CLONING 101

Get a good strike-rate on your cuttings

CLONING

Cannabis cloning is really not as high tech as it sounds. All cannabis strains can be cloned, some strains are much more accepting of it than others. There are many many different ways you can clone cannabis, and most ways work really good. Below I will give a tutorial on the most fool proof way to clone successfully, all items required can be found in most general hardware stores with a gardening section.

You will need:

• Jiffy pellets (pictured). There are many different items you can use instead of jiffys such as rockwool. I have recommended jiffys because they are just easier for beginners. They are less likely to dry out, and with the right care are as good as anything.
• A propagation unit/humidity chamber (pictured) can be any size, but keep in mind you will need a heat pad to fit under it.
• A heat pad.
• Rooting gel/powder such as clonex, or my recommendation ibadex 
• A mother plant, or a clone. Or alot of seeds 
• Shade cloth (if your clones are under an hps, led or something similar) or a very low output light such as a purple aquarium one or a small cfl.

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A clone taken from a plant will share exactly the same genetics and sex as its mother plant. Cloning cannabis is a great way to ensure all your plants are female, and a way to get many many plants with all the same great genetics

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CLONING A CANNABIS PLANT

The biggest key to cloning is to keep all your equipment and plants clean, after every batch of clones thoroughly wash your humidity chambers. You will need to have a mother plant or clone growing, any branch with a top growing tip and or internodes is fair game for cloning. You want no more than 3 nodes on a clone, so some fan leaves and nodes may need removed to give you 10cm to 20cm of stalk that will act as a base for your new clone, roots will also shoot from the stalk.

Have everything ready, put the amount of jiffys you want in some warm water in a tray (not your humidity chamer), and let the Jiffys expand and grow, once your jiffys are ready try to nicely space them out in your humidity chamber, get a tooth-pick or something similar and prod a hole in the top of your jiffys approx 3 to 4cm deep.
Take your humidity chamber with your expanded warm jiffys and sit it near your mother plants where you can access it quick and easy. Along with your chamber have your clonex/ibadex with the lid open, and a cup of fresh water.
Look at the area you wish to take a clone from, if you need to remove nodes and fan leaves do it now, BEFORE you take your cutting. The next few steps you want to aim to do them as quickly as possible:

• Cut your clone at a 45 degree angle as pictured (this is to increase the amount of space roots can shoot from at the base of the clone)
• Dip the cut end in your cup of water
• Then straight into you ibadex or clonex, a thick layer is not necessary 
• Now carefully place the stalk into the jiffy, and lightly press around the base locking the cutting in place, be careful not to squeeze too much water out.
• If your clone has just the top shoot, it is good to go, if you have a second and or third node cut the fan leaves fingers each in half as pictured (this is so the fan leaf stops photosynthesizing, and the energy can be put in to the internode to keep it alive)

From here the clone may be placed in its chamber, and the process repeated until you have the desired number of clones. When arranging where the clones sit in the chamber, try and aim to have them sitting free and not touching each other. Your humidity chamber full of clones needs to sit on top of the heat pad, if your cloning bin is sitting in the same room as your main plants under a powerful light such as HPS, LED, or MH, be sure to cover your chamber with 1 layer of shade cloth, and be sure the lights are on for at least 18 hours a day. If you have a separate place to sit your clones have that ready, with a non powerful light such as a CFL, or an aquarium light on 18 to 24 hours per day works good.

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CARING FOR YOUR CLONES
Your cuttings/clones will take anywhere between 5 days and 5 weeks to show signs of roots, every now and then check around the side and bottom of the Jiffys looking for signs of roots. Your cuttings will appreciate you not letting the jiffy get light and dry, also be carefull to not over do it ie – dont sit them in a pool of water, but keep the jiffy wet and dark looking. Open the top vents enough for a pencil to fit through, as well as liking high humidity, they also like their oxygen. 
Taking good care of clone requires mainly that you check on them every day and make sure the jiffys dont dry out. Some people choose to lightly mist the clones once a week or so this can be helpful, just be careful not to mist too much and have water build up in the internodes causing them to rot. At the first sign of roots appearing you can give yourself a pat on the back you have successfully cloned cannabis. Your clone/s showing roots can now be planted.

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CLONING WITH ROCKWOOL
Rockwool is a great neutral medium perfect for cloning especially if you are growing hydroponically, it can also be planted in soil. Rockwool usually comes in little cubes. The key to using rockwool well is in the prep you put in to it before you use it. 
Rockwool can become saturated, so saturated that it begins to grow green slime over it because this stuff holds water ULTRA well. So to avoid fungus such as slime forming on your rockwool from too much water this is how you prep rockwool:

• First make sure your sink is clean and sterile, put all the rockwool you intend on using in the sink and run water over all of it for 5 solid minutes giving it all a good rinse. 
• Plug your sink and fill it roughly one quarter full of warm water
• Break apart the rockwool cubes so they are individuals and place the amount you want to clone in your sink full of warm water, let them soak for 10 minutes or so.
• Pull the plug on your sink after they have soaked
• One by one pick up one rockwool cube, loosely cup both your hands over it and give the cube one quick single sharp shake in a downwards direction flicking excess water out, do not do the sharp shake any more than twice.
• NEVER SQUEEZE/SQUASH ROCKWOOL
Apart from the different prep to jiffys cloning with rockwool should be exactly the same as with jiffys. Be vigilant and check your rockwool every day that its not dry, again the weight of the clone in the rockwool is the easiest way to know for sure whether it needs water. I use a pump bottle or something similar with a sipper on the lid to easily water my clones with out risking an over flow.

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CLONING USING A BUBBLER/DWC (deep water culture)
Some say this is the most successful method of cloning. I personally like my jiffy or rockwool method over this, but here's something completely different, particularly for hydro readers. You will need:

• A plastic tub 35 or 40 litre approx, MUST be light proof on the inside. Must have lid.
• 1x aquarium water heater
• 1x aquarium air pump with hoses
• 2x medium sized air stones, or 1x big air stone to attach to air pump.
• Lighting suitable for cloning

To set the DWC cloner up start by drilling holes in the lid, be careful not to push too hard drilling splitting the lid, use a nice big drill piece 1.5cm to 2cm diameter if possible and roughly 15cm to 20cm apart these are the holes your clone stalks will sit in. Next sit your water heater in the tub along with the air stone/s. Set your water heater to heat the water up to 25 degrees Celsius. Fill the tub 2/3rd full with plain water. You want the water to be 10 to 20cm away from the base of the stalks. Take your clones using the same method mentioned at the beginning. Sit your cut clones in the wholes in the lid, turn the power on to the air pump and water heater and let the magic happen.
The water heaters will be heating the water to the optimum temperature, while the air stones will be sending up 1000s of bubbles that will pop and lightly mist the exposed stalk hanging from the lid. Roots will piss out! Gently pull your clone through the lid hole and plant it immediately.

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A GLASS OF WATER
Yep you can skip all the fancy chambers, heat pads, dwc etc’s and just place your clone in a plain glass of water. People get roots this way... but it is hit n miss. Where as jiffys/rockwool with a heat pad and chamber is way more successful, 100% successful most of the time for me, and if not its because i haven't cleaned my cloning chamber.

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Happy toking every body!!