Cloning Cannabis: An Easy Guide to Clone Plants

Clone Cannabis Plants

Cloning cannabis is method to make copies of your plant.

Cutting contains news, young shoots that can be planted to create new plants with same genetics as mother strains.

Growers create plants that can be treated precisely same as mother plant.

There are several ways to take cutting. You can take it by hand, with razor or with special equipment.

Cloning cannabis takes time, but it’s great way to set up your marijuana growing operation if you want to grow lot of weed.

Guide to Cannabis Cloning

Cloning is method of reproducing your best weed plant and growing multiple identical copies of it.

This is my favourite growing method because it’s easy, saves time, and guarantees quality.

Clone will grow like mother plants so you can expect the same yields and quality.

This article contains all you need to know about quickly cloning marijuana strains.

In this guide, I will show step by step tutorial how to take clone from your mother plant and how to take care of it untill it’s been transplanted into its own pot with soil.

Preparing The Mother Plant And Branches

First, you have to prepare your cannabis mother plant. Cannabis mother plants should be healthy and extensive, with many leaves and healthy roots. This will later serve as basis for your clones.

You’ll take clone from mother plant and place it in rockwool cubes or another medium to start rooting process. 

If you’re growing in soil, you should transplant them into bigger pots about two weeks before you want to take your clone.

If you’re growing in hydro, increase nutrient levels. This makes root growth of mother plant faster and better.

Also, keep in mind to top your mother plants or give them some other form of pruning if you plan on taking lot of clone from them.

Taking And Preparing The Cutting

Marijuana cutting is best taken from stem, but also marijuana side shoots or marijuana leaves can be used.

This is best done in evening, so plant has all day to recover.

Best moment to cut your marijuana is when stem starts to harden and become slightly woody.

This makes it easier to cut and takes less energy from plants.

It also means that clone contains more xylem and fewer water reserves, wich is what we want.

Rooting The Cuttings

How to root cuttings:

1. Fill rooting tray with cloning gel and place clone about 2 inches deep.
2. Put tray in growing room and let cuttings sit for 24 hours. This allows them to absorb moisture they need to start rooting process.
3. Change water in your spray bottle with some sterile water to keep humidity high. Put tray back in growing room and wait another day or two until you see roots start to grow out of bottom of cutting. If you have trouble locating these, take some stems in your hand and squeeze them lightly. You’ll feel small rootlets come out of bottom of clone through stem. Now you can take clone from mother and put them into soil.

Transplanting The Clone

After you have successfully rooted your clone, it’s time to transplant them into bigger pots. Best way to do this is by placing them in trays with number of little pots per square inch.

Specially developed trays with humidity domes keep soil nice and moist, which is perfect for new roots. Transplanting takes place under lamp source, so ensure temperature doesn’t rise too much and that lighting period will be long enough.

Methods of How To Clone Marijuana Plants

There are multiple ways to clone your marijuana plants.

Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages, but all methods have same goal; taking clone from plant and growing it.

In this guide, I will teach you everything you need to know about cloned marijuana methods.

Cutting Method

Take cuttings from cannabis mother plant by cutting off stem with some leaves.

Take bottom half of cutting and place it in solo cup filled with soil. You can also use rockwool cubes or similar material as rooting medium.

Ensure you have enough cannabis cuttings to start large number of plants. Take at least 20 per mother.

Once you have put your cannabis cutting in solo cup with soil, you wait untill it starts growing and develops enough roots to be transplanted.

This usually takes about 2 weeks, but it depends on size of cutting and type of soil used. In nature, cannabis cuttings are also often placed in ground and will develop roots there over weeks.

Tissue Culture

Tissue culture is method to produce new plant in science laboratories. It’s clean and allows you to produce many cuttings at same time.

Tissue culture is realy professional method to create clone of cannabis. With this cannabis method, you can create an unlimited amount of identical cuttings quickly.

Advantage is that these cuttings are sterile and have no diseases or pests. Disadvantage is that it’s very expensive and requires lot of space and equipment.

Aeroponics

Aeroponics is very advanced cannabis method for cloning. Plant gets their roots into water, which contains all nutrients it needs.

Because there is no soil or rockwool to catch water and air, aeroponics is very demanding on equipment and setup.

You will need many pumps and pipes, but you’ll get quick results. Professional growers often use this method.

