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PERFECT Clones Every Time Part 2 | Otter.ai

PERFECT Clones Every Time Part 2

Jordan River43min

Jordan River

00:00

Greetings, growers worldwide. Jordan River here back with more grow cast today with a part two with Mike from growers house all about cloning. On this half of the episode, we get into tips and tricks for cloning water table levels and most importantly, how to get 100% success rate with lush green cuts. I know you're gonna love it. But first, a quick reminder, our best class of the Year is coming up, October 11 and 12th. It's the Okay? Calyx, natural farming, immersive, teaching you everything you need to know about KNF and jet M Find out more at growcast.com/events, and I'll see you October 11 and 12. Let's get into it with Mike. Thank you for listening. Enjoy the show. And from there, you're ready to get started. You're ready to take cuts. So what do you what's your your strategy when you're getting in there, actually slicing the plant, de leafing or not? Talk to me about that.

Speaker 1

00:47

So one big thing that I try to really tell growers is to don't use scalpels. Buy many decent scissors, like it scissors. Scissors allow you to make a cut in the air, like it that is way cleaner than using any cutting board, the scalpel and cutting board thing. When I see people taking cuts off that, it kind of makes me cringe, because it's like, that's not clean. I don't know what your disinfection technique is between every plant, but I am probably sure that they're not taking the time to disinfect that completely between every plant, because it would just take too long. If you just use scissors, you could literally have a set of scissors for each plant that follows. It's a it's a two to four month pair of scissors. And honestly, the types of shears that we use in the garden world, two to four months for a pair of scissors is like, that's a good life. That's a good life, you know, you know for that's a full scissor life for that guy, he died an honorable death. He did good sir. That guy did good work, and we put him away with that root ball. So that's what I would recommend, more than trying to use surgical tools and like autoclave or disinfect them, just buy scissors that are dedicated to those plants, clean them and then disinfect them before and after each use, as far as the cutting of the plant. If so, there's going to be a lot of debate about where you take cuts. Here's my general rule of thumb. If you want very vigorous, fast growing cuts for regular production of flowering plants, you should be aiming to take cuts from the tops of the growing branches, as many of them could. Should be light exposed apical tops as possible, not maybe not apical cortical but like light exposed tops of branches, if at all possible. Those those parts of the plant have, like the currently fastest rate of metabolism, they're utilizing water the most. They're utilizing they're producing the most amount of auxins, because it's that new growth up top. So that new growth up top, as it's growing those bud sites create the auxins, which gets sent down. So if you take those parts, they naturally, that cutting naturally has an endogenous level of auxins that's higher than something shaded and slow growing in the center of the plant. Now I was going to go over this later, but I'm just going to say now, if you want to keep a plant for plant preservation, you actually want to take that cutting from a lower portion of the plant that is a little bit shaded and slower growing that still carries the attributes that you want. It's not like a very stunted inner growth, but it's a decent it's a decent cutting from the lower end of the plant that is not under as much light and growing slower. Since that cutting is growing slower, it's actually more closer to the original genetic makeup of that plant than the top, because that's the top grows. Natural mutations can happen. Natural changes to the genome can happen, you know. So instead of letting those kind of shifts in the gene get expressed in the next generation, if you want the next generation to be as close to that mom as possible, you generally want to take it from the lower growth, from the slower growing growth. But most of the time you're going to want to take cuts from the top, because you're going to take those cuts and you're going to flower them. So that's, that's my biggest takeaway on where you take your cuts from. And as far as defoliating goes, you basically the plants don't need much. As far as leaves when they're in that chlorine phase, you could take off. If there's like, you're looking down and there's like, I don't know how else to explain it, better than if there's like, three square inches of leaf, you can cut that down to one and a half. So you can cut down the square inches, or like, the area of leaf, about in half, and the plant will be fine. There is research that shows, instead of cutting the tips of the leaves, just take the leaves off from the bottom and leave the top leaves, leave a few of the top leaves just fully intact. That actually keeps the growth faster than if you do that, trim around the edge, thing that we're used to doing. Okay. So. I'm sorry if I went too fast, but yeah, that was great.

