Autoflower Cannabis Seeds and Cloning: How to Create Your Own Mother Plants

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Cloning a cannabis plant is a fascinating procedure that entails taking a cutting from a well-established “mother” plant and using it to produce a completely new, independent plant. That means the new marijuana shrub will possess genetics precisely identical to those of the mother from which it was cloned.

Cloning allows cannabis growers to preserve the genetics of their favorite cultivar and all of its original characteristics, from its flavor to its psychoactive effects. Many farmers find that cloning cannabis plants is economically viable, especially since it means they won’t have to keep purchasing seeds to develop the same weed variety; instead, they can take a trimming from the coveted plant within their crop and create a homogenous clone.

With all these advantages, cloning can appear as a method that all ganja farmers should constantly utilize to duplicate and grow their favorite cultivars. However, the technique does have certain limitations, which we will highlight in this article. Here we examine the art of weed plant cloning and share valuable tips for growers of autoflowers.

Why Should a Ganja Farmer Clone Autoflowering Seeds?

It’s a popular misconception in the weed growers’ sector that autoflowering seeds can’t be cloned. However, evidence shows that it is possible, yet they also suggest that the effort would not be worthwhile. One notable drawback is that autoflowering cannabis cultivars are complex, although not impossible, to clone successfully. This may discourage many growers from cloning altogether, given that autoflowering species have several benefits over traditional strains, such as compact dimensions and rapid growth rates. To understand why farmers fail to achieve spectacular results while trying to clone autoflowering cannabis strains, we must examine what distinguishes this breed of plants from the rest.

In contrast to photoperiod plants, which require a change in the quantity of light they receive during vegetative to flowering stages, autoflowering variants flower automatically. Since they do not require modifying the light cycle to begin blooming and produce a profitable crop of high-quality buds, this characteristic makes them particularly desirable to novice growers.

Pros and Cons of Cloning Autoflowering Cannabis: Example of Autoflowering Blueberry Yum Yum Seeds

When you decide to clone autoflower seeds, such as, for instance, Yum Yum Blueberry https://askgrowers.com/seeds/blueberry-yum-yum-seeds-autoflower, you’re sure to reap a few notable advantages. They include the following:

• Guaranteed female plants. The female Blueberry Yum Yum plants produce cannabis flowers abundant in cannabinoids and terpenes. When you cut clones from a female mother plant, you can be confident that every clone you cut will also be female.
• Less expensive. Seeds are costly to purchase, particularly feminized seeds, which grow almost entirely female plants. If you don’t buy feminized seeds, half of your plants will be unproductive males, wasting your time and money.
• Shorter harvest time. Blueberry Yum Yum plants grown from clones will be ready to harvest sooner than plants grown from seeds. When growing from clones, you can cut your harvest time by up to a month by eliminating the requirement for germination and a lengthy seedling stage.
• Consistent quality. Each clone will possess the same qualities as the mother plant. If your mother plant is robust and a high-quality cultivar, you won’t have to worry about cloning issues involving inconsistent quality or potency.

However, each cultivation technique is flawed. Since cloning can give you benefits in terms of time, resources, and consistency of quality, it also has several drawbacks, which include:

• Clones are delicate. Fresh clones created from a new cutting are particularly susceptible to environmental stresses. This is because cannabis clones lack a root system, which is the plant’s natural way of absorbing nutrients from its surroundings. Therefore, leaving this technique to growers with more expertise is advisable.
• Lower yield. Although clones eventually develop their roots, cannabis plants developed from clones have a less robust root system than plants grown from seeds. This is because seeds have a head start on root growth. The very first stage of development for seed is the emergence of the plant’s tap root, a process that clones don’t get to experience as they only have a little time to develop a robust root system. Consequently, the plant as a whole becomes smaller, and fewer flowers are available for harvest.

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Cloning Preparation Process

The cloning process can begin once a grower has prepared a mother plant area and is adequately tending to the mother plants. They can, however, take a few steps to prepare their seeds for the cloning process. The first step for cultivators is to carefully inspect the mother plants for evidence of nutrient deficiency or insect damage.

A magnifying lens or pocket microscope is an excellent tool for close inspection. After passing the inspection, the mother plants can be placed in total darkness for 12-24 hours before collecting cuttings. During photosynthesis, sugars are synthesized and stored by plants. The goal is to harvest the clones when they have most of these stored carbohydrates during the plants’ resting or dark cycle.

