How to Build a Cheap and Easy Rooting Chamber, for under 9$If you've ever tried to root Salvia Divinorum, you've probably experienced success rates of anywhere between 50% and 80%. By carefully controlling some of the rooting chamber conditions (mainly humidity, sterility, and isolation) we can increase the rooting potential by up to 50%! Since my days of cultivation are coming to an end, I figured I'd share the secrets of my success with all of you. As a little side note, since I started using this method, I've only had 6 rooting failures... With over 49 successful clones! So, if you're interested, read on!
Materials:- 4-6 jars of baby food. You probably want something like Apple Juice Concentrate (as you can drink it without being disgusted).
- A regular brown shipping box. The box should be about 1'x1'x3". Yes, this is a large rectangular, flat box. The Post office usually sells them for about 3$
- A roll of clear packing tape.
- Some Tinfoil
- Scissors, and a pen
Process:Alright, first, empty and clean your baby food jars. A good run through the dish-washer should do it.
Next, place the jars, equidistant from one-another, on the top of your box, and using your pen, draw circles around their mouthes. You should have something that looks like this.
Now, cut the holes out. NOTE: You want to make your cuts about 2-3mm SMALLER than the actual diameter of the mouth, AKA: you want the jar to be wider than the hole by 2-3mm (so 1.5mm on all sides). You should get something like this:
Now, it's time to pop the jars in... From the inside of the box.
You can see where we're going with this... But it's time to make the box waterproof. Take out your tape, and cover every square inch of the box with at least 2 wraps of tape.
Take a small section of Tinfoil...
And fold it about 8 times... So you have a square roughly 1.5x the size of the opening of your jars. Plants hate light, but they hate aluminum more... So, cover this aluminum square with more packing tape. Then, fold it over the edges of each of your jars. You should have this:
Finally, carefully pierce a hole in the center of your "lid" and widen it by cutting a circle out... You'll have this:
And you're done!
Here's what it looks like, with cuttings doing their thing, under a 42w cfl bulb...
Postscript:So, what does this accomplish? Well, roots hate light. But cuttings need light on their leaves to stay alive, what this chamber does is minimizes the amount of light that hits the roots, while still allows lots of light to the leaves.
Like always, please exercise proper cutting technique. You could have the best, aerated, rooting chamber in the world, but if you use a dirty knife to take your cuttings, you'll still get failures. Sterilize the knife in Alcohol before use, and soak the cutting in a 1% solution of hydrogen peroxide in distilled water (1 tbsp per liter of distilled) for 20-30 seconds, before allowing it to enter the chamber.
Happy rooting!
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