Jordan River

05:03

And I just want to drill down on it, because that's a big debate. And let's be honest, Mike, when it comes to where you take the plants and how you cut the leaves, you can do it any which way with great success. But when you and I talk, we're getting down into the nitty gritty, right? We're getting into the advanced science. Like you said, here's what's going on, the mutations itself. So, so when it comes to leaves on clones, this has been a huge debate in the community, and it's because I think there's a lot of complexity there. My understanding is, like you said, if you're trying to clone something, leaving leaves on as a general practice, is a good thing and not damaging those leaves. Those are the nutrient sinks and stuff. But remember, how many clones do we have under this dome? I think that when some people have really good success chopping the leaves like that, they're doing themselves a favor, because I'm looking at their setup, and they're taking 50 cuttings, and if you left all the leaves on, of course you'd have issues. So so I like that. And then, like you said, when you're slicing off the tips of each leaf. I mean, anytime we damage the leaf tissue and expose like that, aren't we kind of like rolling the dice? I know it's again, we're getting a little paranoid. We're getting a little nitty gritty. But like, isn't it a roll of the dice anytime you do that? So isn't it best to avoid it as much as you can, in your opinion? Yeah,

Speaker 1

06:17

that and you're wounding the plant. Like however we want to see. We think we're helping, but in fact, what we are actually doing, we are wounding the plant. So the plant does need to use energy to seal itself off create the cells that will block off all of the open vasculature that you've cut into the leaf at that point. And it does focus on fixing the leaves before it can, it can really send more more of its energy down to create the roots so that you you hit it on the head, because it's a trade off, because you can be successful either way. The only thing is the most recent, the most recent research shows that if you don't cut the leaves, you generally get a slightly faster rooting ton. However, by if by not cutting the leaves, you increase your rate of botrytis mold, you, you, you know, you increase the inconsistency of humidity in the dome. If those outweigh the small increase in rooting time, then you really need to be doing that leaf cutting to thin out your leaves, because that is going to be more advantageous for you in that moment than maybe one or two days of faster rooting time. So yeah, you hit it on the neck. You could do it both ways, but you have to find the way that works best for you. But just know that, yeah, Both ways will work, and they are both as successful. It just depends on how you're cutting and the state of the cuttings that you're

Jordan River

07:41

putting in there. I love it, man. This has been an incredible breakdown so far. So just to recap, you're removing the lower foliage, but leaving that top node untouched. If possible. You got your Ventana clone gel. Just squeeze a drop into each hole. Let's say we can't get our hands on that. Are there any home? I mean, I've heard all sorts of things. Mike, let me tell you, I've heard honey. I've heard willow bark. Let's say we're listening to this somewhere overseas. We can't get venten A clone gel, or any clone gel. For that matter, what are we using?

Speaker 1

08:10

So society has fallen and I need to clone my I need to clone my cannabis plants. First thing I'm going to do willow bark is actually legit. The amount of oxens found in especially like willow bark that's just about to bud, or is in bud pretty dang high. Aloe vera is another natural high auxin plant. So aloe vera is one that I would use. I wouldn't use honey because the sugar, you're going to dilute the sugar, and once you dilute sugar and water, then mold loves it. So No, honey, because there's sugar. So I would use aloe extracts, or aloe, just straight aloe, or I would use willow bark extract, you know, soak some willow in some pH water, and that would be fine. That will give you, in the best case scenario, probably like a 65 70% success rate. And then the next step would be going into the cloning gels, which would be the upper half of that, which is your 75 to 100% success rate. Success rate, right? So there's a lot of natural solutions out there, aloe being probably the easiest to access, because if you just find, like the standard barbenzies aloe, like the stuff that we put on wounds, that stuff is great, and that when you cut the aloe open and out of the Cambrian, you see that, like, greenish, yellowish tinted goo. That stuff is the money. Like, that's what you want to really like, kind of scrape off and extract and the rub on your plant, and if you're going to plug it in with aloe. But if you're in the States, go to growers house, maybe get some of that floating Joe, because it's just, it's cheaper, faster, and more importantly, it has a shelf life that you can rely on. Aloe, it's going to take up space in your fridge for a long time, and then it's going to go bad. Ventana, plant science, clean gel, it's going to take space up in your fridge for a long time, and it's going to stay there for a long time because there's nothing in it other than iba and the carrier that's that's another nice thing too. There's no dyes or no nothing else. It's just. Yeah, just the hormone and the carrier gel. That's it just sit in the back of your fridge until you need it, and it's always there, and it's never going to get, like, spoiled or anything, because there's nothing. There's no organic stuff, like, just, like, no. There's no organic biomass, like an aloe gel that can get weird and moldy. It's just that hormone in the carrier which is great

Jordan River

10:19

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Unknown Speaker

11:47

Yeah, you guys have that member. Yeah, that's right,

Jordan River

11:49

but, but let's keep going here. So we have the cuttings now, and we have the clone gels. We're going to plug them into the plugs when, when you have, like, a nice moisturized one, like my organic plugs, I just open and plug them. I don't have to wet them. But how wet Do you want them if you have to wet them?

