Hydrolife Magazine October/November 2016 (USA Edition)

ask kyle
Q
I am just starting my own project and have heard
different pros and cons for seeds and clones.
Which one do you think I should start with?
a
The choice to use seeds
or clones to start your
cultivation project isn’t about
which is better…or is it? The
truth of the matter is that you
can’t have one without the
other. Clones are made by taking a shoot
or cutting from a plant and using rooting
hormone and specially prepared media
to encourage the growth of roots, thereby
creating an exact genetic copy of the
plant it was taken from. A seed is not an
exact genetic copy of anything. It is the
progeny of male pollen contacting female
flowers and voila … sexy plant love
makes a baby! That baby or seed will
have some of the characteristics of the
mother and some from the father. These
seeds can be either male or female.
So why would one decide to use seeds
or clones if they had the choice to do
either? I grew my first eight years from
seed only. Granted, this was 1987 to 1996
and there wasn’t really any place to buy
clones or seeds. So after being given the
most amazing Northern Light #5 x hash
plant seeds I began to breed my own.
Necessity forced this upon me as I had
nowhere to turn after my bag of seeds
ran out. This required choosing a male
which would be allowed to pollinate the
female or females in the room. Selectively
choosing specific females for breeding
is usually the best option. It’s better
to pollinate one or two plants since you
can get hundreds, even thousands of
seeds from just one. Seeded marijuana
hasn’t been saleable since the 80s.
I would isolate my male somewhere
before it starts to throw pollen. When my
selected female(s) have reached midflowering
I would introduce the girls
to the boy, install a fan and let nature
take its course. As I became a little more
knowledgeable I realized you could
collect the pollen from the male and
apply it more precisely to the flowers
using a Q-Tip.
Keep the female plant away from
the rest for 24 hours. This allows time
for the baby-making. Then spray the
entire plant surface including the pot
and media with clean water. Water
renders the excess pollen inactive
so you can return them to the garden
without seeding your entire crop.
When you plant these seeds they will
grow a plant which is unique. Each
seed can have dramatic variations,
or can be quite similar. Successive
generations of breeding with the
same female and/or male can produce
stability over a seed line.
Cloning is a whole different story.
It ensures that every plant you plant
will be female and also be relatively
similar if not identical in growth characteristics
and the finished product it
will produce. This is the way to go for
most new cultivators.
Cloning helps minimize the amount
of resources you’ll have to invest.
Simply purchase the number of
clones you need, take them home
and transplant. Because they’re
already rooted plants and ready to
grow, for the novice it can be a little
easier to get them thriving.
With clones you may never have
to worry about males, pollination
or wondering if the seeds will pop.
But there are drawbacks. Seeds
grow stronger plants which are
more resistant to disease, pests and
negative stress in general.
Clones from over-hybridized
strains will sometimes get weary
over time and being cloned over
and over. Some people refer to this
as genetic drift. I believe it to be
symptomatic of cutting clones from
less than optimal mother plants.
I suggest doing a little research online.
There are several comprehensive
online strain databases which
can be found with a simple search.
They provide details on hundreds of
popular strains. Things like flowering
time, potency, even a description of
some of the reported benefits attributed
to each strain. Making your own clones
is easy, as well. You just need a mother
or donor plant that you can take cuttings
from. A cutting is usually taken
from the upper, more vigorous part of
the plant. I like to take cuttings that are
around five inches long. When they’re
cleaned up and ready to dip in rooting
hormone they’re around four inches.
Only take strong, healthy cuttings
that won’t be likely to wilt shortly
after you stick them.
Kyle
Photo by Kyle Kushman
Kyle Kushman is an internationally renowned marijuana
cultivator whose collaborations have earned 13 Medical Cannabis
Cup awards, including three US Cannabis Cups for Best Flowers. As
the creator of Vegamatrix, the only line of vegan and organic nutrients
designed for growing cannabis, Kyle continues to make advances for
people who want to cultivate the purest, cleanest medicine possible.
Do you have a
question for Kyle?
Email editor@myhydrolife.com
to get an answer.
18
grow. heal. live. enjoy.
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