Cheap and Easy Rooting Chamber: 90% + Success.

[Arcygenical]

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!

[Darty]

How do you change the water with this method? Or do you not change the water? I've never been clear about this really.

[Arcygenical]

How do you change the water with this method? Or do you not change the water? I've never been clear about this really.

Simple, take the clones out, quickly dump the water, refill, and put them back in...

Or, inbetween rootings, you can sterilize the jars with a 1:1 solution of alcohol/Hydrogen peroxide and water

[Darty]

How often do you change the water when rooting a cutting? I've been doing it once every two days.

Also, do you just use straight distilled water, or a distilled water/tap water mix, or is there anything else you put in the water? Like a drop of H2O2 for added oxygen?

[Arcygenical]

How often do you change the water when rooting a cutting? I've been doing it once every two days.

Also, do you just use straight distilled water, or a distilled water/tap water mix, or is there anything else you put in the water? Like a drop of H2O2 for added oxygen?

Once a week... And straight distilled. After an initial rinse in H202 (1%) there's no need for any more IMO.

[skagardener]

cultivation days are coming to an end? why would you quit growing?

[JD1stTimer]

Thanks for the guide, Arcy! I always enjoy your posts.  The other day my CPU was overheating and my first thought was "What Would Arcy Do?"  which led me to a great solution for cleaning the radiator.... a pipe cleaner! Worked like a charm, it fit perfectly into the gaps.

[Arcygenical]

Thanks for the guide, Arcy! I always enjoy your posts.  The other day my CPU was overheating and my first thought was "What Would Arcy Do?"  which led me to a great solution for cleaning the radiator.... a pipe cleaner! Worked like a charm, it fit perfectly into the gaps.

Radiator? As in, watercooling? I just give mine an annual soak in distilled water, cleans all the dust and crap out

cultivation days are coming to an end? why would you quit growing?

Yeah, I'm moving to the US for school, so I'm really limited in what I can do down there...

[JD1stTimer]

No, it's just air-cooled but underneath the CPU fan there is a bank of thin blades about an inch tall, three inches long, with about 2 mm of space in between.  There are probably 50 fins I think, and to me it is a radiator.

[Paradoxic]

Sweet guide, Genius+ ...just to be sure, when you say soak the cutting in H2O2 you mean just the stem and not the entire cutting, right?

Sorry to hear you wont be growing What school will you be going to btw?

[Arcygenical]

Sweet guide, Genius+ ...just to be sure, when you say soak the cutting in H2O2 you mean just the stem and not the entire cutting, right?

Sorry to hear you wont be growing What school will you be going to btw?

Kent State in Ohio for the school... Transferring there from my current one, just for my last year, to get that GPA into the 4.0 range :p.

And when I said I soak the entire cutting in a 1% concentration of H2O2... I mean exactly that. I let the entire thing soak under water for about a minute, then I rinse it off in distilled water

[Defenestrate]

Pretty cool. I think I'll build myself a setup...and for under $9, why not?

[Paradoxic]

Sweet guide, Genius+ ...just to be sure, when you say soak the cutting in H2O2 you mean just the stem and not the entire cutting, right?

Sorry to hear you wont be growing What school will you be going to btw?

Kent State in Ohio for the school... Transferring there from my current one, just for my last year, to get that GPA into the 4.0 range :p.

And when I said I soak the entire cutting in a 1% concentration of H2O2... I mean exactly that. I let the entire thing soak under water for about a minute, then I rinse it off in distilled water

Oh really, that seems like a good way to go actually. Is it important to rinse off after? It doesnt include that in the guide.

[Arcygenical]

Hey, look... it's now 6 days since I posted the article (and took those cuttings) and BOTH are developing roots. One has hairs about 3mm long, and the other has about 15 bumps starting.

[zee]

Would adding a powdered rooting hormone be a good idea in this situation?