Wait-time between taking cuttings for clones?

Hey all!

I apologize in advance for not having pictures at hand to post. I know it's always easier to understand what's going on with the pics, I'll post some when I get home tonight.

I've got a single AK-47 mother grown from seed under 24 hour lighting with two small fans on her. The lighting is 4 x 54 watt t8 fluorescent (2 @ 5000k & 2 @ 6500k), and 2 23 watt CFLs in a y-splitter in an aluminum parabolic pendant reflector aimed right at mama.

Being the naive newbie that I am, I wasted my precious seeds learning how to grow plants from seed, of the 16 seeds I bought, only 1 survived, but somehow, the gods smiled on me, and it's most certainly a female! She's been growing since early-mid june (I'm not precisely certain of the date). So she's about two months old, maybe 10 weeks. She's about 18" tall, her stalk at the base is about 1/2", and I've got her in a 1 gallon pot with FFOF. This strikes me as a bit short for her age, even given the AK-47's propensity to be short and shrubby, but I'm not too worried about it. Haven't really been fertilizing her much as she has looked super green and healthy; I believe that twice I used a 1/4 strength solution of some organic fish-fertilizer that I am using on all my plants (I'm growing hot peppers, and some herbs as well).

My plan is to keep mama in vegetative growth for as long as possible, and simply take clones from her, some to flower, and some to turn into more mothers. I'm not going to even take on flowering until I feel super comfortable with cloning, and raising clones to be new mothers.

My question is this: how long should I wait between taking cuttings from mama? I took 3 cuttings on 8/4 (1 has survived... it's a learning process!), and another 2 on 8/12 (they both look good, made some adjustments). She's looking a bit droopy to me right now, and I'm wondering how much I stressed her by taking these 5 cuttings, and whether I should have waited longer between taking the two "batches" of cuttings. Clearly common sense suggests that what I need to do now is simply stop taking any further cuttings until the lady looks nice and robustly healthy again, but I'm wondering if anybody has any suggestions on general rules of thumb regarding how long to wait between taking cuttings for clones. Thanks in advance, all!

Depends alot on how many you take off her in 1 round.

After approximately 10ish weeks you could probably take 10-20 cuts in 1 round but then you would have to veg her for new growth to be viable to clone again approximately 1-4weeks.

Most people that have a mother for personal grows may only take a few cuts a week/month and it shouldn't matter when you take them as there are always viable cuts left on the plant.


Your mother would thank you for a 3 or 5gallon pot.



J

Thanks for the advice jondamon! Was def planning on xfer-ing her to a bigger pot this wknd in fact. You've totally answered my query, and more, but being the curious bugger that I am, I now have more questions!

Based on what you've said, it seems that your opinion is that the only limiting factor in how frequently you take cuttings is how much growth there is to cut off. Am I correct in that interpretation? If so, two questions, if not, please correct me! (forgive my question-askyness or any aggressiveness in my tone, my wife always says she feels like I'm challenging her, any such connotation is entirely unintentional, I'm a scientist and I've always learned best by asking lots of questions)

(1) What would be the sort of theoretical limit to how much you could cut off of a mother without doing irreparable damage? For example, could one simply leave fan leaves and say one node on each shoot for new growth, and take everything else? (purely a theoretical question, I've no intention of doing so)

(2) Do you think there'd be any difference in terms of mama's stress response to (a) taking 10 cuttings at once or (b) 2 cuttings every 3-4 days?

Thanks again!

1. I personally only clone new growth with around 3 nodes, Some foliage is needed to help her heal, There will always be parts of the plant that are pretty much un-cloneable because you have taken a cut already, try to think of the new growth which comes from a node as clone material, too thick a branch and cloning success drops, You dont really want your mother to be completely bare as it will stress her out. Remember that for every 1 cut you take 2 more replace it.

2.
a....10 cuts at once would be an instant stress response needing at least 7days before growth resumed to normal rates,

b....2 cuts every 3-4 days would be a small stress response but prolonged over a long period.


My tools for cloning.
Rockwool 1x1 cubes
Seedling/cutting nutrient CANNASTART etc
Clonex rooting hormone
Scalpel
latex gloves
IPA or Rubbing alcohol for cleaning scalpel after every cut




J