Help me understand cloning.

G

Grenwall

Active Member
Note: I would like to start off by saying I HAVE tried finding answers googling around and watching videos. But I just can't find anything that states the answers to my questions and/or I am confused about it.

I plan to have a perpetual grow, 6 plants in veg and 12 plants in flower. I will be buying 3 different stands (10 of ea, will give some to a friend). Seeds are expensive so I am looking to not have to buy some every time I have to start new seedlings. This is where cloning comes into play right? You buy seeds, then keep cloning the healthiest best plant of the strand you have.

With 6 plants every time and 3 strands, that would mean 2 of ea strand in every grow. At what stage do you make a clone of the plant (seedling, veg, flower)? And can you clone a clone, and keep repeating? Or do you have to keep the original that come out of the seed and keep cloning that one?

I am really confused on how this works. I don't need an entire in-depth explanation or a how to. Just need those questions answered.
 
hyroot

hyroot

Well-Known Member
Wait til they have 6 nodes before doing anything. You should grow your plants for a while and let them branch out some before taking any cuttings. It's not time. It's size. Never grow by a calender
 
Cascadian

Cascadian

Well-Known Member
Yes, you can clone a clone and keep repeating. You can take it any week in veg as long as it has some branching and at least 5 nodes or so. You can also take a clone safely up to 1 1/2 weeks into flower. After that you might have some delay but can still take a cutting.
 
GrowinDad

GrowinDad

Well-Known Member
Do you have two tents?

I run a pseudo perp grow with a tent and small cab. goes like this..

seed. toward end of veg in tent pull some (2-3) clones. get clones going in cab undef cfl while tent moves to flower. pick the best clone and train the shit out of her. She will be the new mother.

When I get a couple weeks from harvest, I pull the clones for the next grow from the new mother. Once the tent is done with flower, the new clones go into the tent veg. Depending on how the mother and new clones look (and qty thriving), I may do a short veg and throw the mom in with her babies into flower.

I tend to do two grows as above but then want to grow something diff and start again with seed. System works well. Only issue is no odor control in the cab. But since it is only one plant in it and always in veg, it doesn't get too bad. i only grow 3-4 plants at a time myself. Keeps me well supplied, enough to throw a couple friends a bud here and there (never sell a thing), and keeps the grow small enough that if caught, I can show it ain't a commercial venture (key in my state where there is no cultivation charge).

Good luck!
 
GrowinDad

GrowinDad

Well-Known Member
I have best luck going right into soil.

Cut and immediately put the stem into water. Then I dip in clonex or rooting hormone powder. I mix 70-30 MG seed starter and perlite and dampen. I cut holes into bottom of 16 oz solo cups and throw some straight perlite on the bottom. Fill about 3/4 with the soil mix, and throw in clone.

Take a baggie and put one small slut into bottom. stretch the baggie a bit, mist some water in it, and place over the cup. Put on a seedling warming mat and under a 23 w CFL.

I mist inside the baggies every day or so. Once clones are rooting, I increase the slit in the baggie, take it off for a few hours, etc to slowly get the clone/plant used to less humidity.

Water whenever the soil around the cup dries and starts to pull away from the cup.
 
S

spek9

Well-Known Member
I find that for perpetual, buying a $60 aero-cloner is the least costly and least amount of work. There is literally nothing that needs to be done. Just put tap water in the res, and plug it in. You don't need to pH, because there aren't any roots to uptake nutes yet. I add more water every couple of weeks, and replace the res water completely every six weeks or so. So, snip branch, dip in rooting gel, put in cloner, done.

In my perpetual, I'm on a 3 week cycle. On harvest day, I pull 8 plants, and put 8 clones from my cloner in 2L Coke bottles, some with soil the others with hydroton. About a week later, I snip ~20 more clones to put in the cloner. Two weeks later, time to harvest another batch and repeat the process. I just throw away the 12 clones that I don't put in the flower tent.

For this setup, I need at least one mother for each strain though, because with no veg period, the clones are just rooted; they don't get big enough to clone from.

My veg area is relatively tiny, 3x1.5x2.5'. I keep all my mothers very short and bushy (about 12" tall only).

Every so often, I save a couple of the clones for candidate moms, just in case my production mothers get sick. After a month or so, I clone out the candidates, and repeat this process.

-spek
 
S

spek9

Well-Known Member
As soon as my clones are planted, regardless of whether in soil or a hydro medium, it is pH'd from there on.

I'm now using Claber 8053 auto drip systems for my flowering, so the water in those res' is always pH'd anyhow. Though when I was watering by hand, same thing, if it isn't in the aerocloner, the water is pH'd, period.