Speaker 1

12:11

So just to scoot real quick on the IBA thing. I mean, I just want to make a note, like, one of the other benefits of having that higher iba percentage is the fact that you're going to use less like the the big thing that people don't realize is, with the gel, is the gel is pretty persistent, and it can kind of stay there for a while. So you actually want to use as little gel with the same amount of IBA as possible. So other gels that have a lower iba, you generally have to use a lot of that. You people over apply the gel, and it stays there for a lot longer, and then that long term gel exposure causes that callus. With the VPS stuff, you're using very little, but it's still putting out that high level of IBA, but the gel carrier itself dissipates out a lot faster, letting that kind of plant naturally do the crosstalk and push roots, instead of just callusing where the gel sits for a long time. So not having to over apply because of the high concentration is one of the great benefits of that VPS gel, in my

Jordan River

13:08

opinion, too. Yeah, that's fantastic, man. I've been loving it. I've been loving it, but oh my god, this one just got to me. So, so, okay, so I like to take that applier and just go right down into the designated clone hole in the plug. Yes. And how wet Do you want? These things, you know, we talk about field saturation. And how would you, how would you describe that over a podcast as somebody who's really struggling with moisture?

Speaker 1

13:31

So I like to look at grow Dan's. I like to recommend grow Dan's, kind of plug recommendation technique for anyone new to this process, it is very it's a very safe technique. You know, soak your plugs in a 1.5 until at 1.5 EC, about 5.8 to 6.0 pH, water. Let that sit, let them drain, like take them out, and then let them drain for about 30 minutes. And that's going to be your full saturation point. Great for rockwool, for a lot of like peat, cocoa based plugs, especially if they come wrapped like the organic plug talls and the organic plug shorts. If they come wrapped like that, they're ready to go like you just, yeah, they're already at that, that ideal saturation percentage. And you rip open the packaging, and you could hit them with the clones right off the bat. Um, if by any chance, you do get one of those packages and it's dry, or say, you have like, a bunch of like, other types of plugs that are those PD types, but they're dry, then I would recommend doing that kind of that, that soak and the saturate and sit technique, where you saturate them with the right solution that you want that plug to be at, and then you just let them sit and then for about an hour, like, 30 minutes to An hour, and that's when you know that you know that water has reached the normal gradient, that it's supposed to be in the plug, and you should be safe to plug in. And when you are plugging in, there's also a big consideration where you're plugging your clone into the plug itself. A lot of people will kind of plug them too shallow. In my opinion, you need that that that cut edge. So if this is the entire plug, you want that cut edge to basically be under that halfway mark on that plug, not not the whole plug, but that cut edge needs to be under the halfway mark of the plug, because the halfway mark is generally where the water is going to sit for most of that plugs first few days, and that's where you want, kind of, like, that water to be going into the plant. If you plug it too low, that area is just going to be constantly waterlogged, and it can slow growth, and the area can get a little anaerobic, and you can get that slimy clone end that dies off. And of course, if it's too high, it won't get enough water, and it'll either drop off, or it will grow very slowly, because the only times that it will really be able to push roots or grab anything is when after you've watered it. So like, having it, having the plug at the right level is really important for, like, your mid to long term success in that clone tray.

Jordan River

15:58

And is that the water table in the Clone tray that you talked about, we talked about the water table out in nature, you know, where the water is under the surface of the ground, kind of, but you're creating a little water table in your tray,

Speaker 1

16:10

basically. So, like, well, the water table in your tray, you can imagine it as, like, the water table is where the plugs sit with water after they've been fully saturated, like the two or three days after the plug is fully saturated. Where is that water level? That's that water table. And so you need that plug to be at that water table. When you plant like a long, elongated seedling into the ground and you bury it deep, you're actually giving it a advantage of being able to access the water table more. So that could be a possible additional benefit of burying your your plants low too, is you're almost like building them a tap root by burying them that deep. Because, like we said earlier, the tap roots kind of like a end extension of the stem. So you're creating that basically that same thing by planting deep and letting that plug access the water table. So similarly, here, you need that plug deep enough to access that plugs, quote, unquote water table at most of the time, so that the plug itself can continually take up water. Because even if the plug is dry, a lot of the times, if it's old enough, they can. They've sealed everything, but they haven't really pushed roots. And they'll state, they'll stay, they'll have turtle pressure, even though the plug is dry and they don't have any roots. But you never really want it to be that way, because as soon as it stops, it's not going to kind of restart its its whole process of taking in water, even if you water it in, it's not going to be as efficient at growing as if it started in the normal night, day, night cycle that you'd expect.

