Just a friendly reminder😊 Now is a good time to take clones for next year. For those growing in the northern hemisphere anyway.
As CurrDogg420 pointed out, most of our plants start flowering about now. We Start seeing the first rows of pistols. It’s a good time to take clones if you haven’t already. Once the pistol start stacking and calyxes start growing, clones are a lot harder. They root slower and your success rate will fall off. Even if you’re the master cloner.
And while you’re taking clones don’t forget to clean up the bottoms of your plants. All those lower branches just suck energy from your buds. And trap moisture around your plants by restricting airflow. These are good places for bugs to climb up and spores from the soil to get a leaf.
Also, I think these lower branches that are trying to reach up to survive do better for taking clones. They seem to root easier and faster than taking tops in my humble opinion. The tops seem to be more traumatized when removed from the plant. The bottoms mess branches (in my opinion) are used to growing in a shit spot so they can take the abuse of cutting it off better. I know it has something with hormones and tops versus bottoms technically.
I like to clean up about the lower 12 inches or so. Strip everything but the woody stem.
Sorry to switch topics here, it’s also a good time to make sure your breeder males do not donate any pollen prematurely. I do not like to fire my inside lights until it’s later in the fall. I keep these guys cut off under street light so they don’t donate any pollen Give them a good castrate. These are my keeper males for this year.
I chopped them off pretty much at the first note. They look like they’re gonna die but they never do. I also pull them out of their tiny little starter pots. And cut half the roots off with scissors. And then re-pack with fresh soil. I’ve kept males alive for years this way. It keeps them tiny small and they don’t take up any space in the summer garden or garage in the winter. Perpetually keeping them bonsai and chopped off in pots. Until I’m ready for their pollen donation to my breeding projects.
Here are my summer grow outs of last winters breeding projects. They don’t get to go into the raised beds next year until they prove it in a pot first. One must be ruthless on the selection to improve your stock.
I’m going to have to go back and read it a couple more times to soak it all in lol.