Growing Marijuana Seeds Vs Clones

Cultivating marijuana plants is not just about using seeds. While this is the traditional way of getting some healthy buds, you can approach your cultivation schemes differently. We are talking about cloning plants. Some of you may have heard of this before but it isn’t all that popular just yet. However, a whole lot of growers today have actually seen cloning plants. Which shows as much potential and a beneficial way of cultivating marijuana!

Here, we are going to learn more about cloning cannabis plants and how to do it. Once you broaden your knowledge about this topic, you may very well start doing it more and more! Not only will it give you a new way of getting healthy buds. It will also give you a constant quality of plants for as long as you wish! 

How Does It Work?

The main way that cannabis plants reproduce themselves is through the process of pollination. This involves the pollen grains and pistils of marijuana plants coming into contact with one another. This is where the sexual reproduction of plants happens. Cloning, on the other hand, is a form of asexual reproduction that does not depend on any interaction of the cannabis plant’s sexual organs.

Cloning is done by taking a piece of the mother plant called a cutting and subsequently cultivating it in an appropriate soil mixture or growing medium. You are literally taking the genetics of the mother plant and introducing it as a new unit of your garden. Thus, you will end up with an identical cannabis plant that carries the exact same set of traits and qualities. 

When we say that clones carry the same characteristics as their mothers, we mean everything! They carry over both the good and bad qualities to the clones due to acquiring them from developing cannabis plants. This makes it a great cultivation option for growers who want less diversity in their crops. 

Advantages Of Cloning Plants As Opposed To Using Seeds

Cloning plants prove to be a very efficient way of growing and producing cannabis buds. Even if seeds are still the dominant way of approaching your weed crops. Cloning plants isn’t that far behind in terms of the benefits that it brings!

Growers will usually opt to clone their plants because of these advantages:

• The use of clones for propagating cannabis plants will surely save you some money in the long run. Continuing to use cuttings from your garden and subsequently cultivating them means that you won’t have to spend more money on buying weed seeds. And it is a pretty obvious fact that marijuana seeds can come at a fairly high price!
• Successfully coming up with high-quality buds will mean that you can emulate the exact same results through the use of clones. As you already know, clones work in just the same way that their mother plant does. You will already know what effects they will bring in addition to the tastes, smells, strength, and even growing experience. If you find a phenotype that suits your tastes and checks all the boxes (this is called phenotype hunting), go ahead and clone them! 
• The most influential factor in cloning plants is the speed at which the clones can grow! If you are cloning plants properly and correctly, it would only take a few more weeks for them to start developing until the weed buds are ready for harvest. This is because clones are from cannabis plants that are developing through their vegetative stages of life. Because of this, they will start developing from the time that they are cut from the cannabis plant, save for the time that they spend healing and getting accustomed to the growing medium.

How Is Cloning Done? Here Is A Step-By-Step Guide:

Knowing how to properly clone plants will eliminate complications. And since you are going to be making small cuts and incisions into your plants, they tend to stress out if you tinker with them too much! To avoid them from developing adverse symptoms of stress, growers who plan on cloning plants of cannabis should first take the time to learn more about the whole process!

Here, we are going to explain what you are going to need and how to properly clone your plants. 

• A pair of scissors or a sharp razor. You will be using this to take off the cutting from the mother plant. The same item may also be used for manicuring and trimming the leaves off of the marijuana cuttings that you obtain. 
• Gloves. This ensures that you do not cut yourself or sustain any injuries from the plant when obtaining a cutting.
• A bucket filled with clean, filtered water (If your chosen medium is water). Right after obtaining the clone, you are going to have to place your cuttings into clean water with dissolved rooting hormones and food. 
• Soil or Rockwool if any of the two is your chosen medium.
• Rooting hormones stimulate the development of roots in the cutting.

Step 1: First, you are going to know when to obtain your cuttings. This is best done from a mother plant that is around its earlier stages of the vegetative phase (around 2 to 3 weeks after germination). While it is possible to take some during the flowering stages, this is highly not recommended due to them having to revert to the vegging stage to develop. 

Also, it will take a lot longer for the roots and plant parts to develop. You may have to wait for an extended 2 to 4 weeks before they can go back to the vegging phase. 

Step 2: The next step is cutting off the part of the plant which will make up the clone. The best place to take a cutting is from the lower section of the cannabis plants. Because these receive less sunlight as opposed to the ones on top, they tend to be less developed. They are, however, still very healthy as they are the first ones to absorb the nutrients coming from the roots.

Choose a branch that contains at least two nodes. From there, take your pair of scissors or a sharp razor and slowly place an incision at a 45-degree angle. Make sure to leave enough of the cutting to plant into the growing medium.

Step 3: Right after obtaining the cutting, you will want to dab the base into a solution of rooting hormone. This will help the clone start developing its roots right off the bat. Immediately after, place it into the growing medium of your choice.

Rockwool is often cited as being the best choice for clones. Because it retains water and nutrients well and suspends a sufficient amount of air for the further development of the plant, Rockwool will give you the fastest rooting time compared to all the other choices. To fully establish a durable rooting system, it will take roughly around 1 to 2 weeks. During this time, you will have to constantly check the hydration levels of the plants and regularly water them to keep the developing roots and Rockwool nice and moist. 

Step 4: Check the base of your clones now and then. After an ample amount of time, you will notice that white, formed roots have finally begun to show themselves from your plants! Once you are happy with the development and progress, you can now transfer them into a soil-based growing medium to continue with their vegetative stage and transition into flowering.

This will seem a lot more familiar to growers as the clones may now be treated the same way as you would treat cannabis plants from seeds! Resume giving these clones some fertilizers and nutrient solutions to boost their growth and keep them fresh and healthy! 

A Key Reminder

A key reminder is that you should always take cuttings only from healthy and strong mother plants! Having a clone from a sickly mother plant will consequently result in a clone that carries the same conditions. Also, before you start cutting your plants, make sure that you stop feeding the mothers with nutrients and other amendments! Flushing them out will ensure a clean slate and fresh start for the clones.

That’s about it for cloning plants! Learning it will give you another method of growing to look forward to. As long as it is done properly, cloning plants can also be an addition to your choices in cultivation!