Jordan River

17:37

Ah, that makes a lot of sense, and you're right. This is another reason why bigger plugs help, though, Mike, because we're scared to push it in too deep, because we plunge it through or we rip open. A lot of times I've, like, accidentally ripped a plug and wasted it, so we're sticking them in a little too shallow, and you need to get it right in that kind of bottom third zone. Is what it sounds like, right on that line. Yeah.

Speaker 1

18:01

Yeah. It has to be, basically, yeah, like, either that bot, yeah, that, yeah, exactly that bottom third, basically under, just under that halfway mark. And the most important thing is that that cut surface needs to be under that halfway mark. Because basically what's happening is, as that cut surface is pushing into the media, and it meets that media, it's almost like, like a graft between the plant and the media, so that that water is going to be able to flow up that tiny bit of xylem and kind of keep that plant up and stay and sturdy.

Jordan River

18:32

Goodness. All right. It's all coming together for me. Mike, this is all coming together for me and the listeners. This is fantastic. So now we're plugged in. We've got our nice moist plugs. We plop them in our trays and hit them with the clone dome. What's the deal with these vents? You start and closed. How long you keeping them closed? What does that look

Speaker 1

18:48

like? So okay, say that your room is, quote, unquote, in ideal or close to ideal conditions. It's crazy to have a room in your house at 80 so we're gonna say that the room is at 75 degrees and relative humidity is maybe, like 60, a little bit lower than you'd want. But who wants mold on the walls type deal, you know, so it's if it's in that environment. What I would recommend is the first day or two you really want to keep that dome on and no vents open, you can let the first one or two days, let the condensation kind of build. That's okay. What you really want to make sure is that graph that quote, unquote, grafting of the media to that cut portion of the plant happens, and the plants able to really take in the water that's in the plug and not calm itself down, but, like, not panic and refocus its energy on, okay, what's going on? I got hormone. Let's push some roots. So once you have that dome on there for like one or two days, maybe even up to three, then I would start to crack those vents about 25% every day. You want a slow but steady, consistent progression down the relative humidity scale. So you're going to go from 100 you're going to crack it. You're going to go probably from 100 to about 95 Then you're just gonna, if you have a sensor in there, or sensor probe, you could probably see, as you crack them slowly, how the it steps off on your relative humidity. And that allows your plants to a breathe and and start to exchange some of the oxygen in that with CO two in that dome and B, it lets a lot of the moisture escape. As the moisture escapes, it pushes more moisture up into the plant, pushing more moisture into the plant, pushes nutrients and encourages growth. So after that that that dome opening will take about maybe like, four days, and then you're going to be at 100% open, if you're doing 25% in that period. Though you do want to undo the plants periodically, either shake out the moisture. You don't need to wipe down the domes, because I've seen too many horrible instances where they wipe down the domes and that rag that they're using has been sitting there for months. Like, do you clean that rag? Like, you know? So it's like, you don't need to wipe it down and possibly contaminate the surface of that dome. It's it's already just, you just need to get the moisture off. So you could just shake the moisture off, put it right back on. Make sure your domes are progressively going down 25% every day, and by about day four or five, you should need to water again, like that tray should start to be getting light as the condensation builds, as the plants are using that water and the plugs themselves are evaporating. So about day five, generally, I recommend like a 1.5 veg solution, a little bit heavier on the calm mag if you can, and if you have a history of damping off or any sort of like fusarium or things like that, then I would recommend, like a trichoderma product, like maybe root shield WP, something like that. I don't really recommend other inoculants, because other inoculants are more focused on nutrient uptake. And we're not really worried about nutrient uptake at the clone stage. We're more worried about plant protection. So that trichoderma would be the only real microbe or inoculant that I would recommend during the cloning phase. You don't really want to muddy the waters in that in that clone tray too much and have biofilm start to form. Um, so again. So now you're at like five to six days. Your vents are fully open. You've been shaking off that dome and cleaning it. Now you gotta water you water them from the top of the plugs down, ideally, and you water them until you start to get run off. And then you drain that runoff off after all of the plugs have been fully saturated. An easy way to know what your full saturation point and when your watering point should be is when you initially plug your tray in a fully saturated tray, weigh that tray on a scale. If a fully saturated tray with all my plants is six pounds, I know that in five days when I weigh that tray, and that tray is now at 3.2 pounds. I'm very close to, if not, at 50% saturation in my blocks, because the cute the plants themselves have not grown to a significant change of weight, but the amount of water that is displaced through evaporation and through the plant is significant and measurable. So if we measure that beginning weight, and we measure the weight periodically, we're like, all right, dude, it's at 3% or three pounds. I know I'm at 50% let's water. It's time to water, because I don't want it to get under 50% because then the plugs will be dry and we've wasted that day of cloning. So at that point 50% we're going to water them in. That's like the low threshold you watered in those plugs. Again, you weigh the tray 6.1 Yeah, cool. That's right around the range that it was at. They'll probably drain a little bit more overnight, but boom, back on the shelf with the domes fully open at day four or five. And then after that point, after that first watering, I generally recommend propping up the dome a little bit, so that you can get air going into the sides of the dome on the low end, so that it can kind of create this upward draft coming out the open, fully open top fence. And you can do that for about two to three days. And if your room is at 60% relative humidity, then your plants should be very well hardening off. And additionally, in that seven to eight to 10 day point, you should start to see roots exfiltrating out of those clone plugs. Once you start to see roots, you're like, that's a plant that is a plant with a root system. It's going to drink. So that's when you really need to monitor your watering a lot better. And at that point you need to consider the timeline of when you want to plant, because once you start to see a few roots exfiltrating out, you're basically in an ideal scenario. Or you're about four or five days out from the rest of the tray being able to be transplanted. So at that point you're like, all right, this is going to be like, if it's at day seven or eight, then you know what? I got, a couple roots 14. Day probably is when I'll when I'll call it and I'll start to transplant. To transplant everything. So that's a good way to plan, like getting your your planting in as well, before you pull the plugs out. But at about like day eight is when you generally, like two or three days of having the dome lifted a little bit off with open vents. You. Through two or three days of that, and you just take the dome off. You monitor the tray every like, maybe like couple of hours if any of them fall drop off, it's natural. Sometimes you don't get 100% success rate, but ideally, all of them should still be standing after a few hours in that 60% humidity. Boom, those are hardened off. Give them one or two more days to be hardened off just to because once they're in that hard enough state, even though they're they're up and turn the turbine pressure is good, they're still adapting their water gathering potential to meet the requirements of that dryer space. So give them a day or two in that relative in that in that lower humidity, uh, hardening off before you transplant them in, because then they'll be really ready to go. And when you transplant them, make sure that the media that you're transplanting them is at the same, if not higher, EC than the plug itself. People don't realize that if you're using like a peat plug or a rockwool plug, just like if you're using peat or rockwool media, the more nutrient solution you apply Generally, the higher the EC of that plug is going to be. So a lot of the times, if you have like a 20 day plug, the EC of that plug is almost like a 2.5 to three. And you're if you put it in a pot that's 1.5 to two, that pots cocoa or media is going to suck that out and it's going to stall the plant. So you want that media to be at as close, if not a little bit higher, than, the EC of the plug itself, which generally, if you follow that 1.5 feed for one or two feedings, it'll probably be at like a two. So as long as your root zones at a two to three is what I recommend of transplant, you should be good. Soil is different. Soil will be higher. If it's a good quality soil, then you don't need to worry. But if it's an inert media, the inert media needs to be charged to about two or three that that

