What Is A Cannabis Clone? How To Clone Marijuana

What Is A Cannabis Clone?

A cloned cannabis plant is a small cutting taken from a mother plant. Rooting hormone is then added to the cutting and placed in soil or a suitable medium to grow into a plant. The clone created in this way will be genetically identical to the mother plant.

The cutting used for cloning is typically around 15 cm in length. After being separated from the mother plant, it is placed in a medium and given hormones to support root development. Once roots have sufficiently formed, the plant is transferred to a pot or planted in the ground and continues to grow like a normal plant.

Cloning cannabis plants is mainly done to keep the best traits of a mother plant for future growth. This method helps growers keep qualities like potency, quality, yield, and other important features the same over several generations without needing seeds or making new hybrids.

What Is A Cannabis Mother Plant?

The mother cannabis plant is the plant that is selected for cuttings or branches for cloning purposes. The mother plant will be the genetic source for creating identical clones. A strong mother plant will produce strong cuttings. Conversely, if the mother plant is weak, the cuttings will also be weak.

Branches take the mother plant, but the mother is always in a garden (non-bloom) dressed not to affect clones of growth. Some growers maintain mother plants purely for cuttings - which takes up space and does not produce any buds off the mother plant.

You can choose to take cuttings while the mother plant is in the vegetative stage. The cuttings from the mother plant will grow into large plants, and you can continue taking cuttings before the plant starts flowering.

This method ensures that each clone shares the characteristics of the mother plant, resulting in consistent flavor and product quality. Using clones also ensures that all new cannabis plants are female, saving time compared to growing from seed, as there is no need to identify and remove male plants.

The clones will inherit all the genetic characteristics of the mother plant. Therefore, you should choose a good quality mother plant. A weak mother plant that wilts easily or fails to produce quality buds will not make good clones.

 

A good quality mother plant will have the following characteristics:

• Vitality and fast growth rate: A healthy, fast-growing mother plant will support strong and stable growth in seedlings.
• Characteristic flavor and aroma: A mother plant with a characteristic aroma and flavor helps seedlings retain good genes, meeting the needs of growers.
• High yield potential: A mother plant with abundant yield can maximize efficiency and productivity for growers.
• Dense down: A mother plant with thick down will protect seedlings from adverse environmental factors, supporting the sustainable development of seedlings.
• Resistance to pests and molds: A mother plant with high resistance to pests and molds helps seedlings grow stably with minimal impact from harmful external factors.

So after we have a good mother plant, how to clone marijuana? Let's find out more in the next part of the article.

How To Clone Marijuana?

How to clone marijuana? You just follow these six steps:

Step 1 — Choose The Right Mother Cannabis Plant

You should choose a healthy, well-formed mother plant that produces plenty of flowers. Ideally, the mother plant should be disease-free, making it easy for cuttings to take root with minimal stress. 

It's also best if the mother plant has been in the vegetative stage for a while, as this will make it easier for the cutting to develop roots. Cuttings taken from flowering plants usually have a harder time rooting and tend to grow weaker roots.

 

Step 2 - Take A Cutting

Make a 45-degree angle cut of the plant branch (more than 10-15 cm in length) from the Mother plant using a clean knife/scissors. The cutting is angled, which also adds surface area for climbing out and for rooting. 

The cutting should have a minimum of two nodes (points at which leaves grow from the stem) on it. Place the cutting in a cup of Water immediately after cutting to prevent air from entering the stem and to encourage root growth.

Step 3 — Dip In A Rooting Hormone

Creating a proper root zone is essential, so dip the lower end of your cutting into a rooting hormone (available as a powder, gel, or liquid). This encourages faster, healthier root growth.

Step 4 — Place The Cutting In A Growing Medium

Put your cutting into dirt or some form of moisture-retaining media such as coconut coir or rock wool. They are perfect in how they hold Water and aid in root establishment.

