Cannabis Clone Room Basics

Many home growers fail to appreciate the benefits of having a strong clone operation of their own. Not only do clone rooms supply healthy new plants for each crop you grow, but they also allow you to keep a genetic library of your favorite strains.

As you come to learn which cannabis strains do the best with your garden setup and nutrient regime, you can continuously refine your craft with that knowledge.

If you’ve ever grown an exceptional round of cannabis but failed to hold onto a mother plant or clones, you know how frustrating it can be. Getting your clone operation dialed in is key to holding onto winning genetics when you finally locate them.

Like all phases in the life of a cannabis plant, clones require very specific environmental conditions. To get cuttings to respond and grow roots, you must adjust humidity, temperature, and light to the perfect levels. When you find the right equilibrium in your clone room, your cuttings should grow roots in just a week’s time. (Read also: Why Grow Tents Make Great Clone Rooms)

What are Adventitious Roots?

The cannabis plant species has a unique evolutionary trait that makes it ideal for cloning. When parts of a plant above the soil are injured or exposed to extremely humid conditions, they can grow roots from unusual locations — such as branches.

Known as “adventitious roots,” it’s precisely this process you are attempting to stimulate when taking clones.

Tree and plant species throughout the world grow adventitious roots. According to a research paper titled The Woody Plant Body, “Adventitious aerial roots of many tropical trees are common. For example, Ficus produces free-hanging aerial roots that originate in the branches.” The hot and humid conditions of tropical forests are perfect for stimulating adventitious root growth.

There are a few cloning techniques used for trees and plants. A common cloning practice among arborists is known as “air layering.” With this practice, you wrap wet moss around a tree trunk and cover it with plastic — eventually stimulating root growth.

To clone cannabis, growers cut a branch from a mother plant, then cut small slits in the branch stem with a razor blade. When exposed to the right environmental conditions, adventitious roots eventually grow from the wounds.

Ideal Humidity Levels for Cloning

As seen with environmental conditions in both tropical forests and clone rooms, high humidity is a critical part of clone propagation. With air-layering, you don’t even need to take cuttings, you expose part of a plant’s stem to humid conditions for a sustained amount of time.

Clone propagation rooms are easily the most humid of all cannabis cultivation environments. In fact, most growers aim to keep humidity levels somewhere between 70-80 percent when cloning.

When a cutting is placed in a dome or a clone machine, the stem is constantly in touch with wet surfaces and humid air. With the right environmental equilibrium, your cuttings will sprout adventitious roots in just seven to eight days.

AC Infinity designed an all-in-one Humidity Dome and Germination Kit specifically for taking plant clones. With this easy-to-use setup, you can easily fit 40 clones in a dome, while also maintaining consistent humidity levels above 70 percent. (Read also: The Best Equipment Choices for Your Mother Plants)

Best Temperature Range for Cloning

Young cannabis plants do quite well in warm and humid environments. It’s only when they begin to grow flowers that temperatures above 75°F can potentially damage plants with misshapen buds and pathogens.

As seen with plants during vegetative growth, cannabis clones prefer temperatures to be a bit warmer. Whether you’re dealing with a whole clone room or just a dome, you should try to keep ambient temperatures between 80-85°F.

With the right mix of heat and humidity, cuttings will rapidly transform from branches into small plants of their own. When done right, the sheer proliferation of new adventitious root growth can be quite astonishing.

The AC Infinity Germination Kit has the answer for keeping your clones at the perfect temperature. AC Infinity’s Seedling Heat Mats improve germination success and accelerate your seeds’ growth process by emitting steady heat. The seedling mat’s steady 80-87°F temperature range heats the rooting area by up to 20°F above the ambient air temperature.

Ideal Lighting for Clone Rooms

Cuttings and seedlings need the right light mixture and intensity to grow properly. Since new cuttings are so tender, you want to use a really mellow light source in your clone room.

Lights heavy in blue spectrums are ideal for cloning, as blue light gives plants vital energy that is transferred into root growth. Unlike cannabis plants in vegetative growth — where high-powered MH lights are often used — clones will easily wilt and burn under strong spectrums.

For clone propagation, growers should use less intense light sources like fluorescents or LEDs. The AC Infinity Germination Kit includes LED Light Bars that are the perfect strength for clone rooms. LED grow light bars maximize plant growth through uniform coverage and adjustable brightness levels. These LED light strips are extremely easy on your electrical bill, while also not burning tender new cuttings with intense spectrums. (Read also: What is the Best Way to Hang Grow Lights?)

Summary
Without a bit of research into adventitious roots, you probably wouldn’t know that many of our practices for cloning cannabis are taken from traditional plant sciences like horticulture and agronomy.

By figuring out unique ways to get plants to grow adventitious roots, cannabis growers can now keep detailed genetic libraries of their favorite strains. In turn, by learning how specific strains behave through multiple crops, you can better fine-tune your craft and troubleshooting abilities.

Having the right technology on your side is critical for creating the perfect environmental equilibrium for cloning. Interestingly, by creating a hot and humid environment with less intense light, you are also recreating the type of climate where plants and trees sprout adventitious roots in nature — such as tropical forests.

When your setup is dialed, you should have no problem sprouting healthy cannabis clones that eventually grow into hearty plants.

AC Infinity is the foremost name in air delivery systems, designing and developing the latest innovations in cooling and ventilation technology. They offer a suite of quiet inline fans that automate the growing progress and track key metrics. Visit acinfinity.com or contact [email protected] to learn more.