Jordan River

26:44

makes so much sense. There's a couple things in there that were brilliant. Mike, like, I just was, was going to let you go, because you were just dropping knowledge bombs there. Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker

26:52

blacked out for a second.

Jordan River

26:56

It's like the Hulk. But with grow science, you know what? I mean, you wouldn't like you wouldn't like me when I start getting knowledgeable. You talked about weighing the clone tray. That's incredible. Because I always tell people, you know, feel the weight of the pot. Feel the weight of this. But with a clone tray, it's small enough to where you could actually place it on a bathroom scale, for that matter. And that was mind blowing for me. Man, I cannot thank you enough for sharing that, I am absolutely going to use that and then also the transplant shock thing at the end. That's why people experience transplant shock sometimes over others. I also, yeah, I also know it's cultivar dependent, but like you said, when, when you're transporting from one living soil system to another, where the microbes have already kind of been established and moving and grooving, and they have that economy, and the plants are putting out exudation. That's why a lot of the times that transplant shock ain't there as much. Versus you're going from a plug that's basically jam packed full of nutrients with that high level of EC to, I see people water their cocoa pre transplant with plain water. You're like, I just kind of want to get it wet and get it in there. No no pre load that media so that there's not this, this drop off, and it's a smooth transition. Absolutely brilliant. Mike, that is absolutely brilliant.

