A Clone of My Own

After looking over the Aerogrow hydroponic kit I bought the other day, I realized I could build better myself.  So, I did.

One bubble cloner, some assembly required.

Material list is:
1 cake carrier
2 airstones, 10"
4 plastic shotglasses
8 feet of aquarium tubing
1 aquarium air pump with dual nozzles

First thing I did was make the net cups.  Yes, I know I could have just bought some flimsy ones off the internet fairly cheap and waited for them to come in, but I wanted something a little more heavy duty and a little more "in my hands right now".  So, took the drill to these red dixie cup shotglasses to provide lots of ventilation.

Roughed out where they would sit in the lid of the cake carrier, sans handles and cut them out.

And then just put in the airstones, drilled some quick holes for the tubes, and assembled it all.  Pretty simple build, really.

Filled with water and turned it on for a test run, and success.  When the airstones are right under the cups, we get lots of bubbles going right up into them.

Next step will be to enlarge the holes a bit more so the cups sit deeper in, and give the whole thing a quick spray painting to make sure I block out the light, but its essentially done.  And I made sure to keep it slim enough to go into the grow cabinet on even it's shallowest setting.

Then just gotta find something to use as a medium in the cups (so that what I root will have actual roots, and not just water roots) and it'll be ready to use.

Attack of the Clones

The peter pepper currently being used on the laughing buddha statue is one that I container grew last season for a friend who just wanted to see the pods off it, so it never got overly large, and I left the pods on it when I brought it in to extend the season for it (since I planted it very late).  Never did get a proper chop back for overwintering.

Went ahead and cut it back, and since I am stressing it with this rooting stuff, I went ahead and dug out a small grow light to go with it as well.  While gathering up the clippings, a thought struck me.

That mini hydroponics kit I have some of the spare reaper seeds in, I bet that thing would make an excellent cloner!

So I picked the branch with the most interesting structure, trimmed it into a proper cutting, gave it a quick dusting of rooting hormone, and traded places with one of the reaper seeds (which is now in sterilized coir to finish sprouting).

I have never had any luck getting superhots to clone successfully.  If this thing can get that peter pepper clipping to root, it'll be worth every penny I paid for it.  Never had any intention of using it for more than getting seedlings up, but if it proves to be an effective cloner, its going to see a lot of use!

For starters, the most successful grafting technique for peppers is an approach graft.

http://anpsa.org.au/grafting.html

Reason it works so well is because the scion (the piece you are grafting onto the main plant) has it's own root structure to support it while the two plants fuse.  Once fused, you just cut the bottom off the scion and its now entirely dependent on the stock plant.

Problem is, you normally need a fairly large scion for that to work with, which means sacrificing a full plant.  Not ideal.  But if I can use trimmings from the same plant, root them, and then use that rooted clone for the approach graft, I'm not wasting entire plants just to get a branch in a more visually appealing place than what nature decided.

Not to mention I've got this big 4 year old bhut jolokia that I've used for pod production which is currently overwintering that I could graft reaper branches onto...

Oh yes, if this thing works well as a cloner, I'm going to wear it out.