It is highly likely that during your time growing cannabis, you will find a particular plant that exemplifies everything you love about the strain. It impresses you so much that you wish all your other cannabis plants could be like it. Well, in the future they can. You can use this cannabis plant as a mother for your clones, allowing you to reproduce the specific genetics of the mother again and again.

Cannabis cloning involves taking cuttings and growing them into fully fledged cannabis plants. Any cannabis plant can become a mother plant as soon as it reaches a certain stage of growth and has a decent number of nodes. The best place to take a cutting from your mother plant is above a node that has at least two more nodes above it. Once you have this cutting, it is moved straight to a growing medium where it should hopefully begin to develop its own set of roots.

Cloned cannabis tends to flower faster than its seed germinated counterpart, you also know what you are getting as it will mimic the genetics of its mother – if you can manage it, cloning is a great way to make sure you are never without your favorite strain again.

Cloning Mediums

The success of your cannabis cloning attempt is largely going to depend on the growing medium you decide to use for its “rebirth”. This is usually done with soil, water or rockwool blocks.

Putting your clone straight into soil tends to have quite a low success rate. It can be largely impacted by the nutritional content and type of soil used. If you are set on this method then we would recommend using loam with an equal NPK ratio. Do not use germination soil thinking that this is similar to the germination process, it is not. Germination soil will not have the correct nutritional makeup required, it also often contains hormones that are used to encourage seedling growth – not something that is of use here.

Water cloning is also something that tends to be quite unsuccessful. Once your clones start to develop roots they will need air – not something they can readily obtain underwater. This means that you will need to transplant the clones to another medium at this point. Having to transplant the clone is going to cause stress, reducing the chances of success – especially if you are required to transplant it a few times.

The best, and our most preferred, method of creating cannabis clones is to place your cuttings into rockwool bricks. These offer the cultivator a great deal of control and have moderately high success rates. Rock wool has a great ability to retain water whilst allowing a decent circulation of air – ideal for roots.

It should also be noted that it is possible to create clones with aerobic kits, but this is a very advanced and hard to master method only used by the most experienced and confident.

Rooting Hormones/Solutions

To create a clone you will need a rooting solution. These are usually a powder or a gel. Powders tend to be used for soil cloning. It can be put on top of the soil in addition to the hole you placed your clone into. This means that when you water it, extra rooting hormones can seep down to the cut and encourage growth. Generally speaking, it is better to get a gel. These are applied to the area where the cut was made on the clone. Not only do they have everything the clone will need to encourage rooting, but the gel also acts as an airtight seal, stopping air getting to the cut and stunting growth. Gel is also water soluble, meaning it won't be washed away – giving it a much longer lifespan than its powder counterpart. It is important to make sure that whatever rooting solution you go for, it has vitamin B1 in it (also known as Thiamine) – it is essential for healthy root growth in cannabis plants.

The Process of Creating a Cannabis Clone

You will want to take a cutting from a vegetative cannabis mother; take the cutting above a node that has at least 2 or more nodes above it. Make sure that there are less than 3 inches between the cut area and the next node; if the distance is longer it will be hard for the clone to uptake all of the water and nutrients it needs to create roots.

Once you have a cannabis cutting, dip the cut end in a root growth solution to encourage the cutting to grow roots. The cannabis cutting can now be placed into the rockwool (or whatever method you decide). If you are using rockwool, then make sure that you do not puncture through the medium, allowing air to reach the cut zone. If you do, make sure to fill in these holes with extra bits of medium, or the root growth may become stunted. You will want to use relatively small cubes of rockwool, this will allow you to easily monitor root growth.

Place your cutting into a tray with a transparent lid to keep them warm and humid, but also allow light through. Clones do not need much light to start developing roots, simply putting them on your windowsill or under a fluorescent light should be enough for now.

Whatever medium you decide to use for your cloning, make sure it never fully dries out. If it does your clones are likely to die – this is where rockwool can come into its own; it can remain damp for a long time in a tray without oversaturating your clones. Do not pour water into the tray, just make sure to keep the rockwool topped up individually with water. Bear in mind that because they must remain constantly damp, the grow medium will become a playground for mold and fungi, keep a vigilant eye out, these are never good things to let linger.

The time your cannabis clones take to root and how successful they are is going to largely be dependent on the strain of cannabis you are attempting to clone. In most cases, cannabis clones will take in 2-3 weeks, but do not worried if it is taking longer, (some strains are notoriously hard to get going in clone form).

Once you start to see roots growing outside of the rockwool, you know that your cannabis clones have been a success and are ready for transplanting into your main growing medium.

Extra tips: It is best to take the cannabis clone cutting during the 3rd or 4th week of the mother's vegetative growth. What you must bear in mind is that when you create a marijuana clone, its life clock does not reset. This means that if your mother is a week away from flower, your clones will have the potential to flower within a week of rooting. Many seed banks will keep their particular strains alive for decades, taking cuttings from a previous cutting, making sure they have access to those particular genetics indefinitely – it is also possible to keep the original mother in a vegetative state for as long as needed, potentially supplying an innumerable amount if clones.

You should know that it is possible to take a cutting from a cannabis plant that is flowering, but it is not recommended, vegetative clones are much easier to control.

Now that you know how to successfully clone your cannabis strains you will be able to preserve you favorite specimens indefinitely – woohoo!