Speaker 1

28:08

Yeah, soil is like a canvas, you know, or, like you're growing media as a canvas. Like, if there's already a good painting there, that plug will do good, but if there's nothing there, it's just going to bleed all of the ink off of it. So you need to basically, quote, unquote, create the soil conditions in that inert media, such that when that plug goes in, it's like, it's like acclimating a fish, you know, it's like, they need the temperatures to be the same for plants. They need that root zone EC to be the same as they move into bigger pots, or else there's going to be a disruption. Layer of this is lower EC. This is higher EC. All of the ions as the water moves are going to move into the low EC. And now your roots are chasing nutrients instead of gathering nutrients from the new soil, you know. So that's a lot of the times, a big cause of that transplant shock for guys planting into stone wools or cocoa or something in there is their media is not charged to the point that the plant can immediately start growing. They need to water it two or three weeks for it to finally reach that EC level that the plants used to. And then it's like, oh, this is good soil. Maybe I can grow more instead of just trying to, like, not die, because there's so much media and there's nothing in it, you

Jordan River

29:15

know. And that big shock, wow, wow. Fantastic. Mike and, and that brings us to the end. That brings us all the way to the end, folks, of of the cloning workflow, absolutely incredible breakdown. Now I'd like to ask you, do you have any general tips for faster, better clones that you didn't cover? Do you have any mistakes that you see people make along the way that you didn't cover that you'd like to have add here at the end? You

Speaker 1

29:41

don't need your plans to be too big. Ideal cutting size, in my experience, for the entirety of the cutting is probably about maybe seven to eight inches. You don't need the cuttings to be that big. If you're doing an entire tray, just know that you. It's going to be much easier if your cuttings are very consistent, consistent as far as height, size and where they're taken off of the plant, because they are all going to grow a little bit differently. So the more consistent your cuts are, the easier it is to have a higher success rate in that entire tray. Again, the tray weight thing. I do want people to use that, I tell people to get, like, a kitchen scale that does up to about 15, and that's now your growth scale that grows out your nutrients, or that weighs out your nutrients, that weighs out your clone trays, that weighs out this and that like, because certain kitchen scales only go to four, and that sucks. So you really wanted to go up to 10, and then certain bathroom scales, they really don't measure things under 10 very well. So, yeah, get a good kitchen scale, and that will change the game. Amazon, 20 bucks, it will change the game for you. And airflow. You really the reason why we undone, or I recommend you undo, even during those earlier phases for at least a couple of, like, a minute or two, or a couple minutes a day, while you shake the moisture off, is we want air exchange. Because even if the plants aren't vigorously growing, they're living. And everything that's living is breathing. And they need some if you know, they need some CO two. And as they're pushing out CO two, they are displacing with oxygen. So you need to reset the air in the dome to go back to ambient CO two levels if you want consistent day over day growth the way that you should expect. If you don't open your domes ever, then that CO two in that dome is just like, oh, and then the plant will will adjust itself to that low CO two and slow its

Jordan River

31:30

own growth. Yeah, it's all great advice. I also liked your timelines as well. You know, I had posted on instagram about the classic sexing trick. You don't see it a lot, and that's because I don't think it is all that feasible, but the classic sexing trick of taking a clone a cutting and then cloning it and flowering that and then relating it back to the plant, right? And so many people were like, What do you mean roots in in seven days? What are you talking about? I mean, listen, I know certain cultivars are more difficult than others, but I was like, if you're not seeing roots in like seven, eight days, I've seen roots in five days. Man, I've had people in my server have roots in like, freaking four and a half days. So I don't know to me, if you're not getting roots in seven or eight days. I feel like something is probably suboptimal, or you have, like, the hardest cut to clone on planet Earth.

Speaker 1

32:15

Yeah. And the biggest thing that I see as an issue, especially for like, kind of, like home growers and smaller scale cultivators, is keeping the plugs too wet. That's why the weight thing is going to be so important. You think the plug is is too dry, but it's actually still at like, 70 60% it's just the top looks super dry, you know. So getting the weight is the easiest way to know that best average of your your saturation of those plugs, if you keep your plugs wet all the time, there's no incentive for that plant to push roots, to search for water. It's going to push out these root nodules, and then that water is just going to mass flow into that and it's just going to be lazy. You need it to have that slow decline in humidity to encourage that new root growth as the cells are differentiating from the horn.

