Cloning Weed: How to Clone Cannabis? | Step by Step
Why clone cannabis plants?
There are two ways you can go about reproducing cannabis. You can grow from seed, in which you will have to acquire seeds, germinate them, sex them out, and then continue to grow them. Seeds are created through sexual reproduction, which involves crossing a male plant with a female through pollination, after which, the female will produce seeds. Breeding male and female plants will allow you to create a hybrid of the two parent plants.
Advantages of Starting With Clones:
- An excellent way to keep a steady supply of plants around.
- Saves a ton of time.
- Guarantee of having a female plant.
- Clones are much faster to veg up and flower than starting from seed, resulting in a quick harvest and a much shorter turnaround time.
- Clones can be quickly grown into mothers and re-cloned, for an instant vegetative and flowering crop
THE BEST WAY TO GET CLONES FROM YOUR MARIJUANA PLANTS
Cloning cannabis involves cutting a piece of a plant and giving it the opportunity to grow new roots from its stem. Yet, if you do some reading around on cloning cannabis on the internet, you may find different opinions on the best way to go about it. While some cloning methods may vary, some guidelines apply to all methods. To get you started with cloning right, the first piece of important advice is to always select your best and healthiest plants for cloning. Let’s look at the required steps for cannabis cloning in more detail.
Selecting the right mother plant
It all starts with choosing the mother plant. This is the step that provides the foundation for the rest of the process, so it should be approached with some thought. Take your time and examine the options carefully.
Start the process by observing how the candidates grow and make notes. Select the plant that looks most solid and has the biggest roots, but also pay attention to its yields and pace of growth. Optimally, you want a combination of all these properties. In most cases, appearance alone can be a sufficient indicator that the plant will work for cloning.
CUTTING THE CLONES
Now that you’ve selected and prepared your Mother Plant, it’s time to do the actual cutting. Make sure to get sharp blades and scissors and sterilize them prior to the procedure. Then, pick vigorous, sturdy branches that are 8–10 inches long, consisting of at least 3–4 nodes and a healthy developing tip. Mostly they are found from the lower limbs of the vegetative females. Those with stems with larger leaves are most likely to root faster.
Now, make an angular cut just before the first batch of nodes. Create a diagonal cut at a 45-degree angle. Through this, you can give the clone more surface area at the base of its stem for roots to develop. See to it to cut cautiously and avoid smashing the stem while doing the process. In the meantime, you can store removed clones in the water while you’re getting more clones.
Rooting the clones
Till now your “clone” isn’t really a new plant and It may still look like a cut-off branch. It’s just missing one important part to become a real self-sufficient plant. Thats right: The Roots! A plant will grow it’s roots by itself but it needs the right environment and nutrients to start doing so.
Choose the Right Rooting Medium
Rockwool
Using rockwool cubes for clones is one of the most popular methods. It’s quick and easy and typically offers very favorable results. First, soak your rockwool cube in water with a pH balance of 5.5 for about 2 hours. Then, take your healthy cutting and trim most of the leaves off, save for the few at the top. Next, dip the bottom of your cutting in your cloning gel or powder and insert the stem into the rockwool cube.
You’ll want to place your cut clones under at least 18 hours of light a day. A fluorescent grow light will work fine for giving cutting the light they need to begin to root. For best results, clones in rockwool should be kept at a temperature between 72–75 degrees Fahrenheit (22–24 degrees Celsius). Humidity level should be over 90%. Using this method should ensure roots begin to sprout in 7–12 days.
Transporting Your Clones into Soil
Don’t make the mistake of choosing soil with a ton of nutrients. Avoid adding too much or too little water to the soil during the rooting process. As you need the clone to use all its energy for sprouting roots, remove mature leaves on the stalk. Wet the sliced stalk and dip it into the rooting hormone. Next, stick the plant into the soil beneath CFL lights and leave it there as the roots form.
Transporting Your Clones in Water
A third option that many people prefer to use is water cloning. This is a simple process which involves keeping the cut clone in water for an extended period of time till the roots begin to appear.
The trays they are selling are the ones they use for their own agricultural production.
So in terms of durability and reuse after every growth season, you can be assured that you won’t be buying these trays repeatedly. You can sanitize them and reuse them after your seedlings are ready.
The quality of newest Rockwool cubes, plugs, and starter sheets is by far the best on the market with superb air to water ratio and a fiber structure that holds water longer and has less resistance for the roots to grow in, resulting in stronger roots.