-spek

ps lol. I think I just understood what you meant... you're going straight away into soil. You don't necessarily need to pH that again as there's no roots, but I'd just stick with doing pH in your case, right from the beginning.

I still recommend an aerocloner though. Honestly, hands down, best investment I've made in this hobby. It is truly an investment. Saves me a ton of time, and I get very close to 100% success rate. I'd be interested though in seeing how it goes straight to soil. Unfortunately, I can't test, as my current setup is such that I need clones already rooted prior to soil, as I go straight into flower right away.
 
GrowinDad

GrowinDad

Well-Known Member
Usually, I am misting with same water I used to moisten the soil and I do ph that. I tend to ph everything, why not?
 
Jogro

Jogro

Well-Known Member
Grenwall said:
You buy seeds, then keep cloning the healthiest best plant of the strand you have.
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Its "strain".

What most growers do is find one plant they really like (ie best plant structure, potency, flavor, etc) and then maintain a cutting of that plant in vegetative growth phase as a "mother" plant.

From that mother plant, they can then take as many cuttings ("clones") as they like and use the clones exactly like you would use a seedling plant. . .first into vegetative growth to get bigger and possibly for training, and then into flowering. To ensure all females and consistency almost ALL professional growers start from clones, not se-eds.

At what stage do you make a clone of the plant (seedling, veg, flower)?
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You DO NOT try to clone a seedling or you will kill it.

Clones are typically taken in vegetative growth phase, with plants having not less than six growth "nodes", as mentioned above. Yes, you might be able to get away with cloning a younger plant, but again, there is a good chance you'll kill it, or severely stunt its growth.

Personally, I usually prune off lower growth before putting plants into flower because lower branches typically don't get much light and don't make much bud. Instead of throwing away the lower branches, they work well for clones.

Yes, it is possible to clone flowering plants, and I've done it many times, but its tougher, meaning your success rate will probably be lower. Older plants with hardened stems are harder to clone in any case. In flowering growth phase, the plants take a while to revert back to vegetative growth and are slower to put out roots.

And can you clone a clone, and keep repeating? Or do you have to keep the original that come out of the seed and keep cloning that one?
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Yes, you can keep taking cuttings from clones, and continue indefinitely, or at least for many years. Some people discourage this practice, thinking it encourages "genetic drift" (which is basically small mutations adding up over time in your clones), but empirically a lot of the "clone only" lines have been kept around for decades from clones of clones of clones, etc, and I've seen many reports of people maintaining lines this way for years.

I am really confused on how this works. I don't need an entire in-depth explanation or a how to. Just need those questions answered
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Answered.

You didn't ask, but in terms of how to actually TAKE the clone, there is more than one way to do that. Some of it is a question of cost, convenience, and personal preference. Basically you just want to make sure that the lower stem remains moist/humid, and keep temps warm (roughly 75-82 would be ideal). Other than that, there are many different ways that can work. Cloning gel/powder/agent is good, if you have some, but you can get away without it, if you don't.

If you want to see what I think is the absolute cheapest/easiest possible way to clone a plant, see here. In this case I used cloning powder, but I've done it without:

https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/585422-sickmeds-williams-wonder-grow-journal.html#post8424484


Obviously, this is not for every one or every strain, but if you're a really small home grower, its a perfectly viable way to do it.
 
Jogro

Jogro

Well-Known Member
LetsGetCritical said:
does the ph of the misting water matter in soil ? I need to know this please because I haven't clone is soil yet
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The soil will act as a pH buffer, so unless the pH of your misting water were WAY off, it shouldn't matter.

Incidentally, I've been growing for over 15 years, and never pH'd anything ever (including with hydro). Nothing wrong with doing so, but in practice, most municipal, and almost all commercially available water is going to be in pH acceptable range. Ditto for any good commercial soil mix. pH is really more of an issue if you're running reservoir based hydro systems or adding adjuncts to your soil (eg some fertilizers are highly alkaline) etc.

GrowinDad said:
I have best luck going right into soil.

Cut and immediately put the stem into water. Then I dip in clonex or rooting hormone powder. I mix 70-30 MG seed starter and perlite and dampen. I cut holes into bottom of 16 oz solo cups and throw some straight perlite on the bottom. Fill about 3/4 with the soil mix, and throw in clone.
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I've done this, and it works well, but I would like to add two caveats: You do need to use good quality well-draining soil for this (IE stuff from your backyard probably won't cut it). Also, depending on the soil in question, stems left in soil can be prone to rot. A good rooting compound will have built-in antifungals, and so I'd say not to skimp there if you want to go this way.
 
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