Jordan River

33:04

Yeah. And then here's the other thing I'll say, and we can kind of start to wrap it up here at the end of the show, which is when I talk about nine out of 10, 90% success rate, that sort of thing, man. I'm talking about home growers, like you said, 100% success rate. I'm talking about a clay a tray of clones. This gets harder when you scale it up. This gets harder when you either scale it up because you are at some sort of commercial facility and you work in the industry, or because you're a freak of nature and you're a home grower psychopath who has 120 cuts, like my buddy, Farmer John. You know what I mean, and I know so many dudes. You can't let go of any of them, right? God forbid. It's like, it's like losing a limb to these people. So maybe some advice here at the end on, like, taking care of a lot of plants. It's very, very challenging for a lot of people like me. This

Speaker 1

33:52

is an awesome question, man, I appreciate you asking. Because, like, I said, like, I have tons of friends that have, like, a room in their house dedicated to their genetics. It's like, Dude, you're about to have a kid, man, are you gonna change us into a nursery? Or is this gonna be your plant room? You can

Jordan River

34:06

sleep in the two by four. It fits the crib. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker

34:08

it's higher oxygen, but, uh,

Speaker 2

34:12

but my thing is, like jokes you do. So the big, the big thing is,

Speaker 1

34:17

like OG Kush, that is very similar to the old OG Kush strains, phenotypically like I smoke, and it's like, oh yeah, this is OG Kush. But this OG Kush creates, you know, like 70 to 80 grams per square foot, and the THC is now at 28% it wasn't like that in the 90s when I was smoking. It type deal, you know. So, like, the cultivars always get better. It is important to know that the the the only thing better than the best thing now is the next thing you know. What I mean, like, you never really know if you're gonna find, like, another winner. So you shouldn't be too crazy about holding on to exquisite cuts unless it is something very. A kind of business marketable. You have a over 20% CBD strain with 0% THC, Yo, you, you, you try to patent that. You know, that's craziness, because that's so that's such an industrial good at that point. But if it's just for breeding proper qualities and plants, just moving the science forward, and not holding on to so much is good. And then the next step is, if you want to be stubborn, maybe it's time to learn tissue culture. Like, how soon do you need those plants? Do you need that OG Chris strain, two months from now? Or are you keeping it because you want it for a breeding project in a year or two? If you're going to use it in a year or two, why don't you turn this 12 inch plant that you're slowly feeding and having to fix plumbing for why don't you turn that into a para film, sealed petri dish that you keep in a cooler, and that cooler is on a uninterruptible power supply, so if the power goes out, the cooler has got two days, and then that is now your genetic storage for the next year or two, and sure, it'll take you four to six months to get that plant back into a normal 12 inch plant, but at that point, it'll be very close to the genetic profile. Though, there will be no there will be less, less if any epigenetic drift like the genome won't have changed, it'll just kind of be locked in time in that spot, and then you just grow it back out. So learning a little bit of tissue culture might save a lot of space and money and time for guys that really are focused on breeding and really want to collect those cultivars. Pollen extraction using STS, that's a legit way to save pollen for that genetic profile to breed. So letting things go, moving on to the next thing, or, if you're crazy, do the seed vault thing and create your own small tissue culture lab. Cost you a couple 100 bucks to set up a good tissue culture lab, and that will sustain you for years. Yeah,

Jordan River

36:51

right. And I almost feel like there should be a service for home growers and commercial cultivators, like you said. Maybe find something really special, find something medicinal that works for you or works for your business. I feel like they're or just something that you don't want to grow, that you want in the future, I would pay a small fee per cultivar to have somebody store it off site tissue culture.

Speaker 1

37:11

Those exist. Those actually do exist, and they actually exist in the ag world as well. The only issue

Jordan River

37:16

is, uh, legality.

Speaker 1

37:20

It's not legality. It's long term business sustainability, like, you know, it this, this fall board seat vault. That's not like a, it's not a company really owned that has business goals. It's more of like a pure, you know, like a, almost like an NGO that is storing these seeds. So you'd need an organization that ideally isn't fully incentivized by profit, because if they're incentivized by profit, they need to have more and more customers, and as soon as the customers dry up, and if the business has a couple of downturns, then your seed storage areas could be in jeopardy, and you gotta, like shifting.

Jordan River

37:56

It's just not a business model that makes a whole lot of sense. Is what you're saying? Yeah,

Speaker 1

38:00

well, it's not something that has been fully fleshed out for the cannabis world yet, in my opinion. So it might be better to do just like small scale storage on your own, unless you have quite a few and you like, you have a lot of genetics that you need to store in very tight circumstances, because you want to keep them very long term. Then there are some providers out, and especially here in the States, that can do basically genetic banking for you. But again, you know, maybe just bring another

