selecting the right clones

well i lucked out and 5 of my 6 plants turned out to be ladies. 2 ak's and 3 white widows. problem is that is too many for my personal grow. i would be happy with just 2 nice females, one of each strain, keeping them as mothers and taking clones off them.

my question is what sort of characteristics do you look for in deciding which plants to keep? i see some minor differences in their veg state, like one plant is little slower than the other of the same strain. one has much bigger fan leafs. one is bushier. one is more lanky. do you guys decide early on which ones to keep and which to cull, or do you wait after they've flowered and you've tasted their buds?

i am using the scrog method in a 4x4x8 room btw. thanks

i would take clones from all 5 and label them.

flower out the 5 females and then decide which clones to keep after you have dried and cured and tested each one.

I throw vegging moms if they exhibit too much weirdness.

Plants that make it past that stage must perform as required in flowering or no point keeping them either. Then finally, if the bud smokes great after cure, BINGO! Youve found a keeper, if not back to square one.

One obvious route is to pick out the healthiest example of each strain and put them in 5+-gallon pots
to keep as clone mothers. Problem with that is you are taking your best 2 potential yielders and keeping
them indefinetly in veg mode as clone-mothers. If you have the room to veg and flower at the same time
you will want to flower the least 3 while retaining the best 2 in veg mode as moms.

And never toss retired moms! They make the best yielders if you let them flower and finish. Reason is that
every place you have taken a clone from will grow 2 slightly smaller bud sites. I ofter dry and cure twice the
amount of product from retired clone-mothers. They take a bit longer to harvest but I guarantee it is worth it!

Good luck, BigSteve.