How late into bloom can I take cuts and be successful?

[Homegrow3r]

I have a sick plant, it's about 8 weeks old in total now, but three of those are bloom weeks, so it's got some nice but small sickly buds on it, the question I have is as the title suggests. I want to know if it's worth trying to get some of this back as cuttings or will I have problems at this late stage of taking them?
If I take cuts, should I trim bits of bud off? I'd be thinking that it'll hermie this late on, if anyone knows different please enlighten me.

Thanks.
HG

 

[VandyMan]

Yes take clones now as soon as possible....take them from underneath the canopy, pretty much as low as possible...what is wrong with your plant? Apparently there are interesting techniques you can perform when doing this....once a plant roots...I believe it can be revegged, but Im not sure how well this performs as a mother. Try it and let us know...after you reveg you can flower again and expect good results...I read a link today, but have since forgot it...

 

[KUSHEATER1]

why are your buds sickly looking more info pls pics

 

[orion6324]

yes ive taken clones 2 and 3 weeks in flower before and been just fine. Keep em under 24/0 till they get big and then clone again,they will come out of flower after a while

 

[olddrifter66]

I have one now taken at 8 weeks....It rooted within a week and is now in soil. I'll see how well it does.

Belladonna...taken same day as harvest.

 

[panopticist]

yes ive taken clones 2 and 3 weeks in flower before and been just fine. Keep em under 24/0 till they get big and then clone again,they will come out of flower after a while

Seconded...

I've also taken cuts three weeks into flower with no problem whatsoever.

 

[jdubz206]

i take them up to 5 weeks (8 week strain) without issue. i actually kind of prefer doing this if i'm want to use the cuts as moms. when they reveg, the spot where the bud used to be turns into tons of shoots. i have a space queen that looks like it was fimmed and lst'd but it grew super bushy with 8-10 main shoots just from being a clone with partial bud on it.

 

[Homegrow3r]

As far as I can tell the plant has a pH problem, looks very scrawny and sickly with leaves turning and burnt.
Explanation is in this thread http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=95932

It doesn't look worth keeping in the flower room cos it just looks so bad, I can take pics of that one directly, but the soil seems to be very bad, when I flushed it last night the soil didn't seem to want to take on moisture at all and was floating in dried lumps to the top of the pot, I had to get in there with my fingers and work the water into it. Seemed like the soil was just very poor quality and made up mostly of woodchip and I think very acidic, maybe I should have done a soil test first, but you live and learn ey.

 

[sunnydog]

The problem you will have is the mother being sickly.
I have taken clones up to and including harvest day,
You would probably do better to save the mom.

 

[Homegrow3r]

No the mother from the clones I'm running now is already long gone. My brother was running a grow and I took his trim one day when he was thinning and cloned them cuts, that's the clones I have running.
The sick plant is a big bang that I started myself from seed, this is the one I'm thinking of saving as cuts, not sure if it's worth it though when I have an Afghan Kush at the moment that I've just cracked to make a mother from.
I just want to be ready in 4-5 weeks when this run is over to stick some pre-vegged clones in straight into flower.

 

[Pig-Pen]

No problem taking cuts pretty much any time, as has been indicated.

However if the donor plant is that sickly, success rates dwindle fast.

Unless it's a particularly special plant that you can't bear to lose, I'd just let it go and start with something fresh.

 

[Homegrow3r]

Well it's more a time scale problem. When this grow is finished I don't see my Afghan being ready to take clones off of as the lamp I have in the propogator/mother room is only a 110W and I'd need to be rooting cuts in two weeks time, the plant won't be fit size to do that to in 2 weeks as it's only a seedling now, I see the Afghan being ready for the grow after next and the well vegged plant could be a donor at this point already( if it wasn't so sick).
I'll see how the plant comes back from the flush and take it from there, now that I know it's never too late to clone off of....

 

[Pig-Pen]

Well it's more a time scale problem. When this grow is finished I don't see my Afghan being ready to take clones off of as the lamp I have in the propogator/mother room is only a 110W and I'd need to be rooting cuts in two weeks time, the plant won't be fit size to do that to in 2 weeks as it's only a seedling now, I see the Afghan being ready for the grow after next and the well vegged plant could be a donor at this point already( if it wasn't so sick).
I'll see how the plant comes back from the flush and take it from there, now that I know it's never too late to clone off of....

IME it's not very likely you could root cuttings from a sickly donor halfway through flowering, get them back to health (hopefully) AND get them completely reverted and veg'd enough to go back into flowering in less then a month. It usually takes at least a month for the whole process when working with perfectly healthy plants.

Figure ~2-3 weeks for them to finally be solidly rooted. They will then have to focus their energy into recovery as they pick up where they loft off (sickly). Could be a couple more weeks easily. IF they make it this far, it's usually a couple more weeks till they start to show signs of reverting.

