How to grow weed from clones

Growing marijuana from clones is a natural process, even though quite stressful for plants. You should definitely feel the benefits of making weed from clones, while the whole deal is no harder than a classic from-seed-to-weed growing. It does not make you choose between a seed aand a clone, but knowing how to grow weed from clones is a great opportunity indeed.

Growing weed from clones full guide in 8 steps

(1) Select a mother plant and a lovely branch on it that you are going to cut for a clone, or follow someone’s recommendation.

(2) Idyllically, before you cut a clone from a mother plant, keep the mother plant clean from nutrients for 3-5 days.

(3) For the cut, you’ll need a blade or a razor, distilled water, a rooting hormone, and a rooting medium (like rockwool).

(4) Cut the clone at a 45-degree angle as close to the stem as possible with a sharp blade to tear not the tissues of the plant, like if you are a surgeon.

(5) Moist the rooting medium with a nutrient rooting solution.

(6) Put the just-cut clones into holes you’ve made in the rockwool cubes (your rooting medium).

(7) Keep moist, give light, and wait till roots sprout.

(8) When roots are ready, re-settle a plant to the usual place, where it continues to be a regular plant.

— ARE YOU SAYING, THERE’S NOTHING UNIQUE IN ME?
(from “Madagascar” motion picture)

Why should I try growing weed from clones?

Growing weed from clones is rewarding, you save on time, and you are on a slightly different process, so you learn more growing options. The most important, however, you copy the mother plant, its gender, character, and future harvest, hopefully, you copy everything.

If you’ll like cloning, that shall lead you to marvelous buds. The other way shall do either, but growing weed from clones is just another way to an excellent toke, and you choose which fits your character and please your heart the best.

• You cut clones from selected female plants from a grower you know, then you get the same copy of the plant of the same strain, the same strong character, the same fertility, and 100% female.

• In a tight growing space, like indoors, having a guaranteed female plant (and not feminized) may count as a huge and unique opportunity.

• You reduce total growing time because you already have a small plant at the start. It will take a week or two from the moment you cut till the clones give roots, then they immediately leap to the vegetation stage. This is a shorter period than growing from seeds.

• Amounts of nugs from a properly grown clone plant may beat any feminized seeds project. Growing weed from clones saves time, and the whole term is a little closer to the speed records that autoflowers seeds do. Even though clones shall grow one-two weeks longer than the record-breaking out-of-the-seed strains, an amount of top-notch bud you harvest from a proper clone shall conquer your heart!

How to cut a clone?

Keep mother plants away from nutrients to reduce the nitrogen in branches and leaves. The excess amount of nitrogen may provoke clones to start vegetation rather than rooting.

Keep everything sterile and clean as if you are a surgeon. Have your razor or a scalpel super sharp, and super clean. A good cut shall give less stress and a healthier cutting shall sprout better roots.

• Choose a fairly healthy branch 4-6 inches long (10-15 cm) idyllically bearing 6+ nodes.

• Cut it at a 45-degree angle with a blade and as close to the stem as possible.

• Make one clean sharp cut. Do not tear the tissues around the cut: have a blade super sharp, and a hand steady.

• Do not expose a fresh cut for too long to air, place the fresh cut into distilled water as quickly as you can. This shall prevent air bubbles inside tissue around the fresh cut.

• Dip the cutting into hormone gel to stimulate root growth.

• Place the clone into wet rockwool (or another medium).

• Cut more branches than the number of clones you plan. You are going to lose some.

• Give sufficient light upon clones.

• Keep rockwool wet but no over-flood.

How to prepare rockwool for marijuana cloning?

Distill water is a good choice if you intend to use nutrients in the rooting solution. Otherwise, you can come up with regular clean water, you usually use. Into distilled water add a small amount of nutrient to reach 5.5 PH, then stop. Using nutrients in a rooting solution for clones will encourage roots for better growth.

Dip rockwool cubes in rooting solution, and leave them there till they get generously moist. As soon as you have a rooting solution ready it takes 15-20 minutes to prepare rockwool cubes to accept marijuana clones.

Make a hole in each cube. The holes should be a little smaller or equal in diameter to the branches that you cut for clones. This shall let transplants sit tight and stay vertical, also giving a smaller load on roots, as they are ridiculously weak when they only come out of clones.

Growing clones outdoors

Before growing clones outdoors, you better start indoors, except that the weather is exceptional in your garden. No cold nights, good strong sun in daytime, and you can hide the clones from the wind (the roots are yet to appear, then new roots are weaker in the early stage, than the roots of plants of a similar size grown from seeds). Superior conditions may let you start your clones outdoors.

Usually, people start clones indoors. Then, when the plant reaches the bottom of cups with its roots, you transplant it to the outdoor environment. The plant and the roots are relatively weak in the early stage while sprouting that is why we are to create more comfort at the beginning.

Apart from that, outdoors is not hell for the clone plants, but a harder environment can kill the attempt. Give tender conditions for clones if they run a whole cycle outdoors: protect from wind at minimum.

