of the rooting solution or water to a slightly acidic ph of around 6.0 for best results.
In my previous video titled – the 10 Tips to Cloning plants in water – that is duplicating your plants from stem cuttings in water, we learnt many scientific concepts like the Nitrogen draining concept and the Oxygenation concept. We will use these simple concepts in building our Simple Plant Cloner Device.
So, lets start building this device step by step.
1. THINGS YOU NEED or Parts of this Cloner:
– The CHAMBER (container holding water and cuttings): The dimensions of this container depends on how many insertions or how many cuttings your want to insert into this setup. You can choose any opaque container like a rectangular box or even a bucket with a lid or even a small jar or anything. What I am using is a 12 inch x 6 inch glass Aquarium. Actually roots develop faster in dark and this also prevents algae growth in the container. I am using this transparent container for this experiment for recording purpose. Actually I will be covering this on all sides with a black cardboard paper like what you see in the video. Well! The next component is:
– The Top Platform which suspends cuttings into the chamber: You can use a plastic sheet or any tray or simply a Styrofoam or thermocol sheet. This platform can also be build in such a way to accommodate net pots to plant seeds or even insert cuttings – that will be a two in one plant cloning device plus a hydroponic chamber for growing plants and seeds. If you want to build a sturdy or a more permanent device, you can use a container like this and make holes and accommodate net pots of about 1 inch diameter and you can place your cuttings into the netpot and add some pebbles or clay balls or anything so that the cuttings are held in place properly.
We will build a dedicated hydroponic chamber and discuss on Hydroponics, Aquaponics and Aeroponics in another video some other time. These are actually interesting topics and not so difficult as they sound.
For now, I will show you the simplest form of this plant cloner or bubbler device and how to contruct it easily with various options. Well the next components you need are!
– Air-Pump, Airline Tube and Air-stone. Yes! All these are aquarium stuff. This is based on the oxygenation concept. The cuttings requires oxygen for rooting, instead of daily stirring the water by lifting the cuttings as we saw in our previous video, we can make this a Hands free process using this bubbler apparatus which continuously provides oxygen and hence rooting starts early. You can use either air stones or even an air-stone strip like what you are seeing here as air bubbler. If you use this strip, a single nozzle pump would be sufficient. You can also use an aquarium sponge filter for this.
– Then to insert cuttings, you can use any hack and make a hole in your top platform. The main idea is to hold cuttings in place. If you just use a thermocol, you need a thicker sheet and insert cuttings through a hole otherwise it may not fit snugly. And depending on the top platform, you can use anything like netpots, or plastic foam plugs, neoprene collars, and even holders like this. I don’t know what these are called! I think they are table grommets. This is just to hold the cuttings in place. If you have any more ideas on this please share with us in the comment box below the video.
PURCHASE ONLINE LINKS:
Air Pump, Tube and AirStone Pack: https://amzn.to/2AaVecp
Net Pots: https://amzn.to/2AaTG20
Hydroponics Kit: https://amzn.to/2AcwbFM
Mini Drip Irrigation Kit: https://amzn.to/2AaUGTT
The simplest one is just a piece of Styrofoam with holes in it to insert the cuttings. That’s it ! Insert your cuttings and then Just drop this sheet into the chamber and switch on the air bubbler.
Now the time for results and the conclusions.
Well, The most surprising part to me was the result on Day 5 – As you can see one of the cuttings – that is actually a cutting from the rose plant sucker growth. Its has so much potential for rooting and has started rooting in 5 days. Where as the other two neem cuttings did not start rooting till the 8 th day, but this last eranthemum plant cuttings has just started rooting. And One more important point, I have never changed the water till this 8 th Day. This is just the same water with the air bubbler continusouly switched on. And no additional stuff like rooting hormone added. Just dropped on aspirin tablet into the container on day 1. That’s it.
So Now the inferences drawn from this experiment. The rooting process is complex one and depends on many factors like the plant type, genetics, thickness and hardiness of the branch, pathogens, growing medium like water or soil and the oxygen availability around the vicinity of the rooting zone and many other factors.
This method of cloning plant cuttings in water is an age-old practice.
If you want to increase the success rate of growing plants in water or rooting your cuttings in water, you need to follow certain simple tips. The most important advantage of this, whether cuttings are grown in soil or water or even air layering, you get an identical copy of your Parent plant (also called the Stock Plant). But This is not the case with seed grown plant, which differs significantly from its Parent plant.