Deep Water Culture

In deep water culture, you don’t use any medium but suspend your cannabis cuttings in water.

This method is extremely easy and cheap to set up.

You only need to hang net with cannabis cuttings in water only tank and add some fertilizers.

You will have to change water regularly and have to make sure it stays moist.

This method is excellent if you only want small number of clone without having to spend lot of money on supplies.

Supplies For Cannabis Clones

In this guide, I will advertise to you what cannabis supplies and kits you need, to make sure you can always make clone.

Cloning Gels

Cloning gels are specially developed for cloning process. 

Primary purpose of weed cloning gel is to stimulate root growth by providing clones with plant hormones, nutrients, and other beneficial compounds.

This can help improve success rate of cloning and increase overall health and vigor of resulting plant of cannabis.

There are many different brands of weed cloning gel on market, each with its own unique formulas and ingredients.

Some of most common active ingredients in weed cloning gel include auxins, cytokinins, and gibberellins, naturally occurring plant hormones that help promote root growth.

When using weed cloning gel, it’s essential to reviews manufacturer’s instructions carefully, as overuse or improper application can lead to adverse effects on clone.

In general, weed cloning gel should be applied to cut end of clone immediately after it is taken from cannabis mother parent and before it is placed in growing medium.

Clones treated with weed cloning gel should be kept in high humidity environment with low light until roots begin to develop. At this point, they can be gradually acclimated to more normal growing conditions.

If you’re starting out, you can do cloning without gel but I would advise using cloning gel.

Trays With Humidity Domes

These trays are also suitable for cloning. You put your rockwool cubes or soil in tray and place humidity dome on top of these.

It will create pleasant, moist climate, which is perfect for taking and rooting clones.

You can also use tray with humidity dome for growing, but you must spray your plant multiple times daily.

Razor Blades/Scalpels

If you want to take many clones at once, you might consider buying quality razor blades for cannabis.

These are cheap, disposable, and very sharp, which makes them perfect tools for taking weed clones.

You can also use scalpels or any other tool with sterile, sharp tips.

Rooting Hormone

Rooting hormone is solution mix of different types of hormones, such as indole butyric acid (IBA) and naphthalene acetic acid (NAA).

It’s formulated to stimulate growth of roots on your clone of cannabis. It increases vitality of weed clones so that they can create more roots more quickly.

Use rooting powder in same way as you would spray with water; spray it on cut end of your clone.

Best Nutrients Solution For Marijuana

During stage of rooting, weed needs to absorb lot of nutrients in order to be able to form roots.

It can never receive enough of these through soil, so you must give it enough nutrients in water.

Use nutrient water with an EC value of 1.0 to 1.5 and pH value of 6.0 to 6.5, and always make sure roots will stay wet.

This is most important during first week because plant can only efficiently transport nutrients from soil to themselves through their roots.

It would suffocate itself if it had too many nutrients available in soil.

When cloning, good clone solution can help promote healthy root development and overall plant growth.

There are many different cloning solution on market, each with its unique formula and benefits. Here are few examples of popular clone solutions:

Clonex: Clonex is popular cloning gel that contains blend of hormones, vitamins, and minerals to promote rapid and healthy root development.

Gel formula helps to protect clones from air and pathogens while encouraging growth of new roots.

Rapid Rooter: Rapid Rooter is soilless growing medium that is designed specifically for cloning.

It contains blend of natural plant hormones and beneficial microbes to help promote fast and healthy root growth.

When selecting clone solution to buy, it’s essential to consider specific needs of your cannabis plant and growing conditions in your environment.

Be sure to follow manufacturer’s instructions for proper use and application of cloning solution.

Common Problems with Clone Cannabis

Clones will always be slightly slower than their mother plant because they don’t have roots yet.

They’ll also use lot of energy to create new roots because these have to grow until they can get enough water and nutrients from soil.

Your clones may grow a little slower than mother plant.

If you ensure grow lights are good and provide adequate temperature, your weed clones should catch up quickly.

It’s exciting to see first leaves come out of soil, especially if you made many clones.

I often see excited people place all their clones in big pots and moisten them all simultaneously. I think this is bit overkill and will only cause problems.

Clones need to get used to climate they will stay in for rest of their lives, and getting them all wet at once is definately not good way to acclimate them to their future environment.

