When to clone

The first grow is in full effect. Everything seems to be going pretty well. Cloning is desired and wondering when this should happen. It has been four weeks and about three days since the seeds were planted and sex has yet to be determined. This is a smallish set up in a roughly 4x4 foot area that is about six feet tall. 400 mh conversion bulb and a 400w hps bulb waiting to be used for flowering.

When should the cloning begin and what is the most inexpensive way to do this ? I have the cloning gel and trays and stuff, I just don't yet have the lights or the container that is going to be used for this.

One other issue....the plants are looking great, but sometimes the leaves get all droopy certain times of the day, for example at night a few hours before the light goes off. In the morning they look fine, but the later on they sometimes get all droopy and sad looking, then they mysteriously perk up. Other than that, all systems go.

Thanks for your help. I will post pictures of this rookie garden soon.

you can clone whenever you want basically. all you need is decent enough growth shoots to take off the plant. all you need for your container is like a $5 seedling tray + dome that u can get at any garden store. as for the lights...you don't really need any initially (clones do best with just a small amount of light for the first few days, to root the fastest). Once they're rooted, you can just grow them under some CFLs or whatever. doesn't really matter.


as for the drooping- i had this with my first plants. they would droop shortly before the lights went off. the only explanation i got was that the plants sleep...basically they were droopy cause they were takin a nap. sounds crazy, but nothing bad ever came of their drooping so i wouldn't worry about it.

lookin forward to pics.

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Originally Posted by timmywilson

The first grow is in full effect. Everything seems to be going pretty well. Cloning is desired and wondering when this should happen. It has been four weeks and about three days since the seeds were planted and sex has yet to be determined. This is a smallish set up in a roughly 4x4 foot area that is about six feet tall. 400 mh conversion bulb and a 400w hps bulb waiting to be used for flowering.

When should the cloning begin and what is the most inexpensive way to do this ? I have the cloning gel and trays and stuff, I just don't yet have the lights or the container that is going to be used for this.

One other issue....the plants are looking great, but sometimes the leaves get all droopy certain times of the day, for example at night a few hours before the light goes off. In the morning they look fine, but the later on they sometimes get all droopy and sad looking, then they mysteriously perk up. Other than that, all systems go.

Thanks for your help. I will post pictures of this rookie garden soon.

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It's best to take only a few clones from each plant else you risk the chance of stressing the plant. Stressing a young plant can cause it to turn male or at least hermie on you.

It's best to try to take your cuttings early in the veg cycle. This will give them time to recover during veg and not affect the yield in flower.

It you cut to much then you will setback your plants growth cycle as well as it spends energy on recovery and not producing new growth or buds.

Thanks for the advice Zandor. The plants are about 35 days from the time they were seeds. Is that too late ?