this is all new to me !

MIST AREOPONIC CLONING 

 

I have germinated  acer Palmatum  seeds for thirty years ,and in the last few years, spread them about to customers everywhere.all over the world now, for me, a new paragraph taking rocket science cuttings , I do not know if it works or not . But willing to try starting from scratch!

Returning from a day out somewhere in the mid eighties, we called at a remote garden center and found a maple labelled as  acer pal “shindesohjo” .  It was late in the year, just a darkish green tree  cheap price . In a pot , good root splay, no visible graft, good buttress, two feet tall. It looked like an old out of control Bonsai. We were told it was an import the customer didn’t like as it was not the colour they thought

It is now spectacular,  fluorescent pink in the early part of the year , and I want to propagate from it ,  I firmly believe in growing on its own roots.

So we are going to try aeroponic cloning . This is a firmly favoured method to propagate plants from the Hemp family , but I am sticking to Maples

I have put feelers out in the U.S. And here but cannot find anyone else trying this . There are a few comments on several  webpages but nothing conclusive.  If anybody out there has any experience specifically with maples and is willing to share please get in touch there are several sites but no one seems to have a follow up information ,either it was a complete failure , or so good they thought to keep it to themselves

I WILL TRY TO PUT AS MUCH INFORMATION IN THIS POST IS I CAN IF ANYONE WOULD LIKE SPECIFIC INFORMATION ON THE ACTUAL COMPONANTS I AM USING PLEASE MAIL ME  

please be careful electricity and water  do not mix  !     If you are not proficient, please ask someone who is.                                

  That is my H.S.E . bit 

This is the mist unit with a flotation coller

 

 

 

These are the 3 watt  Led lights , six in all they are 12 v fed from a single standard 50 watt lighting transformer on a clock 12 hours on ,12off

These are the roots of the sweet pea seeds after only six days

2016      I purchased from a hydroponic shop ( kind of) an aeroponic cloning machine . The guy who sold this product said with this he could grow roots on a pencil. We will see 

This was a black plastic  box with a white plastic tray and a clear plastic cover with a ventilator. Altogether it made a 2ft or so cube it had a submersible pump and a spray nozzle producing droplets pumped from 5inches or so of water in the bottom of the box                     The white tray had pre drilled holes for the growing basket and some neoprene gaskets to hold the cuttings upright                                       If you type in “aeroponic cloning ” you will get the jist , there are some good bits of info on utube

• The kit seems good quality, but over priced . If it is as good as it is advertised it will be well worth  it    There are several differing machines on eBay and hydroponic websites . It is easy to make your own ,because we are using ultra sonic it floats on the surface of the water therefore need not be as deep                                                                     Trying to think of specific requirements 
• water temprature optimum 63f   So we will require a aquarium water heater self regulating, submersible , with the amount of water a25watt  should be ok . I am going to set up in the un-heated  greenhouse and starting early in the year. We are going to try some seeds first . Just to try to get some experience . our sweet pea seeds, and we have some acer pal diss ” Crimson queen” are  ready to go in .
• the pump supplied with the unit could only produce enough pressure for a spinner type sprinkler . I tried a fine nozzle to produce a fine mist to no avail . It needed a large high pressure pump to provide  a fine mist  . I looked at air stones with air pumps    But finished up with an ultra sonic mist unit , like the ones “Morrisons” use to keep their lettuces looking fresh ( and other shops as well )
• something to keep aPH of 6.5 this is the best  P.H. to again aid rooting . I have invested in a digital meter to measure this
• some kind of rooting  gel and a nutrient to aid rooting again there are a multitude of these in the hydro shop
• some led lighting to prevent the cutting from reaching
• a timer to give an interval then, an on time, so as I can pulse the ultra sonic unit  starting  10 minutes on 140  minutes off  continually  pulsing . I did have a cyclic electronic timer but the relay was only up to 240v .5 amp.     and the  transformer for the mist unit is is quite large I would need a slave relay . So I purchased a plugin digital timer and set it up to give 10 equal pulses (3150watt  relay )
• and  last but not least some kind of propagating material  we have a few  acer pal “orange dream ” I thought I would start with I have bought them into the greenhouse ( January) to try to get early cutting material for late April maybe
• February 10 th  all set up sweet pea seeds in and a few ” Crimson Queen ” seeds. .  checked the P.H. 6.8  I will not use any neuterants for the seeds
• as soon as I get germination on the seeds I will need some lighting to stop them from reaching I have some 3watt led lamps , they Run cold , but are quite bright I have 6 lamps inside the clear plastic cover . They are 12 v  , the mist unit is 24v , only the heater is mains voltage .  And increase the ventilation , and consider reducing the duty  cycle on the mist unit

WE ARE NOW APRIL 4th 2017

the sweet pea seeds  are out and we have done cuttings from the.          “orange dream”    cleaned out the unit set up again  and put a few cuttings in checked the P.H. Used the rooting liquid and added the nutrition. Although these could be a bit early