The world of cannabis growing is a fun yet complex one. While the cannabis plant has been popular for centuries, the germinating, growing, and harvesting process has transformed quite a bit in recent years. With these newer growing techniques, we’ve also seen the emergence of cannabis clones.
Cannabis clones may or may not be something that’s in your cannabis vocabulary, and that’s alright. We’re here to talk all about cannabis clones, what they are, and why they’re exploding in popularity right now.
A Simplified Explanation
Cannabis clones are, essentially, parts and pieces of a cannabis plant that has been cut off and planted to regrow. This regrowth is considered a clone of the original plant, thus, you get your term “cannabis clone.” Genetically, these re-planted cannabis components are identical to the ones that were grown previously, seemingly creating a perfect recipe for mass cannabis growth.
Instead of going through the process of planting seeds for germination that may or may not end up female, cloning ensures a potent, productive growth. (As long as you grow it correctly, of course.) However, achieving these cannabis clones isn’t always as easy as it may seem.
When cloning cannabis, the grower must be extremely careful as to where you’re getting your plant material from. You don’t want to clone plant matter from just any ol’ cannabis plant. The plant should be coming from a robust, healthy cannabis plant that’s shown signs of strength and durability over other plants. After all, a weak mother plant simply won’t reproduce into anything substantial.
If you’ve found the right plant and the materials are grown in the right environment and under the right atmospheric conditions, cannabis clones can be key to making your growing experience that much easier.
Ways to Clone Cannabis
There are a few different ways that growers choose to clone cannabis. One method is not better than another; they simply depend on what’s easiest and most accessible for you.
The most straightforward--and popular--method of cannabis cloning is known as the water method. This method requires commercial growers to take the stalks of their cannabis plant and submerge them in water. To do this, all you need is some water, plant food, and a little bit of indirect sunlight, and you’ll start to see some growth.
You can also choose to do a more traditional soil method. As you can probably guess, this method requires you to plant the stalks directly in soil with just a little bit of water. After about two weeks, you should start to see some growth from your stalks. Make sure you don’t bury them too deep in the soil.
Finally, you may also see growers utilize a non-soil method, where the medium used to plant the stalks is something like Rockwool cubes or gravel.
Why Clones?
Commercial cannabis growers turn to clones for various reasons, stretching much further than just for ease.
Sometimes, a grower will experience that “miracle” batch. There’s always that batch of cannabis that’s better than the rest, with flavors and potencies that you can’t get enough of. During these circumstances, typically, all you want is to directly replicate your grow. With cannabis cloning, you can.
Higher Potencies: If you know that a plant you’re growing consistently produces a large yield, high THC content, or specific terpenes, cloning is a wonderful way to preserve that plant’s benefits. It allows you to enjoy your favorite strain over and over again, each time acting just as perfectly as it did the first time around.
Basically, you’re getting everything you want out of your plant, and nothing you don’t.
That’s a nearly impossible proposition from any other type of grow method.
Money Saver: Of course, a process like this will also save growers some serious money. You never want to run the risk of spending time, money, and effort on a seed that’s just going to produce male plants. With cloning, however, you know that if you take from a feminized plant, you’ll grow a feminized plant, too.
Not to mention, you’re able to save the money you would normally use to purchase seeds. During a time where cannabis is so sought after, and with so many seed bank companies offering subpar products, this can be a great way to ensure quality, batch after batch.
Along with saving money, using cannabis clones saves a lot of time, as well. The cannabis growing cycle can take several weeks, sometimes even several months, to complete, and not everyone has that kind of time. By using cannabis clones, however, you’re completely cutting out the germination process, which takes weeks in and of itself.
Shorter Growing Times: The time it takes to grow cannabis from a cannabis clone is significantly shorter than from any seed. If you’re someone who is planning on growing several batches, cloning is ideal for getting more yields. Instead of waiting all year for your batch to grow, you can accomplish several growing cycles in a much shorter period of time, thanks to these unoriginal plant pieces.
Clone Popularity
Within recent years, cannabis clones have absolutely exploded in popularity. And for good reason! As you can see, they offer huge benefits that the average cannabis seed simply cannot. For commercial cannabis grow operations, this has been absolutely transformative.
Huge cannabis grow companies are finding that cannabis clones may be key to producing the large, potent yields of flower that the industry needs. These brands are now able to perfect just a few strains and then continually clone them to ensure a high-quality, consistent product line. Because of this, it isn’t uncommon for a dispensary or grow operation to talk about their cannabis clones: they’re simply referring to the identical genetic offshoots of their already-perfect strains.
The Future of Cannabis Clones
As this industry continues to flourish, we’re likely to only see more and more commercial growers utilize these cloning practices. With this, the market will gain access to some of the highest-quality, most niche cannabis strains we’ve seen yet. Cannabis cloning is yet another advancement in the plant’s history that’s making it more accessible to people all around the world.
All in all, this method is changing the way it means to grow cannabis entirely.