For cannabis growers, there are two choices available when it comes to starting their venture of raising the plants: one is using seeds and the other is using the clones. While each of the methods has its own pros and cons, in this article we’ll be looking at the ups and downs associated with cloning marijuana plants.
Cloning is one of the very popular ways to grow cannabis plants among cultivators. The process involves taking a cutting from a mother plant that is healthy, revealing the cutting to rooting hormones before leaving it in a glass of water or any other moist medium. After the roots come out of the cutting, the process of cloning comes to an end following which the clone is shifted to its final growing medium where it will grow further. The time taken for the cloning process to come to an end may take anywhere between 5 days and 21 days.
Though poor cloning methods may kill the clones even before developing roots, if the correct techniques are followed with a healthy cutting under suitable environmental conditions, the success rate are significantly high.
Pros of Cannabis Cloning
The most important plus point of beginning with clones is that the offspring will have the same DNA as that of its mother plant, which implies that if cuttings are acquired from a female mother plant, all the clones will also be of the same sex with similar characteristics like THC levels, pest resistance, potency and duration of growth. So, you can know what exactly you would get when cultivating cannabis plants.
Furthermore, cuttings that grow roots are much more advanced when compared to seeds that need to undergo the process of germination before growing into seedlings. So, beginning with clones can decrease the duration of growth of cannabis plants. If you wanna clone for example the White Widow, remember to buy White Widow seeds rather than the auto white widow.
Cons of Cannabis Cloning
Cloning marijuana plants is definitely a very convenient process, but there are few downsides also associated with it, which can be against your favor. For example, we now know that clones have the same characteristics as their mother plants, which means if the mother plant has some negative traits like low susceptibility to infections, pest problems or slow growth, then these can pass on to the offspring as well.
Secondly, since clones are very delicate, any kind of shock can kill them even before the roots come out. So, more care has to be taken.
Now that you know the pros and cons of cannabis cloning, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to use clones or seeds for growing your marijuana garden depending on the efforts you can put in. If you decide to opt for clones, choose a high quality and healthy mother plant that you grow from marijuana seeds so that you can analyze and assess the mother plant’s overall yield.