Making a Cloning Station… AAAHHH! LOOK OUT! CLONES!!!

I don’t know how many times I’ve thought how ridiculous it is to pay $20 or whatever for a 1 gallon baby of some plant that I want, but I’ve seen growing against buildings or, even worse, in my own yard.  You can’t have too many blueberries, right?  What if they were FREE?!

My favorite plant these days is the black currant ‘Crandall’.  It blooms early, the fruit’s interesting, and it smells so, so good.  So, I’d like a couple more of them.  They’re $12 or whatever at the nursery.  I HAVE ONE!!!  Can’t I just make it make four or five more for me?

Of course I can!  I just need to learn a bit more about propagation.

Read, read, read…

OK, I read a whole bunch of stuff, and one thing that comes up fairly often is the awesomeness of a cloning or propagation station.  The cloning station keeps the humidity level high enough to prevent excessive transpiration (the leaves doing their normal thing) and so preventing wilting.  It also keeps the rooting end just wet enough to root but, hopefully, not enough to proceed directly to decomposition.  On top of that, you can keep the cutting more or less sterile and give it a fighting chance before nasties start eating it.

Great!  I want one!  Oh… yeah… broke… right…

OK, let’s make one, then.

By following a couple of threads on the dope growing sites (they take this kind of thing VERY seriously), I put together this list of necessary bits:

• big storage bucket
• couple of air stones and gang valve
• small air pump and hose
• heater
• another bucket for a top

Boom!  Done!  Cost me about $50 or so for the pieces (could have saved a bit with mail order, but I’m even more impatient than cheap).

Here’s what we got:

CloneMaster09 Inside

The inside of the CloneMaster09™.   Note brilliant use of PVC pipe with holes to hold the air stones in place.  Patented.  Well, not really “patented” patented, but my idea.  Brilliant.

CloneMaster09 Top

The inner lid of the CM09.  Note the sexy organic placement of the holes.  That shows you that she’s hand-made.  No Chinese slave children here.  No sir.  Note also the 77 positions on that baby.  SEVENTY SEVEN!!!  Most commercial stations give you four or 12 or… whatever… less than 77, though.  Hah!  They’re dumb!

CloneMaster09 Sacrifices

The CM09 loaded with her first sacrifices… or… test cuttings, let’s say.  Whatcha got there is several plants that were between where I washed her out and where I plugged her in– currants, blueberries, yer basic schizophragma, etc.  They were all cut with a sharp razor, dipped in some skanky rooting hormone that I had around, and put into refillable CM09 Prop-a-Plugs™ (a.k.a., make-up removal wedges).  These poor things will surely die, but that bad girl needed a test run.

CloneMaster09 Operational

A fully operational system.  She’s powered up and actively cloning the subjects at this time.  They should be ready tomorrow.  I should mention, if you haven’t figured it out yet, that I don’t know anything about doing this.  My cutting propagation to date has involved jamming prunings into my nursery bed.  Funny thing is… it sometimes works.  That amazes me every time.  But now, I’m going to take it to a new level!  WITH THE CLONEMASTER09!!!

Not available in stores.

Or anywhere else.