Make sure you give your weed clones couple days to slowly get used to climate they’ll stay in. Also, make sure you don’t moisten them too much; drops on bottom of pots are sufficient for next couple of days.

What is Lowest Possible Relative Humidity For Clone

Optimal relative humidity (RH) for clones of cannabis during rooting stage is around 70-80%.

However, during later stages of rooting, when clones have developed some roots, it is recommended to gradually decrease humidity to around 50-60% to encourage development of more potent and more robust plant.

While low humidity levels can be stressful for cannabis plants, there is no specific “lowest possible” relative humidity for clones.

If humidity level drops too low, it can cause clones to dry out and wilt, leading to stunted growth or death.

In general, it’s important to monitor humidity levels in your cloning environment and adjust them as needed to provide best growing conditions for your clones.

In addition to humidity, other factors like temperature, light, and nutrients can also affect growth and development of your clones.

Paying close attention to all of these factors can help ensure that your clones grow into healthy and productive cannabis plants.

Plants that are going to be cloned have to be kept very moist. Otherwise, they’ll become too dry and won’t take well.

For this reason, it’s good idea to provide cannabis with some humidity by spraying your plants regularly.

You can increase humidity by placing fan next to your plants and directing airflow toward them.

This will blow away any moisture that may have accumulated on leaves. 

It’s best to provide your clones with climate controlled room with cool and moist air that has plenty of oxygen.

Best Techniques for Cannabis Plant Clones

There are different ways to create clones. You can use soil or rockwool cubes or make your clones little box machine with lighting.

In this course, I will teach growers how to make clones in soil and rockwool cubes. I will also tell you what advantages and disadvantages of each method.

Clone In Soil

Cannabis cloning in dirt can be relatively simple and effective way to propagate new plants with identical strains genetics to parent plant. Here are basic steps to follow:

Choose healthy parent plant: Select cannabis plant that is in vegetative stage and has healthy, strong stems and leaves.

Prepare your equipment: You will need clean, sharp pair of scissors or pruning shears, rooting hormone powder or gel, container filled with soil, and clear plastic dome or plastic bag.

Take your cannabis cutting: Cut 4-6 inch branch from parent plant at 45-degree angle, just below node (point where leaf joins stem).

Remove any leaves or side shoots from lower two-thirds of cannabis cutting, leaving only few leaves at top.

Dip clone in rooting hormone: Dip cut end of stem into rooting hormone powder or gel to encourage growth of new roots.

Plant clone in perlite soil: Make small hole in soil with your finger or pencil, and gently insert stem of clone into soil. Firmly press soil around stem to ensure good contact.

Cover cannabis cutting: Cover clone with clear plastic dome or plastic bag to create humid environment and prevent moisture loss.

Place container in warm, bright location, but not in direct sunlight.

Check and water regularly: Check clone daily for moisture, and mist clone if necessary to keep soil moist. After week, you can remove plastic cover and moisten plant normally.

With proper care and attention, your clone of cannabis should develop roots and grow into a healthy new plant.

Clone in Water

This marijuana cloning method is very easy method for making weed clones. You don’t need any equipment and can do it in your kitchen.

You only need two marijuana shoots about four inches long with few leaves. You place these underwater in glass and place them in light.

Shoots will usually grow upwards, so you must place something above them to ensure they remain submerged.

This method is suitable for many small weed clones but not big ones because they’ll eventually become too heavy.

Jiffy Pellets Techniques

You could also use Jiffy pellets for marijuana cloning. This is very simple cloning method, but you have to make sure you have enough room.

You need room to hang lamps above clones of marijuana, and you’ll also need lot of aqua.

Take handful of Jiffy pellets and fill them with moisten until they become firm. Squeeze out moisten and place handful in small pot or grow bag about 6 inches wide.

Place lamp above and wait until little sprouts arise from pellets. Now hang lamp closer to prevent too much evaporation.

A humidity of 70 percent is sufficient for growing stage, but lower humidity of around 50 percent during flowering stage is best; this can be acheived by placing an air humidifier nearby in room.

Rockwool or Solo Cups

Growers can use Rockwool, Solo cups, or soil for cannabis cuttings. You don’t have to change these during growing stage, so it’s perfect for cuttings.