So best case scenario, based on my experience (I've taken lots of cutting from flowering plants in various stages of flower and health over the years), you're looking at a solid 6 weeks before you have those cutting ready to go back into flower. I've had some that after 2 months seemed to be in total stasis. I lose patience and toss 'em after that long.

I know it's drag to have a gap in the cycle, but you would be best off focusing on the healthy one in the wing, IMO. Talk to it and encourage it to grow fast, strong and healthy. Literally.

It's worth a shot, I suppose. I'm not trying to discourage you from it so much as to make sure you don't put too much expectation and hope into it and then be sorely disappointed when it's all said and done and possibly neglect your healthy line at the same time.

 

[rightwingblazer]

the prob. with taking them so late is diminishing genetics. the strain could become weaker. but if you have no choice, what can you do? try starting a mother program before flowering next time .(insurance policy)

 

[Homegrow3r]

OK here's the issue, I have a sick plant that I want to try to save some of at least as cuts, not that I want this one to be a mother at all, I don't want a mother from the sick one, just cuts to salvage some well advanced vegging from, otherwise I'm starting with my Afghan in a good while longer.
I have the Afghan coming on as a mother, my thoughts were just that rather than killing a plant which I no longer really wish to grow out cos of the poor yield it'll have from recovering, I thought I'd chop it up and start my next run with it while waiting on Afghan to come on.

Here's some pics to illustrate.

Nice great white shark cuttings that are coming on nicely and will do what they need to do.







Then at the back I have this sad lot, one is really bad and needs a lot of TLC to come back, this is the one I want to kill for cuts, one other is half as bad and the other two are not too bad at all, they've just come out from under a screen as I needed to fix them up a bit.

 

[Quazi]

the prob. with taking them so late is diminishing genetics. the strain could become weaker. but if you have no choice, what can you do? try starting a mother program before flowering next time .(insurance policy)

This is completely incorrect.

Diminishing genetics, to use your terminology, only occurs when you are talking about breeding the plant and creating seeds; specifically inbreeding.

Cloning does not affect genetics as a clone is an exact genetic replica.

-Q

 

[sunnydog]

OK here's the issue, I have a sick plant that I want to try to save some of at least as cuts, not that I want this one to be a mother at all, I don't want a mother from the sick one, just cuts to salvage some well advanced vegging from, otherwise I'm starting with my Afghan in a good while longer.
I have the Afghan coming on as a mother, my thoughts were just that rather than killing a plant which I no longer really wish to grow out cos of the poor yield it'll have from recovering, I thought I'd chop it up and start my next run with it while waiting on Afghan to come on.

Here's some pics to illustrate.

Nice great white shark cuttings that are coming on nicely and will do what they need to do.







Then at the back I have this sad lot, one is really bad and needs a lot of TLC to come back, this is the one I want to kill for cuts, one other is half as bad and the other two are not too bad at all, they've just come out from under a screen as I needed to fix them up a bit.

What you are NOT UNDERSTANDING is the plant you wish to "save" by taking cuts is so fucked up the cuts will prolly not live. Try to save the plant(re-pot). I referred to it as a "mother" cause it's the one you want to take cuts from.
It MAY work, but hurts you're chances of success.
Hope I'm not being rude, I'm having a bad day.

 

[smoke1sun]

My last grow I had to take cuts at harvest. Granted i also reveged the plant, but i also too cuts just in case. It took them a very long time to root, but they did root, then the reverted back to veg. It was a long process but it worked and i saved my Motas PK mom. Hope this helps.

 

[Homegrow3r]

What you are NOT UNDERSTANDING is the plant you wish to "save" by taking cuts is so fucked up the cuts will prolly not live. Try to save the plant(re-pot). I referred to it as a "mother" cause it's the one you want to take cuts from.
It MAY work, but hurts you're chances of success.
Hope I'm not being rude, I'm having a bad day.

No you're not being rude, I am asking questions, to get answers, I just felt that too many people reading were taking the tack that I wished to create a mother from the screwed up plant whereas I really just wanted to salvage something from it. I'll see how it goes under the lamps now with the flush and not being under the screen and take it from there, if it comes back I'll use it for cuts, if not then maybe I'll just take cuts from one of the more healthy samples to start the next run.
Thanks for looking and commenting.

Maybe I'll just bubble the really sick ones if they don't come back.

 

[Quazi]

Homegrow3r,

If you have parts of the plant that look healthy enough for taking clones, then, by all means, go for it!

You can take clones from the plant as long as it has some growth on it. However, it is known to take a bit longer for rooting when you take from a flowering plant. This does not necessarily mean the success rate would be any worse.

There's nothing wrong with trying to take the cuts to salvage the plant. Even if most of the plant looks sick, there's still chances to get excellent clones. Either they will work, or they won't. But if they do: you'll be very thankful you decided to take chance.

-Q