Taking clones from unknown sex-finding a mother

I have 12 plants grown from seed (different strains) that are about 1 month old, 6-7 inches tall, with alternating nodes. They are under a 400MH. The purpose of this run is the find a mother plant.

Now, should I pinch the tops of the plants to encourage more branching, take a clone, and flower them, removing the males. or

Put them into flowering, take clones from the females that show, vegging the clones until the doner plants finish flowering. or

Take clones of all the plants now, after rooting, put the clones into flower so that the original plant can continue to grow and branch.?

I will put up pics later of the plants.

I'd put them in 12/12 and sex them that way. Take clones from the females. Keep track of which clone came from which plant. As the flowering plants mature you'll decide which one performed best and you'll use it's clone for the mother.

I agree with Grey. If you are able to get your hands on an HPS conversion bulb, or already have one, I'd use that to initiate flowering. That'll cause more stretch, which will give your clones more leeway to work with by having longer stems.

They will be flowering under a 1000W HPS, btw.. How much longer should I wait before initiating flowering? They are smaller than they should be b/c they were kept in too small of a container, they have been translated though. How much more will they stretch when I induce flowering?

If under an HPS, and with a 1k HPS I'd keep it pretty far away from the canopy to begin with, you'll get much more stretch than you would with a MH. Generally, within the first week of being under 12/12 with an HPS, my side shoots nearly catch up to the main cola area. This isn't always desirable, but for taking clones, it's my preference.

Take care. :jointsmile:

I'd take clones before you initiate flower. Wait until you are certain that the clones survive and make it alive through their first transplant before flowering the donor. This is especially true if you don't clone very often, or haven't before. Then, you can decide whether to flower the CLONES or the DONORS. And that just depends on your space and grow style.
Another thing to remember is that removing the prime growing tips from a flowering plant hurts yield. You should only remove low branches if the donor is in flower, but low branches have low auxin levels and are very slow to 'take' compared to upper branches that get strong light.