Step 5 – Water & Provide Low Light

Once the cutting has been planted, keeping it in low-intensity light or a grow light set low on high is also an option. Do not place it in direct sunlight to avoid putting unnecessary pressure on the cutting.

Step 6 - Care And Monitor

In the first few days, maintain high humidity around the cutting by misting the area. Water as needed, but avoid over-watering to prevent root rot. As the roots grow stronger, you can gradually reduce humidity and increase light exposure for the cutting.

Other Methods On How To Clone Marijuana

Rockwool Or Root Blocks

This method is considered the cheapest and easiest way to clone cannabis plants. Rockwool blocks or root plugs provide a stable environment, supporting weak cuttings as they establish roots more easily.

To perform this method, simply cut a branch from the mother plant, apply a small amount of rooting hormone to the base, and insert the cutting into a rock wool block or root plug. Then, place these blocks in a water tray and cover them with a humidity dome to retain moisture. Once roots begin to emerge, you can transplant the cutting into a soil pot for further growth.

Rockwool blocks or root plugs provide a stable environment for cannabis cuttings to root easily.

Water

Cannabis plants can be cloned through aeroponics. Take a cutting as usual and place it in a cloning machine. The machine periodically mists the base of the cutting, with nutrients and rooting hormones mixed in the water reservoir below. This method encourages rapid root growth and stabilizes the plant in its early stages.

Benefits Of Cloning Cannabis Plants

• Preserve desirable traits: Cloning marijuana maintains the genetic characteristics of the mother plant, such as aroma, potency, and yield. In contrast, growing plants from seeds does not guarantee uniformity, as each offspring can develop with its characteristics.
• Faster growth: Clones are taken from mature plant tissue so they do not go through a germination stage. As a result, clones can grow faster, shortening the cultivation time and speeding up the harvest process.
• Conservation of valuable genetics: Growers can protect and expand strains with favorable genetics, ensuring high yield and preserving valuable traits of the strain. Rare cannabis strains, in particular, can be maintained through this method.

 

• Reduces risk: Growing from seed may lead to plants with undesirable traits. Cloning ensures that clones inherit stable characteristics from the mother plant, minimizing risk and increasing success rates in cultivation.
• Less expensive: Seeds are expensive to buy, especially female seeds, which only produce female plants. If you don't buy female seeds, half of your plants will be sterile males, wasting your valuable time and resources.
• Creating new hybrids and hybrids: Properly done cannabis cloning allows breeders to have stable hybrids with desirable traits. With cloning, cannabis breeders can also refine and perfect their hybrids so that their essential traits are even more desirable.
• Avoid hermes metric or male cannabis plants: Creating cannabis clones is also considered the best solution to avoid growing male plants. Cloned cannabis plants have the same genetics as the mother plant, so if you use a female mother plant for cloning, you will definitely get female cannabis plants without exception.
  
  
  

Tips To Help You Grow Healthy Clones

To achieve high efficiency in cannabis cloning, consider the following tips:

Sterilize the humidity dome and cloning tray before transplanting

Before placing clones into a new environment, thoroughly disinfect the cloning tray and humidity dome if used. This step reduces the risk of infection and prevents harmful factors from interrupting the cloning process. 

You can use a bleach solution mixed with Water for sterilizing. For other areas, an isopropyl alcohol solution is also a suitable option. Make sure your workspace is clean to provide a safe environment for the clones.

Rely on a single, trustworthy source of information 

During cloning, it's best to stick to one reliable and trustworthy source. There are many online articles about cloning, but not all are accurate. To avoid confusion, choose a specialized source, such as an in-depth book, articles from experienced breeders, or a reputable website.

Avoid taking cuttings from diseased mother plants

When selecting cuttings, ensure the mother plant is entirely healthy, with no signs of disease or infection. A healthy mother plant ensures strong growth and high-quality clones. Cuttings from a sickly mother plant not only slow down clone development but may also fail to display the desired traits upon maturity.