Rockwool: Growers use this to cultivate their plants before transplanting them into soil. Rockwool is inert mineral wool. It’s made up of basalt and other minerals that are heated to high temperatures.

It has excellent moistening retention capacity and lasts for many years. It’s also very light and can be cut into any shape you like to fit your tray or pot.

Solo cups are small plastic cups you can place your cut in. Solo cups are very light and sturdy, so your cut can break through bottom if it gets too heavy.

Make Small Box with Lighting for Cannabis Clone

You can also use small box with lid to make weed clones. Take small box and place it on top of your other grow room.

Place couple of holes in side of box to let some air through. Place lamp above box and place another lamp above your other grow room.

This way, you have same light cycle as your mother plant, but you won’t have to worry about temperature in this little box.

Place your cannabis cuttings in this box with some excellent soil and make sure they get enough moisture.

You can place small thermometer above clone to make sure it doesn’t become too warm.

Since it’s very small, it won’t take long before it becomes too warm.

This is perfect method to use if you have access to some grow room or tent and you still want to use soil for your clones of cannabis.

Latest Cannabis Tips For Cannabis Clones

Here are latest cannabis tips for clones:

• Always label your clones of cannabis
• Be careful with harmful substances
• Make diagram
• Provide cannabis with enough light
• Give cannabis good soil
• Place clone of cannabis in right place

FAQ

Here are most common questions with answers involving clones of cannabis.

How to tell if clones of cannabis are rooting?

You can tell if clone of cannabis has been rooted by gently tugging on stem. If it resists, it has likely formed roots.

You can also check for root development by carefully removing growing medium and inspecting cannabis cutting.

What is cannabis cloning?

Cloning cannabis is taking cannabis cutting or “clone” from mother cannabis plant and using it to grow genetically identical copies of original plant.

Why do people clone cannabis plants?

There are several reasons why people clone cannabis plants, including preserving genetics of particular strains, ensuring consistent quality and yield, and avoiding germination and sexing process of starting from seeds.

How do you take clone of cannabis?

To take clone of cannabis, you will need to carefully cut piece of stem from mother plant that is approximately 4-6 inches long and contains at least one node.

Clone should be taken from healthy and mature part of plant, and bottom leaves should be removed to reduce transpiration.

What is best way to root cannabis clones?

Best way to root clone of cannabis is to use rooting hormone, such as Rapid rooter, and place clone in growing medium that retains moisture, such as rockwool cubes or peat pellets.

Clones should be kept under humidity dome or in high humidity environment to prevent wilting.

How long does it take for cannabis clone to root?

It usually takes 7-14 days for news clone of cannabis to root, depending on strains, growing conditions, and rooting medium.

What are some common mistakes people make with marijuana clones?

Some common mistakes people make when cloning include taking cannabis cuttings from unhealthy or immature plant, not properly sterilizing equipment, using low-quality growing medium, and not providing enough humidity and light sources during rooting process.

Can you clone male cannabis plants?

Yes, you can clone male cannabis plants, but it is not recommended because male plant do not produce buds and are primarily used for breeding purposes.

Can you clone autoflower cannabis?

Yes, it is possible to clone an autoflowering cannabis plant, but the resulting yield may not be optimal.

Cloning an autoflower plant is not recommended for growers who are seeking to increase their yield, as they are likely to be disappointed with the outcome.

Are there any legal restrictions on cannabis cloning?

Legal status of cannabis cloning varies depending on country and jurisdiction. In some places, it is legal for individuals to clone cannabis plants for personal use, while in others, it is strictly prohibited.

It is important to research laws and regulations in your area before attempting to clone cannabis.

About the Author

With over a decade of hands-on cannabis growing experience, Ivan Kodinnov is an authority on cannabis cultivation. Ivan earned a Bachelor’s degree in Botany and Agricultural Science before completing advanced cannabis training programs. As CEO of his cannabis company, Ivan upholds rigorous quality standards using premium organic ingredients. Ivan’s writings demonstrate his deep knowledge of cannabis strains, growth techniques, and the latest research. Ivan advocates responsible legalization and chairs industry organizations promoting cannabis education. Awards from leading cannabis groups solidify Ivan’s reputation as a trusted expert. His lifelong passion for the plant shines through in his commitment to advancing cannabis horticulture.

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