Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower's Bible

three 600-watt HP sodiums. If the halide is turned off, fluorescent and compact fluorescent lamps are more economical and work well to root clones.
    Combine eight-week flowering/harvest cycles with continuous cloning to form a perpetual harvest. One easy-to-implement scenario is to take two clones every four days, and harvest one ripe female every other day. Every time a plant is harvested, one or two rooted clones are moved from a constantly supplied vegetative room into the flowering room. This regimen gives a grower 30 flowering clones that are on a 91-day schedule. It takes 91 days from the time a clone is cut from the mother plant until the day it is harvested. Using this schedule, a grower would have 30 clones, 10 vegetative plants, and 30 flowering plants growing at all times. See chart next page.

Swiss retailers sold clones over-the-counter until the law changed in 2001. Now, Swiss growers have gone underground.

Clone production room in the basement of a Swiss retail store.

    Induce clones to flower when they are four to twelve inches tall to make most efficient use of HID light. Artificial light diminishes to the square of the distance, which means that foliage four feet away from the bulb receives one fourteenth as much light as if it were one foot away! Foliage that is shaded or receives less light grows slowly and looks spindly.
    Short crops of clones in small containers are much easier to move and maintain than big plants in big containers. Short clones are also easy and efficient to grow in greenhouses and outdoors.
    Well-illuminated, strong clones grow fast and have less chance of being affected by pests and diseases. Fast-growing clones develop more quickly than spider mites can reproduce. By the time a spider mite infestation is noticed and sprayed, the plants are a few weeks from harvest. Clones are also easy to submerge in a miticide when small.
    Experiments with clones are consistent and easy to control. Genetically identical clones respond the same to different stimuli, such as fertilizer, light, bending, etc. After experimenting on several crops of clones from the same mother, a grower has a very good idea what it takes to make them grow well.

A sea of clones share all genetic characteristics. They will all grow up to look like their mothers.
     
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    Two ‘Queen Mother’ plants will soon bear many, many clones.

Mother Plants
    Any plant can be cloned, regardless of age or growth stage. Take clones from mother plants that are at least two months old. Plants cloned before they are two months old may develop unevenly and grow slowly. Clones taken from flowering plants root quickly but require a month or longer to revert back to vegetative growth. Such rejuvenated clones occasionally flower prematurely, and buds are more prone to pest and disease attacks.
    Any female can become a mother. She can be grown from seed or be a clone of a clone. I interviewed several growers who made clones of clones more than 20 times! Thatis, clones (C-1) were taken from the original female grown from seed. These clones were grown in the vegetative stage, and clones (C-2) were taken from the first clones (C-1). Blooming was induced in (C-1) two weeks later and (C-2), grown in the vegetative stage. Then, clones (C-3) were taken from the second clones (C-2). This same growing technique is still going on with clones of clones well past (C-20) and there has been no apparent breakdown in the potency or the vigor of the clone. However, if mothers suffer stress, they produce weak clones. Mothers that are forced to flower and revert back to vegetative growth not only yield less, they are stressed and confused. Clones that grow poorly are generally the result of poor, unsanitary cloning practices.
    A clone is an exact genetic replica of the mother plant. Each mother’s cell carries a DNA blueprint of itself. Radiation, chemicals, and poor cultural practices can damage this DNA. Unless damaged, the DNA remains intact.
    A female plant will reproduce 100 percent females, all exactly like the mother. When grown in the exact same environment, clones from the same mother look alike. But the same clones subjected to distinct environments in different grow rooms will often look different.
    A six-month old plant produces more cannabinoids than a one-month old plant. By cloning, a horticulturist is planting a THC-potent plant that will continue to grow in potency at a very rapid rate. A month-old rooted clone acts