chabnoc I just had a cloning question answered in the basic forum and I'll try to respond to your issue...

If you take a clone before you know the sex you really have no way of knowing the sex of the clone....that one is pretty obvious right?

I think people are basically saying if you have a set of plants just get clones of them all and when you find out the best...or the top few females just keep those clones...

I am interested in clones for tons of reasons...the clone is full maturity essentially eliminating the seedling stage...from what I was told clones are a bit hardier and easier to deal with as well...

I think it makes the most sense to get a good mother....take the clones of her and grow them all under the same light in one res...this way they should all grow at the same speed and want the same nutes all the way through the grow...they should also give you about the same yield so you can make a decent estimate...from seed it's the first time your dealin with that plant so you really don't know what it's gonna do...

I'd say it depends on your grow setup...if you have more room or whatever you could have a mother produce clones for one light/res setup and another mother produce clones for another light/res setup...this way you can tweak the grow for each strain...I might be talking out my ass as I've never actually done this but I'm confident the logic is sound so that's my recommendation

Hope you aren't turned away from clones cause they seem to be the better way to go once you get a good mother...