Please Watch all these Steps and Tips till the end to achieve a great result and have fun with your gardening hobby. Also some scientific concepts specially Tip #4 and Tip #8 like the nitrogen draining concept and the oxygenation concept may be completely new and really interesting to most of us. Also Some of these tips are common when you are propagating cuttings in soil. With these simple tips and scientific concepts, you can achieve a success rate of nearly 100 percent.
- 1. Taking Healthy Cuttings:Yes this is the first and foremost job which is most important to achieve a good successs rate. Take a cutting from a healthy mother plant, which is free of pest and disease and has good active growing branches. Choose Semi-woody cuttings, not hard woody or too soft ones which can easily rot.Making a Sharp Cut at 45 degree angle. A sharp cut with a sharp cutting tool or blade is also an important factor for success. Preferably sterilize the cutter with some disinfectant like hydrogen peroxide or any household antiseptic like Dettol.
Cut about half an inch below a node – this is the area where rooting starts and which is to be inserted into water or your rooting solution.3. Length of Cuttings: This is generally 6 to 10 inches or atleast 2 or 3 nodes above the rooting node. The length depends on the internode distance of a branch. Remember one rule of thumb: , the success rate of cloning is inversely proportional to the internode distance. That means the lesser the internode distance, the greater the chances of success.
4. Drain Out Nitrogen for the Branch: As you all know, nitrogen slows down rooting process. Pouring lot of water on the plant or the branch which is to be cut, is believed to drain out nitrogen. Do this and then take your cuttings from the plant. I don’t know how this happens. but if u know about the concept please let us know in the comments box below this video.
5. Do Not Fertilize your Parent Plant: Applying the same concept of nitrogen drain out, better not to feed the plant atleast 15 days prior to taking cuttings.
6. Prepare Rooting Solution: You can use just plain clean soft water. Better avoid salty water or chlorinated water to increase the chances of success. The second option is to add some ingredients into this water which serves two functions. First, prevents contamination and rot and secondly, it helps accelerate the actual rooting process. You have many options for this:
a. Rooting Hormone Powder with indole butyric acid or NAA (naphthalene acetic acid) – just add half a teaspoon of this to your glass or the container holding the cutting and mix it well. Add this everytime you change the water till the rooting starts.
b. Aspirin or willow water: Aspirin which is chemically Acetyl Salicylic Acid serves both functions, including rooting. You can watch a detailed video on this from a link at top right corner of this video.
c. Fresh aloe vera gel extracted from aloe leaf also contains salicylic acid and other ingredients which help in preventing rot and accelerate rooting.
7. Use Clean Containers and Change Water or your Rooting Solution every 2 to 3 days: Take clean containers preferably transparent ones, so that you can actually see through for the root development.
- Oxygenate the tissues: Yes this is another important tip for succuessful rooting. Lift the cutting out of the water once daily and stir the water atleast once to oxygenate it. Scientists have proved that plants need dissolved oxygen to survive and that the cutting will consume all the dissolved oxygen in the immediate vicinity of its rooting zone, so water needs to be stirred in order to maintain healthy root formation. This is infact the basics of Aeroponics and Hydroponics which will try to discuss in detail in some other episode.9. Submerge the cutting into water or your rooting solution, atleast 2 inches above the lowermost node, that is the rooting area. Keep it Undisturbed preferably on a window sill to receive indirect light and also optionally Suspend the Cutting into the Container through a plug like a piece of foam or a cloth. Also it’s a good idea to cover it with a polythene bag intermittently, specially in night time if its too cool. This is to provide the optimum temperature and humidity levels for rooting.
Now the Question is: what do I feed them: giving nutrients would be pointless until roots develop as the cuttings cannot absorb any mineral content. Once the rooting starts, you can feed with very dilute solutions of water soluble NPK or even very dilute compost tea. But one hack to counter the stress or the shock to these little cuttings. Vitamin B1 that is Thiamine in the rooting solution is thought to help alleviate any stress, like how we use Epsom salt solution to water the plants to counter transplant shock. This effect of vitamin B-1 is actually derived from researches based on tissue culture media. But I am not sure of this and the mechanism of action and the molecular concepts behind this.
10. Transplant into Soil: Once you see multiple roots atleast 4 to 5 roots of atleast about an inch in length, you can carefully transplant into your potting mix.