Cuttings are fragments taken from plants that are capable of rooting and replicating the original plant, which is why they’re taken from branches rather than leaves. A cutting is a clone of what’s known as a mother plant. This means that they’ll grow to be genetically identical to the plant they’re taken from with the exact same characteristics. Taking cuttings is a relatively easy task, but you’ll need to know how to do it correctly in order to make sure that your cannabis clones root properly. In this post we're going to talk about how to clone cannabis plants.

How to Clone Cannabis Plants

Cloning cannabis plants is generally a simple, easy task, but you’ll need to be meticulous, organized and clean in order to do it correctly. The following video is a summary of the process, followed by a detailed step by step explanation on how to clone cannabis plants so you can successfully take your own cannabis cuttings in order to grow clones.

Within the various types of strains that can be found on the market, it’s important to differentiate between feminized photoperiodic cannabis seeds and autoflowering seeds, as this affects their life cycle as well as their general needs.

Photoperiodic Seeds and Autoflowering Seeds

Cannabis plants need a decent amount of light to grow and flower correctly regardless of the type of seed. There are feminized and autoflowering seeds, both of which need light to grow properly, although there are two main differences:

Feminized strains grow and flower depending on the amount of light received. Autoflowering strains grow and flower regardless of the light periods. Photo-Periodic Cannabis Seeds

Photo-periodic cannabis plants can be either feminized or regular, although the most common type is feminized.

pH indicates the acidity or alkalinity of a liquid. The pH of a liquid is determined by the concentration of positive hydrogen atoms (H+). The pH value is the hydrogen potential of a given solution, which is expressed with the following formula: pH = -log[aH+], and it’s measured in a scale of 14 points.

0 – 7 are acidic levels. 7 – 14 are alkaline levels. 7 is neutral.

Cannabis plants absorb nutrients from the soil or substrate they’re in. Each nutrient has a determined pH value through which it is best absorbed. If we establish an average between all of the optimal pH levels of each nutrient, you’ll be able to know what the best pH is for your plants. This level isn’t going to be the same for all substrates, fertilizers or nutrients. There are certain factors to take into account when measuring and establishing the right pH level.

Your plants’ substrate can influence the pH value. Each substrate has its own ideal pH level for nutrient absorption. Each substrate also varies in as far as its capacity to maintain a stable pH. The type of nutrients used will also affect this process. Bio and natural products have a much wider range in which they can be absorbed. However, mineral products have a more exact level that must be stuck to and they don’t do well with pH fluctuations. Lastly, the state in which your plant is in should also be taken into account. During their life cycle, cannabis plants need macro and micro-elements in different quantities. For example, during the growth stage they need more nitrogen (N) than potassium (K) and phosphorus (P), and vice versa during the bloom stage. This means that, logically, the pH levels for each stage vary.

How to Measure pH In Cannabis

If you grow cannabis then you definitely know that it’s common to find leftover small buds or other trimmings around such as bits of leaf covered in bud trichomes, buds in the end of forgotten stashes, or maybe even full buds that you just didn’t quite like enough to smoke.

What to Do with Leftover Cannabis Trimmings

Making the most of your weed essentially involves extracting their active components for various different uses. When you have delicious buds on your hands it can be harder to extract their properties due to their quality, but if you have leftover trimmings, small buds and stems on hand you can either use them up or throw them out. Your harvesting leftovers are as essential as your yield!

Some growers smoke their flowers, others vaporize them, some never use tobacco, others like to make various types of concentrates etc. The reality when it comes to leftover trimmings is different: they're not high quality buds. They don't usually contain the same amount of trichomes, same size in flowers and sometimes they lack aroma and flavour, or they're simply leaves close to the buds that you've accumulated while trimming.

There are many reasons for training your cannabis plants, and we’re going to go over the main benefits that can be obtained by using these various techniques.

Why Train Cannabis Plants?

It can stop branches from bending or breaking under the weight of buds.

Outdoors it reduces branch breakage under strong winds. Increases final yield and quality of your buds. When trained, your plant won’t use any energy strengthening its branches to hold the buds, which means that it can increase yield easily. It’s also quite an affordable process, and most of the materials used when training cannabis plants, except for plant wiring and raffia, can be reused. It’s definitely worth trying – it doesn’t cost much and it’s definitely worth the results; higher yields and higher quality flowers.

There are strains that produce especially large flowers such as Gorilla Candy and Amnesia which, although they’re quite sturdy, if it gets too windy during the last stage of flowering, they may end up breaking if you haven’t trained them or staked them.