Taking cuttings from columnar plants...

[Elevator Man]

I have two beautiful DP Flo females growing, now at the 10-week stage (since germination) and about 14" tall. They are two distinct phenos, one of which is turning extremely purple, almost 'aubergine' in color, and I think it will ultimately show a short-ish classic sativa profile, although it's still a bit 'wrinkly' right now.
The other is a more green, and more vigorous plant with indica-shaped leaves, that resembles a classic afghani, though currently with 9-blade leaves (I think this will maybe increase, unlike all my indicas, which never go higher than 7), and a much more purple tint than the usual burgundy / magenta on the leaf stems. It is just one straight stalk at the moment, with very short internodes.

The problem is I urgently need to make cuttings from both the plants to grow out as mother candidates, and neither are producing branches fast enough. The purple one is better, but the green one refuses to grow a side-branch of more than one inch long, at any node, making it very tricky to get rootable cuttings. I've moved the plants from the fluoro room to the 600-watt room, re-potted them and I've topped the plants twice now to try and induce branching, and I reckon I can take some purple ones in a week or so. But the green one refuses to budge.
Whilst no doubt perfect for a SOG setup, how the hell do I get some decent clones from this plant? If I take them from the main stem won't they take forever to root?
The plan was to take maybe four cuttings from each plant, and then just flower what's left along with the next main crop to get a comparison and a smoke test.

Time is running out - I'm happy to hack the plant into four pieces, if it will survive, but has anyone had to do something this drastic? I've never had a plant so reluctant to branch, so what would one normally do in such circumstances? Columnar plants are great for SOG, but how do you get that many cuttings from a mother that doesn't want to branch?

I get my camera back in a day or so and can post pics if required.

 

[- ezra -]

well, you just need to take off the apex of the plant, with a few nodes on it. You should be able to get a few cuts fron this. Just cut this above each node and treat it as a normal cutting. Cant really explain it without a diagram, but I think you get what I am saying. Also if you top your plant it will surely branch out.

If you need cuttings to use just as mothers, you will only need one cut of each, so just take off the tips. hope this helps.

 

[Elevator Man]

Thanks for the advice. My only concern with taking the tips as cuttings is that they always take forever to root, whereas the base branches are relatively quick, due to the hormone distribution in the plant. Trouble is, the top branches are actually longer than the base ones right now, so I may have no choice!

Anyway, as promised, here are some pics of the two. The 'green' pheno does show a lot of purple highlights on the top few branches, although that fades as they move down the plant. Also all new shoots are pure green, as are calyxes. The pistils and calyxes are very large on this pheno, and the indica leaf shape is more apparent.

The 'purple' one is very heavily accented, as can be seen by the close-ups of the top leaves - the underside of these leaves is purple/brown, and the overall stem color is an aubergine purple. This plant isn't as pretty or uniform in shape, and the calyxes on this one are very small, but already turning purple, so I think it could be very attractive. The leaf shape is more unique on this one, being more of a 'droopy sativa', if that makes any sense.

How they smoke though is crucial, so I'll post some info as I get to test it - assuming I DO get some cuttings eventually!

 

[- ezra -]

nice looking plants mate. Good luck with your grow. Are you documenting your flo Grow in a thread at all?

 

[Elevator Man]

I haven't yet, but only as I'm not really ready - I have some G13, Jack Herer and NL X BB queued up ready to go in a week, so they take precedence.

I'm planning to get the Flo going at the end of the summer - it gets too hot in my room to do a full 1200W grow between June and September, so I plan to get this one done by June, and then spend the summer growing out a lot of seeds for my first breeding project:

I have one female of unknown origin that's been going round my locality for years - it's an indica undoubtedly, but has many sativa features - stretchy in early flower, long-fingered leaves, and a very cerebral high. However it also has many good indica traits - solid, heavy buds with good mold resistance, very fast flowering (49-56 days), and can take all sorts of punishment. It also clones vigourously, mothers are hardy, and to top it all, it smells and tastes incredible. Only problem is, I have no idea what it is!

It's old-school - I know for a fact it arrived here around 92-93, and has never been crossed or altered in any way. I finally got clones from the original a couple of years ago, and it's the best strain I have by far. Given it's age, it has to be one of the original Sensi or SSSC strains, or similar. I grew it out next to the NL X BB last crop, and they were similar in growth until flowering - the NL X BB stayed kind of 'round-ish' and spread out, whilst this one did it's trademark 'standing on it's toes' appearance.

It smells similar to NL, but has a more perfumed, fragrant top note compared to the more earthy smell of the NL. Maybe it was just a rogue NL or Skunk # 1 that was better than all the others. It's NOT Cheese. It does have a 'local' nickname, but I'll leave that out, as it could start a bunfight somewhere, someday...

Anyway, I only have a female, so the plan is to grow out a few packs of Seedsman Original Haze and Malawi Gold seeds, find the best male and female from each strain (in this case I'll be looking primarily for shortness!), and then pollinate each other (just for fun), and also separate clones of the mystery female.

Given I have no idea of the lineage, I'm hoping that the F1s will be very uniform, which should at least let me know it's from a stable line originally. Then I'll grow out a few F1s to smoke, to see if there's any direct improvement. Then if it shows promise over the original, I'll take it further, and maybe backcross to the short OH and MG males again, or to some females, if I can get short enough ones for indoors!

I really would like to get this strain at last partially identified, so again, I can post some pics and see if anyone can guess it!