Growing from seed vs cloning
Should you choose to grow weed, for each new plant, you will have two options. You can either grow it from seed or clone the parent.
It doesn’t matter if you’re using the cheapest cannabis seeds in Australia, or the most expensive. Growing from the seed can have many benefits but just as many flaws.
- How to grow from seed
If you choose to grow from the seed, you’ll need the plant to start it’s life on some damp kitchen paper. As soon as he/she starts to develop a tiny root and shoot, you can transfer it into a small pot. In these early stages, it’s essential to make sure it’s getting enough (but not too much) water.
The soil you put it into should have at least enough nutrients to get the shoot out of the soil.
When it gets too big for its little pot, you need to move it a larger one.
- How to clone
Cloning works slightly differently.
First, you’ll need to take off a small trimming from one of your fully grown plants. Afterwards, you’ll need to dip the end of it in rooting hormone. After that, the process is similar to the one for growing from seed.
When the roots (which are a beautiful white in Cannabis) have occupied most of the soil, it’s time to upsize to a bigger pot. You may need to upsize the pot three or four times before they’ve become a grown-up.
Just like with growing from seed, you will need to ensure the conditions are what this particular strain needs to thrive.
- Benefits of seeds
If you wish to create a new strain, this is not going to be possible if you’ll just be cloning. I’m not saying that every new strain is going to be exactly how you want it to be, it may take some trial and error. Still, when you grow from seeds, your chances of being able to grow a new plant that does an even better job than its parents are going to be much higher.
Also, growing from seeds will usually give you a higher yield. Therefore, cloning might not be the best option if you plan on selling it.
- Benefits of cloning
None of that is to say that cloning is always going to be a bad idea. As you likely know, the only Cannabis plants you can smoke are the females.
However, should you mix the boys and girls, the potency of the girls goes down. Therefore, it can be wise to have a whole garden full of girls. And the only way you can ensure your weed farm is a male free zone is to not use seeds and just clone.
Perhaps you could have a small room where men are allowed for reproduction, but leave the fields as a ladies space!
- Does it matter?
Yes!
Which option is going to be best for you will depend on your goal. If you just plan on growing it for yourself, you can clone. But if you plan on selling it, it could be worth using seeds. And knowing the pros and cons of each option will enable you to figure out when you should grow from the seed and when you should be cloning.
No matter what your end goal is, the ultimate goal should be to grow something that gets people blazed!
- Conclusion
It’s not just Cannabis that you might need to make this decision for. It can apply to more or less any plant.
Nature intended for all plants to be grown from the seed.
But humans being humans, we have been able to tweak mother nature to allow us a small yield even when no seeds are available.