When should I take clones from my plants?

[AKalltheway]

There are a couple of schools of thought on this one. Firstly there are those who clone early to determine the sex of their plants and then there are those who wait until the donor plant is sexed before they clone.

If you subscribe to the first method then grow the plant vegetatively until it has at least five internodes before you take a clone. Make sure you label the clone the same as the donor plant to avoid confusion.

The second method requires you to take less cuttings as you already know the sex of the plant but it will be slower as the plant has already entered the early stages of flowering and any clones taken will first have to root and then secondly revert back to vegetative growth.

The bottom line is clone early and often to ensure you preserve the genetic line you are happy with.

keep the clones for second harvest

Take clones from the ladies, after the seedlings are sex determined(female), bud out the ladies, and while this is happening, the clones will grow and be tall enough for the second cycle, clone from those just before you induce flowering.

 

[Lemmongrass]

IVe been toying with a SOG of Clones i took from 3 flowering plants last crop. I had to make a ghetto area to stick my cloning tray under a light since my grow isnt light proof. i have to blockade a whole room to keep it dark. so i didnt want to keep the clones in this dangerous area long. i ended up putting them back into my 12/12 room after they had totaly rooted their 2x2 dirt pots. which was about 2.5 weeks.

i took clones from these for the next crop and placed them into 12/12 after just a week of 24hr lighting. The 7th day after i cut them 10/12 had roots so i placed them into 12/12.

The first set of clones were 2-4" tall above the dirt when placed in 12/12. they grew moderately quickly for 2 weeks then kind of blew up at first signs of initial flower. after the first fresh calyxs grew the plants got their main flowering stretch which was made up 90% by 3 fingered fan leaves and only started to grow 5 finger leaves on the top flowering points where the colas are to form.

So this works out to produce about 12 clones every two weeks. i throw away lots of good clone shoots when i trim the lower canopy for sog because i just dont need that many plants. but if i did i could do about 12 every two weeks as i need about 6 inches or so of branch free stalk to open up the forest for air flow. and as clones branch from the base up there is lots to cut!

i can fit 12-18 2x2 clone pots under my 1x2tube 24hr floro. these take only a week or two to root. so every time i cut the extra lower growth off of an older crop of clones my last ones have rooted. even tho they are still small crappy clones the time they spend stalled trying to flower combined with the 1, 2, or 3 flowering stretches is more than enough vert and horizontal growth for a good sog single or multi cola plant.