How to Grow and Maintain a Mother Plant

Here are the things to consider when growing and maintaining a mother plant.

Choosing the Mother Plant

Many factors go into deciding which plant will serve as the mother. The first and essential consideration is its genetic profile. Farmers typically attempt to clone a plant with favorable genes or qualities. Thus, mother plants are generally selected from cultivars performing exceptionally well in the grower’s specific environment. Plants that show symptoms of deficiency, mildew, pest insects, or any other unfavorable condition should be avoided or, at the very least, nursed back to health before being utilized as mothers.

Choosing the Growing Area for Your Mother Plant

Mother plants do not require a large growing space. Still, creating an environment where the plants can fit comfortably, and where the farmer can easily manage the environmental conditions, is essential. Many growers make unique mother plant rooms or place the crops within a small grow tent. Alternatively, you can convert a large closet or cabinet into a mother plant growing chamber. The optimal temperature range for a mother plant is 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit and should not vary by more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit between the lights on and lights off periods.

Another crucial aspect to maintain is humidity. Keeping oxygen levels steady can do a lot for the health of a mother plant, and it also minimizes the clones’ transitional stress when transplanted to the cloning area while waiting for roots to form. The optimal relative humidity range for a mother plant is 60 to 65 percent. To dependably maintain this humidity level in the mother plant area, it may be necessary to install a small humidifier.

Planting Containers

In most instances, 10- to 15-gallon potting containers are suitable holding containers for mother plants, which permits mother plants to develop to a reasonable size without becoming root bound. There are no defined rules for planting containers, and some gardeners prefer smaller pots and more frequent rotation of mother plants. In general, larger planting containers make it simpler to maintain the health of plants over a more significant amount of time.

Lighting Conditions

Mother plants are maintained in a constant state of vegetative development. Therefore, they benefit most from a full-spectrum lighting system that includes a significant amount of blue wavelength light. It is more important to provide light with a complete spectrum than to provide intense light. The objective is to sustain the health of the mother plants, not to encourage rapid growth. Metal halide and fluorescent lighting systems are the most popular among cultivators because they produce a high concentration of blue-spectrum light.

It is recommended that the plants receive 18 hours of daylight and six hours of darkness. However, if it is more challenging for growers to maintain the optimal temperature and humidity ranges when the lights are off, they may benefit from a 24-hour light cycle. In short, if adopting a 24-hour light cycle makes the environmental conditions more stable, then you should do so.

Nutritional Needs of a Mother Plant

The general rule of thumb is to combine the highest quality of potting soil with a blend of vegetative and blooming fertilizers to keep the mother plant healthy in the vegetative stage. The fertilizer combination should be quarter-strength vegetative and quarter-strength blooming fertilizer. Ideally, the fertilizer’s nitrogen-to-potassium nutrient ratio should be 1:1.

In a hydroponic system, the nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium ratio should be 1:1:1. Farmers should continuously assess the nutrient needs, supplement their crops accordingly, and supplement as necessary. Other nutritional needs include enzyme supplements, micronutrients, and minerals such as calcium. A foliar spray containing fulvic acid or seaweed extract boosts the plants’ health in the soil with depleted nutrients.

Pruning and Trimming

Cannabis farmers trim and prune the mother plants to maintain their health and multiply their new growth shoots that can be taken as clones later on. Naturally, cutting off clones immediately prunes mother plants though that doesn’t imply that mother plants should only be pruned during the cloning process.

Conclusion

Cloning is a very effective method of growing cannabis, although it requires more significant expertise than most novice growers have. Most commercial marijuana cultivators rely on cloning unless they experiment with cross-breeding to develop new strains. Constant crop assessment assures that your cloned crop consistently generates high-quality flowers and that your marijuana cultivation operation is compliant. When grown in the right conditions, mother plants produce excellent clones which propagate high-quality weed plants.

The author of this article is Tia Moskalenko, an avid cannabis grower and blogger at AskGrowers, sharing her experience with readers and spreading word of mouth and best practices for rewarding cultivation. Tia believes everyone should have access to top-quality weed, so she contributes to the online education of aspiring growers with her detailed practical growing tips.