How to make marijuana cuttings

One of the most important aspects to obtain top quality buds is choosing the right cannabis variety to grow. An excellent option is to keep a mother plant from which to take the necessary amount of cuttings. Today, we have plenty of strains with very high yields, which ensures abundant harvests. We can also find cultivars with high content of wither THC or CBD, ideal to meet the demands of patients. Philosopher Seeds  breeds plants with unique and particular traits from which we're sure you'll find excellent keepers!

Equipment needed to make marijuana cuttings

Once we have our mother plant with the needed size to donate some clones, we can start taking cuttings from the tops of the branches. Our mother plant must be correctly fed with a nutrient with balanced NPK content, while a 12-18L container is recommended to keep it growing without restrictions.

Necessary materials to make cannabis cuttings:

• Rooting hormones (gel or powder). rooting hormones highly enhance root development. In this way, nutrient uptake is performed properly and the plant grows healthy and lush. Gel hormones are the most commonly used.
• Auxin-based root booster. These additives improve the development of the root ball. They're normally made from auxin-rich plant extracts.
• Scalpel. It must be very sharp and completely sterilized, since we need accurate and clean cuts. It should be disinfecte with alcohol after each use.
• Glass or container where we'll put the cuttings as we take them from the mother plant.
• Vitamin B-based  additive. Vitamin B works great to keep our cuttings in good shape while they root and start to grow. There are many additives of this type on the market.
• Small plastic propagator. It is essential to ensure the correct humidity level for the cuttings to root. We can use heated propagators with temperature control to root our clones faster. Still, this extra heat is not needed to successfully root cuttings.
• Growing medium. Our cuttings need a substrate for rooting. The most commonly used growing medium for rooting clones are rockwool cubes and peat moss pellets (jiffys), which can be found in different sizes. We can also make our our mix with peat moss, soil, coco coir, etc.
• Water sprayer. We need to spray our cuttings every day to ensure optimal humidity levels and to moisturize the plant tissues.
• Type of water. We should use soft water to root clones, otherwise too much sodium can compromise the rooting process.

How to make cannabis clones

Once we have chosen the donor mother plant we can start taking cuttings from it with our disinfected scalpel. We should cut off the tops of the branches leaving at least three nodes on each cutting. We can leave our clones in the glass as we take them to make the process easier. The cut must be precise and clean to avoid stressing the mother plant or the clones. Once we have all our clones in the glass, we can add some healing agent on the mother plant so it recovers faster and starts growing again and producing new clones as soon as possible.

Now we have to prepare our cuttings for the rooting process. First of all, we'll remove the lower node of the clone (which will be in contact with the medium) and apply a thin layer of rooting hormone on it. Our cuttings will surely root earlier if we can take larger cuttings and/or remove 2-3 nodes instead of only one. We plant the clone in our growing medium (jiffys in our case), which we have hydrated with auxin and vitamin rich additives at ph6, and proceed to cut the tips of the leaflets to avoid dehydration. Now we can put our clone inside the propagator so it can start rooting in its new environment.

We must keep the propagator under a 18/6 photoperiod and with constant temperature; as we have mentioned, we can use heating mats or heated propagators for this purpose, although we don't recommend them during the warmest months of the year (clones could rot). For this reason, many grow tents have an upper compartment for rooting clones, for they take advantage of the heat emitted by the bulb inside the lower compartment and thus root faster.

Take into account that the growing medium will get dried out pretty fast if heating mats/propagators are used, so we'll have to carefully check and moisturize the medium every 1-2 days. We hould also spray our clones every day to keep high humidity levels and moisturize our small plants, which can't get water from the roots as they would normally do. The propagator should also be aerated everyday to renew the air inside it. As days pass, we can gradually lower the humidity inside it, which should never fall below 70%. In about 7-15 days, our clones should be rooted and healthy (if the tips of the leaflets turn yellow few days after starting the process do not worry, it means the cutting is developing roots).

Once we observe the roots coming out from the grwing media it is time to transplant the clones so the the growth stage can begin. During this phase it is important to use some root booster on each watering to enhance the development of the root system and thus the overall growth of the plant.

We hope you'll try this technique, it is much easier than it may seem and it is an excellent way to enjot top grade buds harvest after harvest.

Happy growing!