50 seeds, 25 males -> Sexing Clones

[TychoMonolyth]

This coming season I have 50 regular seeds I want to plant. I could go hog wild and sow 200 and come out with 100 females, but resources are always at a premium. I do multiple runs, but if I can be a little more efficient, I can get more done with less work.

I plant to take clones as soon as they're healthy enough and flower the clones in another room. Once I identify the males, I can ditch them and keep the females and put them with the rest. I think they should reveg. I know there's a recovery time, but that's a small price to pay for extra plants.

I've never played with clones, so I'm doing a sanity check now before I jump in.

1. Is there a better way to do this?

2. How lone should I let me clones grow before I flip them?

3. Are 2" rockwool cubes good enough for my purposes?

Thanks.

 

[Douglas.Curtis]

Set up an area where you can put multiple pans/buckets in a 12/12 lighted room. Mark all of your seedling containers clearly.

Cut pieces of styrofoam from an egg carton or similar. Poke a hole in the foam, label it with the name of the seedling with a sharpie marker. Cut 5-6" off the top of your seedling, remove the leaves from the lowest 2" and poke it through the hole. Repeat with all your seedlings.

Change the water every 2 days, and in about 2 weeks you should see sex and roots.

This should give you a clone and sex at the same time. Any cuttings which do not root can have another cutting taken at the 2 week mark. There should be enough plant material for another cutting.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

Great. Thanks DC. That'll work for me.

 

[Mr. Smoke]

What strain you starting TychoMonolyth?

 

[Hookahhead]

Hey there friend, I read the other day that you've never run clones. I was shocked to hear that because you certainly run some impressive numbers!

There are many suitable media for starting clones. Rockwool, perlite, coco (my preference), soil, peat will all work. Something that holds moisture but not too soggy. Temperature and humidity are more important than medium in my opinion. I've had good luck taking very small cuttings, but a nice 4-6 inch piece of side branch always works nice for me.
Are you familiar with megacropping? You can read up more on it but the basics is that you take a cutting from a plant that is 3-6 weeks into flower. When you reveg the clone it grows out a little funky at first. However, after that it starts shooting branches everywhere! Budsites have short internode length, so you get a lot of branches packed into a small area. At this point you can grow it out as a nice bushy plant, or take more "typical" clones if you want. Since you're flipping them anyway to determine the sex, my suggestion is you let them build up at least a small bud before revegging. This will set you back 1-3 weeks, so plan accordingly. I have had great success with megacropping, and think it would help you in your project. I attached a picture of a bud I recently cloned from a plant that was 3 weeks into flower. There is a bit of funny growth (single blade leaves, twisted and curled leaves), but after a week or 2 it resumes completely normal growth with lots of branching.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

What strain you starting TychoMonolyth?

At this time of year I'm like a dog trying to decide wich squirel to catch. It' quite painful choosing which ones I want.

On my list so far
- 100 Swazi Gold Reg. (very late crop. I'm rolling the dice on this one)
- 100 NL Autos.
- 50 LSD-25 Auto.

I'm looking for another 400 or so. Something people don't normally grow because of the lower yields but with good knockdown. I saw Burmese go for $2400/lb. Wholesale. And that's with everything else going for 800-1000.

Hey there friend, I read the other day that you've never run clones. I was shocked to hear that because you certainly run some impressive numbers!

There are many suitable media for starting clones. Rockwool, perlite, coco (my preference), soil, peat will all work. Something that holds moisture but not too soggy. Temperature and humidity are more important than medium in my opinion. I've had good luck taking very small cuttings, but a nice 4-6 inch piece of side branch always works nice for me.
Are you familiar with megacropping? You can read up more on it but the basics is that you take a cutting from a plant that is 3-6 weeks into flower. When you reveg the clone it grows out a little funky at first. However, after that it starts shooting branches everywhere! Budsites have short internode length, so you get a lot of branches packed into a small area. At this point you can grow it out as a nice bushy plant, or take more "typical" clones if you want. Since you're flipping them anyway to determine the sex, my suggestion is you let them build up at least a small bud before revegging. This will set you back 1-3 weeks, so plan accordingly. I have had great success with megacropping, and think it would help you in your project. I attached a picture of a bud I recently cloned from a plant that was 3 weeks into flower. There is a bit of funny growth (single blade leaves, twisted and curled leaves), but after a week or 2 it resumes completely normal growth with lots of branching.

Everything is from seed because I enjoy looking for outliers. If I ever find one, I'll clone it to high heaven.

Haven't heard of that method. I'll have to try it. Sounds like a good way to get a lot of plants, and find the early phenos.

 

[Mr. Smoke]

Are you growing the Nirvana glue again? I'm wondering if it's worth growing in S,ONT. I got DNA Confidential Cheese started for outdoor.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

Are you growing the Nirvana glue again? I'm wondering if it's worth growing in S,ONT. I got DNA Confidential Cheese started for outdoor.

Southern Ontario? Fuck that's north California. Hell ya it'll do well there. It's probably the most potent I've grown in a long time. I'm between Ottawa and Montreal and we got nailed with all that humidity and heat during the summer and the Glue seemed to love it. Zero mold. I harvested and went back in late October for popcorn after a couple freezing nights and they were doing fine. Colorful as hell. They do well against frost. Even got some Fem pollen from this one via rodelization.

I might do more. I like changing it up. A nice Cheese would be interesting.

 

[CrushnYuba]

I wouldn't revege. It sometimes takes a lonnng time and sometimes they don't revert at all. They get unhealthy and die before it can happen.
I will only use oasis foam cubes now. Rockwool is outdated in my opinion. With oasis cubes, you don't really need domes because they seal around the stem perfectly. they seem to root faster with less issues. You can get them pre charged with nutrient. Can't really overwater them and always have the perfect air/water. they are Ph balanced. Rockwool doesn't have any of that.

I would take a cut of each and flip. Use the oasis that are 50 to a sheet. Storing 50 plants in a tray takes such little space. Don't reveg.

 

[Limeygreen]

Stick your cuttings for rooting and put them under 11/13 light wait for them to root and show sex, toss the clones you don't want and transplant to veg room.

 

[Dropped Cat]

I do the seed plant until 4-5 nodes, top it one time,
take the two new tops when two or three nodes each,
cuttings to tap water, flip the seed plant.

The cuttings usually root around the time the seed plants show sex.

Takes a few weeks, but I got time.

Micro style, low watts.