Most efficient way to start cloning from seed of unknown sex?

Hey everyone,

I will be starting some seeds from a few different strains with the intention of picking one or two to become clone donating mothers.

My specific question is what the quickest method to identify the sex and begin cloning?
Should I keep the prospective mothers in Veg and take and label a few clones from each and throw the clones on 12/12 and then discard?

Yes.......

Thank you

Or you can veg to maturity and then take clones and Flower the Mom.
Then you have a group of mature plants to train and flower for heavier yields.

I flipped my whole veg to 12/12, as soon as sex showed I killed the males and flipped the veg back to 18/6, I experienced no problems doing this. This was before I learned to clone.

Bless,
DZ

I'm not going to have space for the Mom's...in fact I will be forced to kill them
If I did put the mom's into 12/12 and as soon as they sexed, take clones. Would it be possible to take clones, get them rooted and then grow all under 12/12?
Or would they essentially be in pre-flower while trying to root and would that fuck em up?

You could grow 12/12 from seed, identify females, put them back into veg and take clones.

I take clones first, begin to flower the original mothers, then after the mothers sex, toss the males, continue flowering the females, discard the male clones in the cloner (as they were clearly labelled), then create new moms with the remaining female clones.

It's the quickest way I've found to go from unknown seed to having bud, while at the same time creating a well-rooted mom/veg/clone system.

-spek

Thanks Spek. I should have been more descriptive in my original question.

I'm looking to get 8 clones from each of two different mothers. I need the clones to be the same age. The donating mothers will be discarded.
The clones will enter 12/12 as soon as they are rooted *unless* it is possible to take them from mom that has just entered pre-flowering, attempt to get roots and then repot all while being in 12/12.
Quickest way to do this?

What if I veg long enough to have been able to top twice. Switch to 12/12 and take cuttings as soon as they allow it and hopefully before preflowers. Keep clones on 12/12 and hopefully they will have rooted as they enter pre-flower and then discard males? It's important that whatever stretch is going to happen is not compromised as it would render my experiment worthless.

Well, if I understand you correctly, I'd put the moms in flower immediately. It'll take 5-15 days to sex, at which time it should be big enough to pull 8 clones from.

You can discard the males at this time, put the clones back into veg (or let them flower out), and you have that same option with moms as well. It'll take a bit of time to get them back to re-veg state, but the sooner you can sex them, the better.

Also, this saves you a lot of time labelling. You'd be cloning directly from a plant that you already know is female.

-spek

Good point. Okay, thanks guys.

If you have the space, I would recommend growing the seeds in veg (not 12/12) until the plants start revealing sex. I don't recommend inducing flowering, cutting clones from the flowering plant, and then putting the clones back into veg because it can mess with plant hormones. Some strains might go hermie from the stress. Also, your mother plant in veg will mature faster sexually than your clones in flower.

Here's another option. My current strains were selected from 20 random bag seeds. I grew the seedlings until they were large enough to cut clones. Then, I cut two clones, from each, labeled everything, and immediately put the mothers/fathers into flower while keeping the clones under veg lighting. As sex of the flowering plants is revealed, you can chuck all the mothers, fathers and sons. What's left is the all of the daughter clones, still in veg and stress free.

ya take your clones, root them, pot them then flower everything.. then toss everything that is male and continue flowering everything that is female.

Mother Nature has made this an easy answer. A plant grown from seed should be 5+ weeks old before she can give up viable clones. Also, plants that are switched over to 12/12 to flower can still give up good clones for the first week at 12/12. By 6-7 weeks you should see sex before you take clones.

Good luck, BigSteve.