Soft Secrets: Clones and Cloning

Marijuana can be reproduced (propagated) sexually or asexually. Seeds are the product of sexual propagation; clones or cuttings are the result of asexual or vegetative propagation. In its simplest form, taking a cutting or clone is cutting a growing branch tip and rooting it.

Making clones is the same as taking cuttings and is still the most efficient and productive means of cannabis propagation. (Technically, cloning is taking one cell of a plant and promoting its growth into a plant.)

Once the sex of a plant is known and it is a female at least two months old, you are ready to practice the simple, yet incredibly productive art and science of cloning. If the climate is poor, the plant will develop poorly and be stunted. If the grow room is well maintained with a perfect climate, strong healthy plants will be harvested.

Swiss greenhouse grower Loti, used to supply clones to local growers. Since the police took all her clones, growers must supply their own clones.

Patrick from Grow House near Zurich used to sell thousands of clones over the counter to retail clients. Now growers must make their own clones.

Always transplant strong clones with well-developed root systems. This clone is ready to move into the hydroponic garden full of expanded clay pellets.

Once rooted. Clones are carefully planted in the growing medium.

Cloning reduces the time it takes for a crop to mature. Productive growers have two rooms, a vegetative/cloning room, about a quarter the size of a second room used for flowering. Smaller vegetative plants take up less space than older flowering plants. For example, a 250 or 400-watt metal halide could easily illuminate vegetative plants and clones that would fill a flowering room lit by three, 600-watt HP sodiums. Fluorescent lamps are more economical and work well to root clones if the halide is turned off.

Combine 8-week flowering/harvest cycles with continuous cloning to form a never-ending perpetual harvest. Another scenario is to take one clone every two days and harvest one plant every other day. Every time a plant is harvested, a rooted clone is moved from the vegetative room into the flowering room to take its place. This regimen gives a grower 60 flowering clones that are on a 90-day schedule. It takes 90 days from the time a clone is cut from the mother plant until the day it is harvested. Using this schedule, a grower would have 45 clones and 30 flowering plants growing at all times.

Clones are induced to flower when small, 4-12 inches tall. Short plants make most efficient use of HID light. Artificial light diminishes to the square of the distance, which means that foliage 4 feet away from the bulb receives 1/14th, that’s right one fourteenth, as much light as if it were one foot away. Foliage that is shaded or receives less light grows slowly and spindly.

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