How to Increase Your Success Rate When Using Cloning Gel

If you have had trouble with cloning in your hydroponics garden, you are not alone. Cloning is one of the most challenging tasks that hydroponic growers have to accomplish and it is very common for even experienced hydroponic growers to have trouble achieving a one hundred percent success rate for their stems.

Fortunately, there is a fairly easy way you can make certain that a larger percentage of your stems successfully take root and grow: use a cloning gel. The cloning gel is specifically designed with a variety of hormones and vitamins to give these young fragile stems the tools they need for faster rooting. And faster rooting is overall the primary key to successful cloning.

Use the Cloning Gel correctly - When people are disappointed with the success that they have with their cloning gel, nine times out of ten it is because they are using the product incorrectly. If you really want to make the best use of a cloning gel, do not assume that more is better. In fact, you have to strike a happy medium between using generous amounts of the cloning gel and making sure that the young roots will be able to breathe. Putting it on in huge clumps might actually hurt you chances of the stem surviving.

Moisture – It is important to remember that when a stem is cut off from the mother plant, it is essentially on its own, both in terms of moisture and nutrients. This means that the only moisture that the plant receives basically comes from the surrounding air. If the leaves are left to dry out, there is a very slim chance that the stem will survive.

To deal with this, you should help your cloning gel by using a regular spray bottle to moisten the leaves a couple times every day. This will just make it a lot easier for the clones to survive long enough to take root. If you want to really increase your overall moisture level around the leaves, you should combine this spraying with a humidity dome that traps in the moisture.

Cut Down Stress - One of the most imperative things you can do to improve your cloning success besides using cloning gel is to cut down on the stress that your plant suffers. B vitamin supplements can be wonderful for this. These supplements are available in organic or synthetic form, so you can use them even if you prefer to grow hydro organically.

Care for your Mother Plant - While a cloning gel will help greatly, nothing can replace just taking good care of your mother plant. Working hard to make certain that the nutrient solution is well balanced and that your plant has plenty of light can go a long way towards successful cloning.

Another smart move is to use a carbohydrate supplement on your plants. By packing your plant with a lot of carbs, you will give your stems a lot of energy that they can use to create those roots.

Plants have the ability to clone themselves naturally because most of the cells in the vegetative part of the plant possess a quality known to scientists as "totipotency". This means that they have to ability to turn themselves to every other kind of cell in the plant. In fact, plants commonly clone themselves in nature through a variety of methods. But this fact does not make cloning any easier for the average hydroponic grower. If you do not pay very special attention to all the factors that go into cloning, the best cloning gel in the world is not going to prevent your cuttings from turning into useless dead twigs sticking out of your medium.