Jordan River

38:27

Yeah, you're so right. I mean, listen, you have more seeds than you're gonna be able to pop in a lifetime. You better get going. Well, listen, man, this was an incredible episode. What a debut Mike like this. This was fantastic. Listeners. I know you loved it. Please comment below. Make sure you subscribe. You're subscribed. Hit like, let Mike know how much you love this episode. Mike, where can people find you? Wherever you're at, I know you're not like, I appreciate you taking time for grow cast, because I know you're not making the rounds a lot, and we sure love having you. But where can people

Speaker 1

38:58

find you? You'll, I mean, I'm I get featured on the can of cribs YouTube channel. I am doing a lot of projects. Have done a lot of projects for the YouTube or the can of cribs R and D channel, the growers house channel, but people could just reach out to growershouse.com they could ask, there's a tab up top. If you have any questions, you can reach out to us directly. You can email us at staff at growers house.com, and if you have any questions, we're happy to help. Yeah, give us a call. If you have a commercial facility and you need like you need help, then ask for a TCA or technical crop advisors, and we can come out and give you, give you a second set of eyes on all your grows. If you're just a home grower and you need some advice, our sales team, you know, they've been at it for a long time. They've helped so many people grow at this point that they'll tell you what their other customers have done and give you the right idea on the best successful ways to go about stuff, and then the right products to use as well. That stash point is pretty awesome for flour and cannabis. So

Jordan River

39:59

hey, and if you make. Sure you get it. Use code grow cast, okay? Because that'll let them know that we sent you their way. I know a few people were like, I forgot to use the code. Code grow cast, get to 10% off. I'm loving the stash. Blend, man, let me just say I'm loving it. It's better than soluble seaweed powder, which is something I always kind of had my arsenal, you know what I mean? But, yeah, yeah. Like I said everyone should have that, yeah. And this is a better version, because it's got, you know, that soluble seaweed constituent, plus a bunch of other good stuff. So why would you ever pay for soluble seaweed? Again, I highly recommend, highly recommend that stash blend code, grow

Speaker 1

40:30

cast silica and the humic acid is like chef's kiss with the with this. Yeah, that's

Jordan River

40:36

so true. That's so true. All right. Well, listen, Mike, thank you so much. Any final words here that you want to say to say to the home grow community, to the Grow cast community, we'd love to have you back again in the future, because this was a fantastic episode.

Speaker 1

40:47

Yeah, I would love to be back. I'm just glad that you have this platform where people that are passionate about growing can get this more up to date information, and have, like, a forum where they can kind of like, figure it all out. Instead of getting sold some magic product. There's no magic product. There's good technique and experience. Good technique and experience will will get you basically everywhere you need to go. The equipment just makes that. Good technique and experience make the work easier. So don't rely on any miracle this or that. Stick to the fundamentals. Build the community out so you have people to ask and people to work with and, yeah, just keep growing. Don't give up. Keep growing, keep cloning, keep the plants going.

Jordan River

41:25

Fantastic. Mike, I can't say it enough. Great episode. We loved having you give it up, everybody. We'll see if this is gonna work. Here. There we go. There's the sound effects. Mike, from growers House, everybody, thank you so much. I appreciate you all for tuning in. Make sure you subscribe to growcast.com for all the things, the seeds, the classes, the membership, it's all up there and until, until next time, that's all for today. This is Jordan River and Mike from growers house, signing off. Jump into the Grow cast community, everybody, so you don't have to grow alone. Peace. That's our show. Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you to Mike from growers house. We appreciate him. Coming on so much. Stay tuned for more, everybody. Of course, go and check out growcast.com there you can get access to membership. We'd love to have you in our community and check out our best class of the year coming up. It's October 11 and 12th, and it's the okcallex natural farming immersive. We'll teach you everything you need to know, how to create labs, IMO, 123, and four, how to create FPE, how to create ipmo, all sorts of all the acronyms you want to learn. We're going to teach you, OK. Callux is a master of the craft, and he won't just teach you about how to make these inputs and how to install natural farming techniques into your garden, but he's also going to teach you how it relates to life and how you can improve yourself as a human being through the study and application of natural farming. Like I said, there's no class out there like it. It's our best class of the year. Grab your tickets now. It's grow cast.com/events. If you're coming from out of state, go ahead and DM me. Go ahead and email me jordan@growcast.com shoot me an email. Say I'm coming from out of state, and I'll hook you up with a little bit of a discount too, just to get you out there on Okay, callux is property for the best day of natural farming education you've ever had. That's October 11 and 12th. Grow cast.com/events. Go ahead and DM me for a special code. I would love to have you out there. It's going to change your life, I promise you, that's it for today, everybody. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time. Be safe out there. Bye, everyone.

Speaker 1

43:30

So society has fallen, and I need to clone my I need to clone my Canada's plans.

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