Temperature for clones indoors

Cloning techniques are practically designed to grow marijuana indoors. So you grow clones indoors in the same conditions you grow regular marijuana plants. During the rooting stage maintain the temperature at 72-76 F (22-25 C) point, and you set 18 hours of light a day. Keep everything super clean as usual.

Watering weed clones

In the early stage, when you just put fresh transplants into the rooting medium, it is important to keep the whole system from dry to slightly moist. The roots shall be trying to find their way to water and grow faster and longer. It does not mean a Sahara desert in your pots (or cups) where clones grow.

If you choose soil as a rooting medium, fertilizers become optional. Because soil is already naturally fertilized, even if you try a random soil from your garden. Adjust the nutrients later if you want, but good soil requires fewer nutrients or even none of them (a rule of thumb).

On the other hand, nutrients help transplants to survive stress. The whole story is stressful by definition, so don’t be too far into “all-natural” once you are already on the track of genetic experiments, already doing clones.

Rooting mediums for clones

• Water is the cheapest rooting medium, use distilled water if you plan to add nutrients (you better do). Adding nutrients, keep PH 5.5. Then place your clone in that water solution, and wait till roots start to sprout.

• Soil is the natural rooting medium. It’ll require less maintenance, you take it as is, but taking proper soil like from a growing store shall make your attempt easier. Place your clone into loose soil, keep the soil moist but no over-flood.

• Rockwool (aka mineral wool) is an artificial rooting medium and a perfect fit for clones and rooting enterprises. It is a good and relatively cheap investment that shall repay greatly, especially if you are a first-timer:

• • It gives optimal airflow for roots and retains water as good as we need for clones to sprout.

  • Easy to carry as soon as the rockwool cube, where the plant sits is already holding the shape well (compared to water or soil). You can put all clones into one tray once they are in cubes, which is convenient. For example, for watering.

  • The rockwool lets your plant sit tight in a hole, so the root takes no load, and the stem stays immovable affected by air movement (including breeze if outdoors, but you do not expect they shall survive a gale, you better hide plants from the weather for a while).

Once your clones sprout roots

You better keep in mind during the whole process of marijuana cloning, that the situation you create for the plants is way stressful. Even though the transplants (clones you cut) struggle to survive, it is a natural process like falling branches do in the wild nature, but you just pursue a higher success rate of survival of clones. So once roots start appearing:

• Keep light at 18 hours per day regime.

• Keep the temperature at 72-76 F (22-25 C)

• Expose clones to air movements.

Exposure to air movement shall make stems and roots stronger, otherwise, they risk falling within a day or two, when you relocate your clones into a real environment. It’s early to say “give them wind” at this point but you try making air movement by ventilator working at a distance, slowly increasing to the light breeze. Bringing clones to the open air when the weather is marvelous is a good idea. Wind resistance you train in your clones, and especially if you prepare them to settle outdoors, once they are normal plants.

How long do clones take to grow?

The overall term depends on the mother plant. Just like she did so shall do, or should do, the offspring. However, what kind of benefit, among others, the clones give us – we cut the term skipping the germination stage, and the early vegetation stage. We spend 1-2 weeks for rooting instead, then we are in the middle of vegetation. Roughly, clones make the whole story a few weeks shorter, it should be beyond a month: 6-8 weeks.

What do scientists say?

The inventor of teleportation said he will never step into a teleportation cabin. Yes, it is invented as they have successfully teleported photons over a 143 km distance, about 88 miles. Somewhat a copy too.

“We know shit about biology,” — says Craig Venter, a former leader in the Human Genome Project.

Again, it is not bad to play with growing marijuana clones. There are certain benefits, we have mentioned in this post, and it is a natural process but just you aid the nature to increase the survival rate of clones. That is what you do by setting up the idyllic conditions for clones to root.

Clones vs seeds

Finally we list up pros and cons as a comparison of growing weed from clones vs growing weed from clones. The important message is: even though you stick to clones, which are great to be stick to, you won’t escape growing from seeds.

Sooner or later you will discover that a number of clones you take from the same mother plant is limited, and you’ll need to change her. On the other hand, taking clones from clones may work. There was one guy in Alaska, who cloned the Matanuska Thunderfuck (MTF) strain away from law enforcement eyes for 20 years to preserver the unique genetics of MTF. The strain is now available in the market, by the way, but often branded as “Alaskan Thunderfuck”. Leaves of MTF have fangs, boo!

Marijuana plants raised from seeds are in general stronger, as we mentioned already in this post. They feature stronger roots, and a subsequently stronger development of the whole system.

I prefer thinking about weed clones comparing a country-side guy to a megalopolis nerd, the latter represents a clone, and the former represents a plant from seed. Unscientific, I know, but I am that megalopolis nerd, and I now live in a country side, so I know the answer, ha-ha.

Sun, 07/Nov/21