Clones and Cloning

Marijuana Horticulture

by Jorge Cervantes

Marijuana can be reproduced (propagated) sexually or asexually. Seeds are a product of sexual propagation; cuttings or clones are the result of asexual or vegetative propagation. In its simplest form, taking a cutting or clone involves cutting a growing branch tip and rooting it. Technically, cloning is taking one cell of a plant and promoting its growth into a plant. Marijuana growers often refer to a clone as meaning a branch of a cannabis pant that has been cut off and rooted.

Cloning reduces the time it takes for a crop to mature. Productive growers have two rooms, a vegetative / cloning room, about a quarter size of a second room used for flowering. Smaller vegetative plants take up less space than older flowering plants. For example, a 250- or 400-watt metal halide could easily illuminate vegetative plants and clones that would fill a flowering room lit by three 600-watt HP sodiums. If the halide is turned off, fluorescent and compact fluorescent amps are more economical and work well to root clones.

Combine eight-week flowering / harvest cycles with continuous cloning to form a perpetual harvest. One easy-to-implement scenario is to take two clones every four days, and harvest one ripe female every other day. Every time a plant is harvested, one or two rooted clones are moved from a constantly supplied vegetative room into the flowering room. This regimen gives a grower 30 flowering clones that are on a 91 day schedule. It takes 91 days from the time a clone is cut from the mother plant until the day its harvested. Using this schedule, a grower would have 30 clones, 10 vegetative plants, and 30 flowering plants growing at all times.

induce clones to flower when they are four to twelve inches tall to make most efficient use of HID light. Artificial light diminishes to the square of the distance, which means that foliage four feet away from the bulb receives one fourteenth as much light as if it were one foot away! Foliage that is shaded or receives less light grows slowly and looks spindly.

Short crops of cones in small containers are much easier to move and maintain than big plants in big containers. Short clones are also easy and efficient to grow in greenhouses and outdoors.

Well-illuminated, strong clones grow fast and have less chance of being affected by pests and diseases. Fast growing clones develop more quickly than spider mites can reproduce. By the time a spider mite infestation is noticed and sprayed, the plants are a few weeks from harvest. Clones are also easy to submerge in a miticide when small

Experiments with clones are consistent and easy to control. Genetically identical clones respond the same to different stimuli, such as fertilizer, light, bending, etc. After experimenting on several crops of clones from the same mother, a grower has a very good idea what it takes to make them grow well.